waited.
On bus. Normally drives to work but car in garage today. Went for drink. Gorgeous!!!!
I was pleased for her. Obviously I’d have to check him out. That was our unwritten rule. But if he’d got past the hurdle of getting Mags to have a drink with him in the first place, he was doing pretty well. Mags wasn’t one for wasting her time on people. I think it came as part of our peripatetic background. Moving around had meant we didn’t get the chance to form a lot of long term relationships. We got to sussing out pretty quickly whether people were worth us investing what would inevitably be our short time, or whether that time would be better spent with someone else. It sounded harsh but was really just a case of making the best of the situation. It was pretty clear I’d lost the knack over the years, having wasted four years of investment time with Steven. But Mags? She still had it.
‘Mags met someone.’ I said. For some reason, telling Rob seemed the most natural thing to be doing.
‘When?’
‘Tonight.’
‘I thought you were together tonight?’
‘She met him on the bus.’
Rob pulled a face that said ‘hmm, interesting’ and moved to the chair, putting his now empty cup on the table.
‘So, what’s she said about him?’
‘Not much. That she met him on the bus and went for a drink.’
‘Blimey. I’ve known you for four years and I still couldn’t get you to go for a drink with me tonight.’
‘Oh ha ha!’ I stuck my tongue out at him, ‘I’m here now, aren’t I? And we had food and drink. Anyway. Different situation.’ I stated.
‘How so?’
‘Because this bloke’s obviously got different interests in Mags than you have in me.’
Rob did a thing with his hand that indicated more explanation was required.
I gave him a look. ‘He asked her for a drink because he wanted to check her out, not check up on her.’
Rob did a small nod. My phone made its little noise again. I looked down at the screen.
So you got home ok?
Hmm.
Sort of. Train cancelled. Tree on line.
What does ‘sort of’ mean??? Are you ok? Where are you???
Mags loved a punctuation mark.
Here we go.
At Rob’s.
I pressed ‘Send’ and looked at Rob who was now peacefully resting his head on the back of the chair and watching the snow. He looked relaxed. And for some reason that made me smile. He turned his head and caught me watching him. Oh shit. That looked weird. I jumped in.
‘My phone is going to ring in a moment.’
A slow smile spread from one corner of his mouth. ‘Did you get psychic when I wasn’t looking?’
I raised an eyebrow. ‘Nope. But Mags just asked if I was home. Which I’m not. So she asked where I was.’
‘And you’ve said here…which for some reason is going to make your phone ring?’
As if on cue, my phone lit up, and Mags’ ringtone jingled out, a cute picture of her appearing on the screen as it did so.
I flipped my hand out as if to say ‘Ta dah!’
Rob looked confused, laughed and went back to watching the snow as I picked up my phone. Unwillingly I unwrapped myself and got up from the sofa as I answered, touching Rob’s arm as I did so, handing him the blanket and pointing to indicate he should sit there instead of folding his huge frame into the armchair. He smiled at me, and nodded, his hand brushing mine as he took the blanket.
‘Hi.’ I answered, walking over towards the other side of the room.
‘Hi?’ Mags repeated, ‘You can’t just tell me that you’re at Rob’s flat in the middle of the night and then just say “hi” when you answer the phone!’
‘What?’ I laughed. Apparently, Gorgeous Bus Boy had bought my friend more than one drink. She sounded positively tipsy. ‘Then how am I supposed to answer the phone?’
‘What happened? How come you’re there? Did you kiss him yet? Oh my God! Are you in bed? Oh! I’m so sorry! I’ll call you–’
‘Mags! Mags!’ I raised my voice and jumped in front of her train of thought.
‘What?’
‘What are you on? It’s Rob! Of course I haven’t kissed him and oh my God, no! We’re not in bed! Why on Earth would you think that?’
‘I… just thought…’
‘No. Definitely not. It’s not like that.’ I was doing my best to try and keep the very awkward conversation as low in volume as possible, but casually. Without it seeming like I was bothered about Rob hearing. I had a feeling I was failing miserably.
‘I bumped into him outside my studio, they were cancelling trains all over the place, including mine, so I ended up coming back to his place so that we could take a look at the traffic and the weather. All the roads are blocked solid. We had a microwave meal and watched a film.’ I thought I may as well tell her everything in case something came up later and she read more into it because I hadn’t mentioned it.
‘And now?’ she asked.
‘And now what?’
She let out a sigh. ‘What. Happens. Now.’
‘Nothing. Happens. Now.’ I said, ‘I’m going to bed shortly.’
A squeak of excitement came from Mags’ end of the line.
‘On my own.’ I clarified, but couldn’t help laughing, ‘What’s got into you tonight?’
‘Nothing.’ she replied. ‘It’s just that Rob is nice. Really nice. He’s been so concerned about you, and now he’s shown up on your doorstep, like a white knight–’
‘Oh blimey! Bus Boy really sprinkled the love dust on you tonight, didn’t he?’
‘He did not!’ Mags said, but there wasn’t as much indignation in her voice as I would have expected. Wow. Bus Boy really had made an impression.
‘Ok. Well, I’m going to go to bed. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Hopefully the snow will have gone then and I can get home.’
‘Ok. Sleep well!’ Mags said, her voice indicating that she thought that sleeping should be the last thing on my mind.
‘You’re
