Page 54 of Our Song

‘I had nothing to do with ‘Winter Without You’!’ I say. ‘You wrote it after we’d stopped speaking to each other.’

‘But it’s about you!’ says Tadhg.

The world spins around me for a moment. Did I just hear him correctly? I can’t have. This makes no sense.

‘ What? ’

‘It was my apology to you,’ he says. ‘For making a mess of things that night in Rosie’s flat. It was me saying how much I missed you.’ I think I must appear worryingly shellshocked because he looks concerned as he says, ‘Hang on, did you never realise?’

It’s like finding out his real name is Tim all over again. But this is bigger – much, much bigger.

‘But it’s a love song,’ I say stupidly. ‘Like, a romantic love song. Isn’t it?’

‘Yes!’ says Tadhg.

‘But you weren’t in love with me,’ I say.

‘Of course I was!’ he says. ‘And then I got over you. And now I’ve fallen in love with you again.’

‘You have?’ I say.

‘Yes!’ says Tadhg.

‘Oh,’ I say. ‘Same here.’

We look at each other for a second that feels like an eternity, our eyes full of stars.

But this can’t be right. It just can’t. None of it makes sense. I need to bring myself back to earth. I need him to explain.

‘I don’t understand,’ I say. ‘That night in Rosie’s flat, you stopped because you knew I liked you and you didn’t want to mess me around. And you and Jess were back together—’

‘But we weren’t!’ he says. ‘Oh God, it was a mess. Me and Jess were both pissed at Simon’s party the night before, and when I was leaving we were with each other – which was obviously really, really stupid of me but, you know, it happened.

It was a drunken kiss. That was all. And then the next day, just before you came over to Rosie’s place, Jess texted me and …

well, she obviously thought the kiss meant more than it did.

I felt totally shit about it, and I told myself I’d have that awkward conversation with her later.

But before I could have it, you arrived and then you and me happened. Or started happening.’

‘Until you stopped it,’ I say.

‘I know I handled it really badly,’ he says.

‘I just didn’t think being with you was fair to Jess if she thought we were a couple again.

And I didn’t think it was fair to you to go any further before I talked to Jess and cleared things up.

If you and me were going to be together, I wanted it to be perfect .

I didn’t want any baggage hanging over it.

And I thought you wouldn’t want anything with me if you knew I had, I dunno, unfinished business with Jess. ’

‘With all due respect to Jess,’ I say, ‘I would not have given a shit.’

But now I see what he meant that night when he said he was trying to be a gentleman.

The words that have been burned into my brain for sixteen years now take on a new meaning.

He wanted a clean conscience about Jess.

He wanted to be with me without making me an accessory to cheating.

Which wasn’t even real cheating, because he and Jess weren’t actually together.

Oh, Tadhg. Why didn’t you explain yourself properly?

But then I remember I didn’t exactly let him.

‘What I said about your music that night,’ I say, ‘I felt awful the minute I said it. I’m so sorry. I was embarrassed and angry and I turned on you. But I didn’t mean it. And it wasn’t true. It was never true.’

‘It was kind of true,’ says Tadhg. ‘That’s why it got to me.’

‘No it wasn’t,’ I say, and I mean it. ‘Your music’s always been great.’

‘But you always made it better,’ he says.

It’s all too much to take in. He loved me then. It wasn’t in my head. It still isn’t.

‘That night when you said you knew I had feelings for you,’ I say. ‘How long had you known? Did you always know?’

‘No!’ says Tadhg. ‘I mean, I always hoped you liked me. I kept thinking there was something between us. But I was never sure. Every time I tried to change the mood, you’d say something that made me think we were just friends.

Whenever I suggested we stay out late somewhere, you made an excuse to go home.

Or you’d, like, tell me to go out with Jess. Do you remember?’

‘I remember,’ I say. ‘But I …’ And then I think about it. All the times I insisted on calling it a night. All the times I made such an effort to assure him I didn’t have any designs on him. It never, ever crossed my mind I could have been too successful. ‘Why didn’t you ever say anything?’

‘Why didn’t you ?’ he says. ‘I didn’t want to make a move unless I knew you felt the same way. It would have messed up our friendship – it would have destroyed the band …’

I can’t believe it. I had always thought that if Tadhg liked me, he would just assume, correctly, that I would like him back. I thought that was how really hot people operated. I had taken for granted that he’d take me for granted.

‘Anyway,’ he says, ‘I couldn’t risk it. I couldn’t risk fucking things up between us.

I couldn’t risk losing you altogether. And I liked Jess, that was real, but fuck, Laura, I always liked you more.

I just didn’t think you liked me the same way.

And then you got back together with Fiachra and that seemed to prove it. ’

‘But I didn’t get back with him!’ I say. ‘Not really. It was a friends-with-benefits thing. To distract me from you and Jess.’

‘ Seriously? ’ says Tadhg. I nod. He shakes his head in disbelief.

‘Well, it distracted me . Or at least it really got to me. The first time I saw the two of you hanging out as a couple I was so jealous of him. It made me realise me how strongly I still felt about you. And once I acknowledged that, I couldn’t keep going out with Jess. It wasn’t fair to her.’

‘So … so that’s why you broke up?’

‘Yeah,’ says Tadhg. ‘But as far as I knew you were with Fiachra. And I didn’t think you were into me anyway.’

‘In Rosie’s flat you said you knew I liked you!’

‘Only since the Ball,’ says Tadhg. ‘I was with that girl and then I looked up and saw your face, and then you ran out and suddenly I knew. At least I was pretty sure I knew. I hoped I knew.’

‘You told me you’d known for a while!’ I say. ‘The Ball was, like, a month earlier at most.’

‘That’s a long time when you’re twenty-one!’ says Tadhg. ‘And then you basically disappeared off the face of the earth. You wouldn’t even return my calls!’

‘I was avoiding you because seeing you with other girls hurt too much,’ I say. ‘And then that night in Rosie’s I thought you realised crossing the sex line was a huge mistake because you didn’t actually fancy me.’

‘Didn’t fancy you?’ says Tadhg, his voice incredulous.

He’s looking straight at me now, his eyes blazing.

‘That night when you were on that table I remember thinking, Jesus, I’m going to make Laura come , and it’s still one of the hottest moments of my entire fucking life.

I’m just sorry I stopped before I actually did it. ’

I meet his burning gaze.

‘Well,’ I say. ‘You can always try again.’

He reaches out and pulls me to him.

I didn’t realise I remembered the taste of his mouth until now, because he tastes the same, and he tastes so right.

I bring my hands to the sandpaper roughness of his jaw just as his arms go round my waist, drawing me to him, pressing me against him.

I want him, I want him so fucking much, it seems impossible he could want me as much as I want him, but it’s not impossible, it’s definitely not impossible, because his want is gloriously evident in the intensity of his kisses, in the urgency of his hands.

Eventually we pull away from each other and meet each other’s eyes, our breathing heavy.

But I can’t stop smiling and neither can he.

‘Do you want to go upstairs?’ he says. ‘We haven’t had the best luck in kitchens.’

‘Oh my God, yes,’ I say. ‘ Yes .’

He takes my hand and we’re almost running as he leads me out of the kitchen and up the stairs and into my room where, laughing with happiness, we tumble onto the bed.

‘Now,’ he says, ‘I’m finally going to finish what I started.’

And he does.

I should have known he’d be good with his tongue as well.

Later, we lie in my bed, his arm around me, my head on his chest.

‘That,’ says Tadhg, ‘was worth waiting for.’

‘It really, really was,’ I say. I’m so blissfully exhausted I feel dizzy. I might not be able to walk for a while.

‘You’re worth waiting for,’ says Tadhg.

I look up at him, his beautiful profile, and he turns his head to look down at me with such tenderness that I draw in a quick breath.

It could feel weird, being in bed with him like this.

I could feel very self-conscious. No one but Dave has seen me naked for a decade.

It could feel weird seeing Tadhg like this, resting on his bare chest (pretty hairy, unsurprisingly).

But somehow it doesn’t feel awkward at all.

There’s a radiant clarity to all of it, a lack of mess, a lack of complication.

The way he looked at me when he took my clothes off was such a pure combination of desire and love and awe, my own feelings reflected back to me in his eyes.

I want him to look at me like that every day for the rest of my life.

‘You’re worth waiting for too,’ I say.

‘This is serious,’ he says. ‘Isn’t it? You and me?’

‘It’s serious,’ I say. ‘But it’s fun, too.’

He laughs and pulls me closer to him. ‘Very, very fun.’

‘I love you, you know,’ I say. A part of me, the part of me that used to tell myself to leave early, the part of me that couldn’t bear to be vulnerable in front of Tadhg, can’t believe I’m saying this.

But I’m not going to listen to that part of me anymore.

‘I tried not to fall in love with you again, but I couldn’t help it. ’

‘And for that,’ says Tadhg, rolling to his side and kissing me, ‘I am very, very grateful. I love you so much, Lol. I think I’ve loved you since the moment I met you. I’m just glad I can finally tell you.’

‘I’m glad,’ I say, ‘that I can finally show you.’

And I do.

It seems miraculous to both of us that we’re actually doing this, that we can actually do this, that finally, after all these years, after all that yearning, all that longing, it’s finally this easy.

It’s almost too good to be true. As I wrap my legs around his waist I say, ‘This is real, isn’t it? ’

He laughs and kisses me, a slow, deep kiss, and says, ‘God, I hope so.’

‘Good,’ I say. ‘Because I— oh! Oh .’

We stay in my bed for hours, sometimes just talking, sometimes laughing. And always, at last, being honest.

‘We’ve wasted so much time,’ I say, nestling into his embrace and closing my eyes. ‘We could have been doing this for the last sixteen years.’

‘We can’t look at it that way,’ says Tadhg. ‘We were so young. We might have messed everything up in another way. Maybe it’s right that we’re finally together when we’re old enough to make it work.’

‘So we should be grateful to Fiachra, then? For accidentally keeping us apart?’

‘Bloody Fiachra,’ says Tadhg. ‘I still turn the radio off whenever he comes on.’

‘Ha! You’re not a fan of the nation’s favourite psychologist?’

‘Someone gave me his book for Christmas a few years ago,’ says Tadhg. ‘They said he changed their life. I didn’t tell them he’d changed mine too.’

‘He meant well,’ I say. ‘He was a good guy. And seeing as I’d convinced him you didn’t fancy me, he gave me pretty sensible advice.’

‘True,’ says Tadhg. ‘I’ll leave the radio on next time.’

‘The last time I heard him on Liveline ,’ I say, ‘he was talking about the importance of radical honesty.’

Neither of us says anything for a second, and then we both start laughing. When my mirth subsides I say, ‘Speaking of radical honesty, if we hadn’t had that discussion this morning, were you planning to tell me how you felt?’

‘And risk losing you all over again?’ says Tadhg, kissing the top of my head.

‘No, not yet anyway. It would have felt wrong telling you so soon. And also unethical. I mean, I’d just asked you to work with me.

I could hardly say “Oh, by the way, I’m falling in love with you’ a week after you started. ”’

‘Fair,’ I say.

‘And speaking of the work thing …’ he says.

‘If doing these songwriting sessions feels weird, if you feel it fucks up the power dynamic between us, then we’ll stop right now.

Don’t feel obliged to keep working with me.

You’re meant to make music. You know it and I know it.

But you should do it however and with whoever you want. On your terms.’

‘I know,’ I say. ‘And I will. I want to write songs for lots of people. But I want to make music with you too.’ I kiss him. ‘Always.’

And then we stop talking for a while.

Later, when I’m lying on my side, Tadhg spooning me, his arm around my waist, his forearm pressed against my breasts, I realise there’s one thing we haven’t discussed.

One thing I need to make sure he understands.

One thing I need to know for sure. I take his hand in mine and gently kiss his knuckles. Then I say, ‘Tadhg?’

‘Hmmm?’

‘I have to tell you something,’ I say.

‘Okay,’ says Tadhg.

I turn around to face him.

‘You must know,’ I say, ‘that there is never going to be a miracle baby. I’m not going to put myself through any sort of fertility treatment, or an adoption process. That’s just not the right thing for me. This is it. If you want me, that’s all you get. Just me.’

‘Lol.’ Tadhg looks genuinely baffled. ‘Why on earth would I want anything else when I have you?’

I once vowed I’d never cry in front of him. But I don’t care about that anymore.

And these are happy tears, so they wouldn’t count anyway.

Eventually hunger drives us out of bed. We reluctantly get dressed and go down to the kitchen, where I make toast and Tadhg puts the kettle on.

‘You know,’ he says, taking the mugs out of the press above the counter, ‘if we can force ourselves to stay out of bed long enough to actually play some music today, we could always give our song another try.’

‘Ah,’ I say. ‘Well, it’s funny you should mention that …’