liver out on her date and Dan hadn’t returned my phone calls all day. By evening I resorted to texting him saying I was really worried about work and needed his advice and he eventually texted back and said he’d come over.
You see, Dan’s a careers counsellor: he goes around schools telling sixteen-year-olds they can be whatever they want to be and he takes it all very, very seriously, so I knew if I dangled that little carrot, he’d bite quickly. That he might manage to tear himself away from Matthew for five minutes.
Yes, Matthew.
Sorry to disappoint you—believe me I felt the same when I found out too.
Worse!
Dan, you see, was possibly the love of my life.
Lisa, I’m sure, if she knew about Dan and me, would say that I was comfortable with Dan because he was gay, that because there was no sexual tension I was able to be myself and to relax with him.
Bullshit.
I loved him long before I knew he was gay.
I wasted months, wondering what the hell I was doing wrong.
You just wouldn’t spot it—okay, the fitted shirt, the Pilates and, I guess, the fact that he exfoliates might have been missed clues—but loads of guys look after themselves now.
His friend Michelle was my flatmate at the time—they weren’t going out or anything—and Dan used to come around and I’d pull out all the stops.
Then he became more regular at the flat and I stopped pulling out all the stops and he still liked me. I could answer the door in baggy pyjamas, still orange from a new spray tan and walking with my toenails splayed with cotton wool because I was painting them, and he still liked me.
Then I got drunk and slept with some football player to make him jealous. Well, suffice to say it ended in tears—with a blotchy face and a rather fat lip (the football player did have anger issues). Dan was the one who held the ice pack.
Dan was appalled when I confessed that I’d done it to make him notice me.
And then he’d told me the truth.
And he also told me just how much he hated the truth.
That he’d rather slash his abdomen and dissect his own intestines than fess up and tell the world that he was gay.
At first it had been a whoosh of relief—so that was why he didn’t fancy me.
Then I had decided that, if I tried harder, one day he might—he had assured me he wouldn’t.
He wasn’t bisexual; he said it as a warning.
He was gay.
So I got angry…
And we fell out, but we missed each other and made it up, though we hadn’t yet come full circle. There was still this… this… bitterness there on my part.
I mean, how unlucky was I, that the perfect guy for me, the one guy who actually loves me, just wasn’t technically wired that way?
I hated all the crap about ‘Oh, I’m not homophobic—my best friend’s gay’.
I actually HATED it that he was gay.
I cried at every episode of Will and Grace.
I hated it that I would love the smell of him coming out of the shower for ever, that he could make me laugh with just a twitch of his lips, that he’s just the most amazing guy in the whole wide world, that he can pull me in his arms and make me feel safe—and that, faults and all, somehow he loves me and yet somehow he can’t.
He loves me.
Just not in that way.
However, Dan had been a bit off recently. Every time I rang he was always just on his way out, and call me paranoid if you must, but whenever I got the answering-machine I swear he was home, hovering over the receiver and not picking it up because it was me. It wasn’t fair. We’d been through everything together. When he was in the closet, he’d been only too happy to drag me to every family function imaginable and pass me off as his girlfriend and then, when he was coming out, night after night had been spent metaphorically holding his hand as he worked up the courage to tell his family and friends. And once out! Oh, yes, he’s Mr Bloody Sensible now, but he was wild for a while there, dragging me along to gay bars where I’d sit and pretend not to notice how long it took him to go to the men’s room.
Now, though, when I needed him, he was too busy being happy with Matthew.
I was making lime margaritas—there was a mountain of limes that I was juicing and I had all the ingredients lined up to whizz in the blender but Dan filled the kettle.
‘I’m not drinking,’ he said, which meant that he wouldn’t be staying.
‘I got a couple of movies, though.’ More and more it was getting like this with Dan. Since he had started going out with Matthew I was slotted in, like a dental appointment or a quick dash to the shops on a lunch break. ‘Stay the night, Dan, you haven’t for ages.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Okay.’ I knew not to push it. ‘At least stay for a while, have a drink…’
‘Actually, no.’ He looked uncomfortable, six feet two and in his suit he looked bloody gorgeous but, actually, nervous. ‘You and I…’ he gave a tight smile ‘… well, it’s causing a few problems with Matthew.’
‘What?’ I was about to turn on the blender, but instead I laughed. ‘How, for God’s sake? We’ve established you don’t fancy me. Can never fancy me… Surely to God you’re allowed friends.’
‘Of course I am…’ He was working his way up to telling me something and suddenly I didn’t want to hear it, so I turned the blender on instead, but you can only blend a margarita for so long and after a moment or two I had no choice but to stop. I could feel his chocolate-brown eyes on me, but I didn’t turn and look at them, instead focusing a great deal of attention on salting two glasses as he spoke to my back.
‘Every time I come here I get smashed and end up staying.’
I had the salt in lovely perfect lines, the glasses were icy cold from the fridge, and I slowly poured two drinks before I answered.
‘Don’t get smashed, then.’ Now I did turn and look at him, angry, because how the hell was it my fault? Since when did his boyfriend decide it was up to me to police him? ‘I’m hardly pouring drinks down your throat and tying you to the bed, Dan.’
‘I know that.’
‘If you don’t want to be here, don’t use Matthew as an excuse.’ He closed his eyes and I could hear him drag in a deep breath.
‘I do want to be here.’
‘Then tell Matthew that.’ I was near tears, I was so angry I felt like crying—bloody Matthew was so jealous he hated Dan out of his sight for anything more than five minutes.
