Tyler had predicted, Central Park was busy, but it was also incredible.
‘How can this exist in the middle of the city?’ I marvelled. As we ventured further and further into the greenery, the city seemed to fade away, leaving a complete oasis, packed with joggers, families, couples, groups of friends. Just about every sort of person you could imagine was in that park.
‘Would you like the history lesson or was that a rhetorical question?’ Tyler offered. He was carrying a large rucksack that I prayed was packed with food. I’d spent so long getting ready, applying de-puffing eye gel and checking Jenny was still breathing, I hadn’t even eaten. ‘It’s great though. They call it the lungs of the city.’
‘I can see that,’ I nodded as we veered off the path and over to a sunny, relatively unoccupied spot by a beautiful large lake. ‘It’s just madness to me that all this is man-made.’
‘You don’t have parks like this in London?’ he asked, spreading a blanket before he let me sit down.
‘We have parks,’ I nodded, ‘loads of parks, but this is so impressive. London is so higgledy-piggledy, which I love, but the idea that someone sat down and said, we’ve got to have a massive park in the middle of this planned, organized city, that’s ace. And even more I love that no one has been allowed to build on it when they started running out of space – not the case in London.’
‘I’m really sorry,’ Tyler smiled, unzipping the rucksack and producing a bottle of red wine. ‘I lost you at “higgledy piggledy”.’
‘Ha ha!’ I accepted a wineglass and let him pour. Please let there be some food in there too? ‘You make me feel so English.’
‘Is that a bad thing?’ He poured himself a glass and pushed the cork back in the bottle. ‘I love it when you say things like that.’
‘No, of course it’s not a bad thing.’ Why was there still no food? ‘It just reminds me I can’t stay here for ever. Which sucks.’
‘They won’t take you back if you start saying thinks like “sucks”,’ he scolded lightly.
‘Sorry,’ I smiled, holding my hand up to shield my eyes from the sun. ‘One thinks it’s a terrible shame that those dreadful builders should be allowed to build on such marvellous greenery.’
‘More like it,’ Tyler smiled, planting a tiny kiss on the end of my nose.
I lay back on the blanket and stared up at the cloudless sky. This must be the only place on the whole of Manhattan where I could look upwards and not see skyscrapers. It felt so far away from the real world.
‘And besides, you never know what’s going to happen.’ I felt Tyler lie down next to me, he was so solid and reassuring. ‘Who knows where you’ll be in six months?’
‘Bizarrely, you’re not the first person to say exactly that,’ I smiled, remembering what Alex had told me, hundreds of feet up in the air. Tyler leaned over and kissed me softly, bringing me back down to earth with a bump.
‘I guess you have to go back sometime,’ he said, producing a bag of crisps from the rucksack. Really? Crisps? ‘Cheeto?’
‘Thanks.’ Quite frankly, I’d have eaten anything at that second, but I had sort of been expecting something a little bit classier. He was such a smoothie. ‘Tyler,’ I rolled onto my belly and looked at him happily munching away, ‘have you ever had your heart broken?’
‘There’s nothing I love more than hiding in the park with a bag of Cheetos,’ he replied. ‘Is that really bad?’
‘No, but it is avoiding my question,’ I said, throwing a couple of cheesy crisps at him. Impressively he caught them in his mouth. ‘Have you?’
‘I’ve had girls break up with me, sure,’ he said, thoughtfully sipping his wine, ‘but I’m not sure I could honestly say I’ve had my heart broken.’
‘Wow, really?’ I tried to drink my wine, but it did not go well with the Cheetos. This slightly tarnished his sheen of sophistication, but it did prove he was human. ‘I suppose some people are just lucky.’
‘Maybe,’ Tyler went back into the bag and produced a beautifully wrapped gold box and handed it to me, ‘or maybe I’ve been unlucky. It’s hard to get your heart broken if your heart’s never really in it.’
I took the box and unfastened the ribbon. Oh thank God. It was chocolate. Glossy, handmade truffles. And lots of them. Sophistication regained, superhuman status restored.
‘You’ve never been in love?’ I asked, taking one of the chocolates and placing it in his mouth. ‘I don’t believe you.’
‘I don’t know, maybe,’ he said, catching my hand and kissing the tips of my fingers. ‘I can’t say I’ve ever fallen apart when a relationship ended. I’ve never left the country anyway.’
‘I’m fairly sure if you don’t know whether or not you’ve been in love then you probably haven’t.’ I happily accepted the chocolate he held to my lips and nipped at his fingers. ‘I just can’t believe you haven’t had women falling all over themselves to be in love with you.’
‘Maybe they have been in love with me,’ he shrugged. ‘I just haven’t met anyone I feel that strongly about.’
‘So you’re the heartbreaker,’ I laughed. It hardly seemed likely, he was so lovely. ‘Those poor girls.’
‘Maybe I’m just waiting for the right girl?’
‘And who would that girl be?’ I went back to my wine. It was starting to slip down far better with the chocolate than the Cheetos, so much so, I had almost forgotten how hungry I’d been. I rolled over to lean backwards against Tyler’s broad chest.
‘I don’t know yet,’ he replied, stroking my hair. ‘I suppose she would be smart and interesting, so we would have a lot to talk about. I don’t want to come across as shallow, but she would have to be pretty. And she should make me smile all the time.’
I tilted my head back and smiled at him. ‘She sounds nice.’ I hadn’t even realized I’d got to the bottom of my glass already. Tyler topped me up.
‘And I should want to kiss her every time I see her,’ he said, stretching across for another kiss. ‘Like that.’
‘I think you’ve got good criteria,’ I said, rolling back onto the blanket and avoiding too many kisses.
After the frenzy of last night’s gig, of dealing with Jenny, of getting so near and yet so far with Alex, this was so serene. Glorious weather, the smell of fresh grass and an attentive, sweet man hand-feeding me chocolates and soft warm kisses. I loved the way Tyler made me feel, as if I were something to be treated delicately and protected. It made me almost believe it myself. We lay together, talking about our weeks, drinking the wine, me eating chocolates and Tyler munching away on his disgusting Cheetos until we ran dry.
‘I knew I should have bought two bottles,’ Tyler said, shaking the last drops into my glass. ‘What with you being such an old lush.’
‘I hardly ever drink,’ I defended myself without much credibility. ‘Honestly, I normally go months without a drop, let
