Tyler seemed intent on wrapping me in.
‘You’re just making up for lost time then,’ he grinned, putting the empty bottle, glasses and empty packets back in the rucksack. No littering here, what a lovely, lovely man.
‘I’m just tired,’ I yawned for effect. ‘I had a bit of a late night.’
‘Anything fun?’ he asked.
‘Alex’s gig in Brooklyn,’ I said, without thinking.
‘Alex?’ It wasn’t accusatory, but it was definitely inquisitive.
‘Oh, one of Jenny’s boyfriend’s friends,’ I said quickly. It wasn’t strictly a lie. ‘And you know, it took for ever to get home.’
‘I just don’t get the whole Brooklyn thing,’ Tyler shook his head, not pursuing the Alex thing. Phew. ‘Sure, Park Slope is nice, Peter Luger is great, but why everyone thinks it’s so hip to travel all the way over to Williamsburg for a beer? No thanks.’
‘It was nice over there,’ I felt as though I ought at least to try and defend it, but too much red wine was starting to weaken my thought process. ‘Everyone was really cool.’
‘Exactly,’ Tyler screwed up his face. ‘Someone needs to remind those rich kid hipsters that college was a long time ago. It’s time to get over your ironic T-shirts and stop getting stoned. And how tight are those guys’ jeans? Do they realize they will never have children?’
I thought of Alex in his skinny jeans and his little T-shirts and had to smile. Or possibly, the half-bottle of red wine had to smile, I wasn’t entirely sure. I was however, entirely drunk.
‘Are you a secret hipster? I don’t remember seeing any piercings.’
‘I’m more of a tattoo girl,’ I laughed as he tried to pull up my T-shirt. ‘Stop it, everyone can see!’
‘I’ve got to find these tattoos,’ he said, holding my wrists above my head with one hand and searching with the other. ‘I can’t believe I didn’t see them the other night.’
‘I don’t really have tattoos,’ I said breathlessly, half from the laughing, half from the way he was pinning me down. A familiar feeling started to build up in my stomach, surging through my body.
‘I think you do,’ he said, staring me into submission. ‘Maybe I just didn’t see them because it was so dark.’
‘Maybe,’ I whispered, willing him to scoop me up and take me home. I reckoned he had approximately ten seconds to suggest it before I made a public spectacle of myself. And potentially got us both arrested.
‘Shall we just go?’ he asked, his eyes glowing and his voice gruff. I nodded and let him pull me roughly to my feet. His hand burned into the small of my back as we wandered out across the park. I didn’t want to drag him, but it almost felt as though he was walking extra slowly, dragging it out, making me wait. But I couldn’t wait. I squeezed his hand gently, but he just squeezed back and gave me a promising smile.
‘You’re in a rush?’ Tyler held me back as I made for the gate at something between a canter and a gallop.
I didn’t have a response that didn’t make me sound like a massive slag, so I went with the truth ‘Aren’t you?’ I asked.
‘Good point,’ he replied, pulling my chin upwards and kissing me hard. I felt my legs completely melt away, there was nothing else in the world apart from me and Tyler and, fingers bloody crossed, his apartment in less than ten minutes.
My second visit to Tyler’s was just as educational as the first. More than anything else, as I lay in his huge, soft bed, watching him doze, it was a complete wake-up call as to how long mine and Mark’s relationship had been dead. I couldn’t actually remember the last time we’d had sex in the daytime, but it really was like riding a bike. Not that I ride a bike. And it was remarkable just how bendy you can really be if you put your mind to it. I slipped silently out of the bedroom and recovered my knickers and top for a trip to the bathroom. After some quick reparatory work to my mascara and a cold flannel pressed to my stubble-grazed chin, I did the obligatory ‘check out the bathroom cabinet’ thing.
The first thing I noticed was that, for a man, he had a lot of stuff. It had taken me months of hint dropping and several advertorials in GQ for Mark to even start using Nivea for Men aftershave balm, but Tyler had more products than I did. Shampoo, conditioner, hair mask, gel, mousse, wax, eye cream, scrub, face wash, moisturizer with sunscreen, night cream with retinol. I wasn’t sure whether to be intimidated and impressed, but then I remembered how great he always looked, and settled on accepting. Maybe I should look into some of this stuff. Beyond the creams, gels, lotions and potions were several bottles of painkillers, some off the shelf, some prescription. Anyone can have painkillers, I told myself, I still had tonnes of Co-codamol from when I had my wisdom teeth out. Right at the back, on the top shelf, was a black travel wash bag. With a quick look at the door, I whipped it down. I couldn’t help myself. If he had cute little travel-sized toiletries, I was moving in. But it wasn’t full of men’s toiletries. It was a morning-after kit. For a woman. Deodorant, a new toothbrush, eye make-up remover and Jesus, even Tampax.
I replaced the bag and sat back down on the edge of the bath. So, he really did date around a lot. Reality check. I had absolutely no room for complaint here, I was dating someone else and hadn’t really told him about it, maybe he was dating other girls too, but something about the whole thing just felt off with me. The idea of dating two people and sleeping with two people seemed mutually exclusive. Perhaps if I’d slept with Alex I’d feel differently, one way or another.
I ran my hands under the cold water tap to cool down. There was just one problem with that theory. I hadn’t slept with Alex, and for the longest time, I’d had virtually no sex life at all. But with Tyler, it was like, God, I didn’t even have anything to compare it with. Even when it had been good with Mark it had never, ever left me shaking from head to toe, unable to breathe but unable to stop. As soon as I was with Tyler, the rest of the world just melted away. It was utterly intoxicating, but somewhere inside it didn’t feel real, didn’t feel permanent. I tried to think of what Jenny would tell me, that I was sabotaging my own happiness, trying to find a reason not just to enjoy a fun relationship for what it was.
‘Angela?’ Tyler knocked gently on the bathroom door. ‘You OK?’
‘Yep,’ I looked around for inspiration, finding nothing, ‘I think I got a bit sunburned, I was just cooling down.’
‘I have some lotion in there somewhere,’ he said, peering around the door. ‘Want me to find it out?’
‘Yes, please,’ I nodded. He was so wonderful. So what if he was seeing other girls? When he was with me, he was only with me.
‘Let me see.’ he took a large bottle of aftersun from a cabinet and squeezed some out into his hands. ‘Where’s the sunburn? You don’t look red.’
‘Oh, it’s my back,’ I said, pulling the shoulder of my top down an inch. It wasn’t red because it wasn’t burned, but it was the best lie I had at the time. ‘It’s just really sore. I don’t think the red has come out yet.’
‘I don’t want to get this on your clothes,’ he held up cream-covered hands and nodded at my top. ‘You’d better take that off.’
‘I suppose I had,’ I smiled, trying
