hope that Matthew can forgive him for whatever it was and see how good we are together.’
My sister gasps in a high-pitched tone.
‘Sorry, I’m just really happy for you,’ she says, getting emotional now, too. ‘I can’t believe you just bumped into him like that. Like, five long years later, too. Kevin, did you know that she has waited five years to find this man? Even the hunks Down Under couldn’t change her mind and believe me, I tried to distract her from him. But look, she was right. It’s fate!’
I wait as my sister and her husband update each other on what Kevin knows and doesn’t know about my five years of pining for Tom.
‘So, anyhow, I just thought I’d check in so that you knew I was alive,’ I say quickly, trying to divert the subject, ‘and to apologize again for abandoning ship last night. I hope Kirsty isn’t too mad.’
I say that with the ultimate tongue in cheek as we both know that Kirsty, as long as she has a man stuck to her face, couldn’t care less if any of us disappeared to Outer Mongolia.
‘She’s worried sick about you.’
‘I’m sure she is,’ I laugh.
Tom comes back to our seat and I feel slightly nervous. Not nervous to be with him in the slightest, but nervous that my sister will let me down by declaring my forever love to him not knowing he is beside me again and he might overhear her.
‘Last I heard from Kirsty, she was planning her wedding. Yes, another one,’ says Emily, while Kevin continues to commentate in the background. ‘I mean seriously, I don’t know how she does it. I’m still de-stressing from my wedding a year later, never mind contemplating another. She’s like, what do you call her? What’s the name of the actress with all the husbands?’
Tom can definitely hear her now. We glance at each other. He catches my eye and smiles.
‘What’s the name of the famous actress who was married eight times?’ I ask him, not wanting him to feel left out.
‘Liz Taylor,’ he whispers.
‘Liz Taylor, yes! Kirsty would make Liz Taylor look like a spinster at this rate,’ I joke to my sister. ‘Look, I’d better go but you two enjoy the rest of your day and I’ll see you soon.’
But Emily doesn’t seem to want to go. She’s totally caught up in all things to do with me and Tom, it seems, and wants to hear more.
‘Is he there right now? Beside you?’ Emily says just as I’m about to hang up. ‘You know, our mother fancied him more than any of us when he was in the band with Matthew. She totally had the hots for him and said if only she was twenty-five years younger!’
I take that as my cue to go and we swiftly say our goodbyes, then I lean back on the booth and drop my phone beside me.
I can’t believe she said that my mother fancied Tom but, let’s face it, he probably has women of all ages swooning after him all the time. He’s the type of man that older women float towards in a giddy mix of maternal instinct and physical attraction.
‘So, your friend, is it Kirsty? She’s been married more than once or was that just a joke?’ he asks, out of the blue, and I’m a bit taken aback at his interest in the brief mention of Kirsty’s exotic love life.
‘Yes, Kirsty is a real romantic who would consider marrying Mickey Mouse if he asked her to, why?’ I ask, taking a gulp of my drink.
‘Just asking,’ he says to me. ‘Funny old thing, marriage. I’m just curious.’
OK, then, since he’s just curious …
‘Well, her first marriage was when she was twenty-four to a Turkish lad called Demir who she met on holiday,’ I tell him. ‘They’d known each other two weeks when he proposed.’
‘Sweet.’
I smile at his sincerity.
‘That’s one word for it, I suppose,’ I explain, ‘but as soon as he got his visa just over a year later, she was history.’
His face changes. ‘Ah, not so sweet then. Poor Kirsty.’
That’s what we said at the time, but we needn’t have worried.
‘Second of all was James, a forty-seven-year-old divorcé she met online who only wanted someone to look after his children so he could work around the clock,’ I say, and Tom’s eyes widen. ‘So this time she jumped ship after two years, realizing that being Fräulein Maria was not her destiny, after all. She’s twenty-nine now and still hasn’t given up on her happily ever after.’
Tom sits back and raises an eyebrow. I can’t tell if he’s impressed or just intrigued that someone in this day and age could be so gullible.
‘I guess we all make foolish mistakes when we’re young and think we’re in love,’ he says, a tinge of regret in his voice. He looks like his mind has drifted again for a second. ‘Do you fall in love easily, Charlie?’
‘What?’
‘You heard me.’ He squeezes my hand and my heart flutters.
I hold his gaze as I wonder how to reply. If only he knew how I’d longed for him after only minutes in his company five years ago. How I’d spent hours of my life pouring my thoughts into love song after love song and how every single man I’ve met since him failed to give me the intense feeling in the pit of my stomach like he did. I’d thought that maybe I’d imagined him to be something he wasn’t, that I’d dreamed him up in my head, yet here we are having the most relaxed, perfect time together and it tells me that I was right all along.
‘I don’t think I’ve ever been in love before,’ I say to him, wanting to hold back from spilling my whole heart out to him so soon. ‘I’m a bit of a cynic, maybe. My mother always said I should lower my expectations instead of dreaming of Mr Perfect For Me.’
He laughs now with a tiny hint of embarrassment at the mention of my mother.
‘So, you’ve never been in love,’ he says. ‘Ah, come on.’
If only he knew.
‘Same question back to you,’ I say to him, feeling brave but unsure if I want to know the ins and outs of his love life. I already know that it’s been, let’s say, very busy.
He takes a sip of his frothy pint of Guinness and then leans forward and clasps his hands.
‘I’ve certainly thought I was in love before,’ he says, not afraid to look me in the eye as he does so. ‘Many, many times I thought, wow, this must be it, but then it would wear off and I’d wonder if that’s how it should be. I’ve been searching and hoping for something deeper, you know? Something real that lasts and that doesn’t give up when the novelty and lust drug wears off, but to be honest, I’m still wondering if I really know what it’s all about at all. What even is love?’
We both take a deep breath and sit in silent contemplation. I feel tears prick my eyes when I think of the words I put into songs about him, yet I didn’t even know him at all back then. Is that love? Or how I dreamed of this moment when
