Page 190 of Oleander

“I bought a ticket for the concert on my phone while I was waiting.”

“Oh, I could have got you one.”

He shrugged. “I don’t mind paying for it.”

It was a brisk night in early November, and Jude’s cheeks and nose were already pink from the chill, his freckles like constellations across both. His eyes sparkled a lush verdant green – it was my favourite colour, the colour of Jude’s eyes. I pulled my scarf up and my coat around my body.

“Are you cold?” he asked. “We can just go in here if you want?”

It was a bar I knew the players sometimes drank in, and I was quite happy walking a bit further to find somewhere we would be alone. I shook my head, and we walked on a little more.

Jude was telling me about a film he’d seen with the same kind of enthusiasm he told me about books. I’d often thought that if Jude could find a job that somehow combined both, he’d be entirely in the perfect profession. For now, he was an English supply teacher at a grammar school in North London. He’d written his book over a few years, and though it had been a critical success, he hadn’t made enough money to give up teaching. Though it didn’t sound like he wanted to: he enjoyed it. I could imagine him being good at it, too.

We found a quiet-looking bar in Clerkenwell, shucked out of our coats, and sat at a table near the back. Jude fetched the drinks, and I watched him go, as oblivious as ever to the looks of both sexes, a fact that only made them more interested in him.

When he sat back down, handing me my beer, he was smiling so wide I thought I’d missed something.

“What?” I asked as I took a sip.

“I just can’t believe you drink beer now. As long as I’ve known you, it’s been something ridiculous: rosé wine, gin and tonic.”

“There’s nothing ridiculous about either of those.”

“I mean, true, I drank anything and everything at Oxford. If it had an alcohol content, I drank it. Some of the hangovers were legendary.” He grimaced.

“The folly of youth.”

He gave me a long, wistful look. “Indeed.”

We spent the night talking about everything and anything, avoiding any topic that would sour the mood. My flat was in Soho, and Oxford Circus was on his line, so he walked me home while explaining to me why Whitechapel was the most glamorous place in London. At the door of my building, westopped. He looked up at it and then around the bustling thoroughfare.

“Do you get much sleep here?”

We were right on the corner of Carnaby Street and Fouberts Place, and it could be loud.

“Not really,” I admitted. I’d taken it for the size of the living room and its proximity to the Barbican.

“We should have gone to mine instead.”

“Aren’t you in Shoreditch?” I frowned.

“Yeah, but I’m in the basement. It’s quieter down there.”

“I had no idea you were so concerned about street noise.” I joked.

“Aren’t you? I think uni traumatised me for life; my first-year dorm looked onto an alley where they’d empty the bottle bins at 3 a.m.” He laughed. “God, this is the worst date-chat ever. Sorry.”

I caught my eyes drifting to his mouth again. I’d been doing it all night. The faint freckle he had, like a beauty mark, just to the left side of his upper lip. I wanted to trace it with my tongue again. It had been so long.

“Do you want to come up?” I asked him.

He nodded, looking a little nervous for the first time. Upstairs, he complimented the size of the living room, into which I’d managed to fit an upright piano, a reading area with bookshelf, lamp and armchair, two large sofas, and a dining table. Somehow, it still felt spacious. The bijou kitchen was tucked behind a set of glass, metal-framed doors at one end.

I left him to use the bathroom while I poured us both a drink; an old fashioned. Somewhat of a signature of mine.

“Fuck, this is good,” he said as he took a second mouthful.

I nodded, watching him now with the same sort of covetous look strangers often did. Everything about him drew me in. How he smelled, the sound of his voice, his laugh, the shape of his mouth. But mostly, it was always this: the way he had of looking at me. As though I was something he needed in order to breathe. Some vital commodity he would die without.