Page 1 of In the Same Boat

1

SAMMIE

As I laugh wildly at another one of his jokes, I hope he doesn’t notice me keeping an eye on the front door.

Danny is one of those people who tells a story like he’s onstage in front of an audience – even though he’s sitting at a dining table with me. And only me. I’m really hoping it stays that way.

This is nice. I know, nice is such a meh word, but sometimes it’s the perfect one. Nice is good. Big, flashy, extravagant, exciting – all things that are impossible to sustain forever. Nice though – nice stands a chance.

Sitting here with Danny, looking at him across the candlelit table, the two of us tucking into a cannelloni that took me forever to make – and not in an authentic Italian-mama-slaving-over-sauce kind of way, more me calling the cannelloni a different C-word because stuffing those little tubes is way harder than it looks. Don’t look in the bin, it’s a cannelloni cemetery in there.

This is what I want. Not just cannelloni, but someone to sit down to dinner with, to share stories, laugh with, debrief the day together. Someone who is interested in me, not judging me, not telling me how I should be living my life.

I glance at the door again. I can’t help it – but the note on the fridge was crystal clear:Out for dinner, don’t wait up – Chris x. There’s no room for interpretation there, right? I have the place to myself, to see where things go with Danny uninterrupted. Oh, I hope things go well. I don’t want to be the kind of woman to ‘need’ attention from a man but, my gosh, it feels like it’s been so long since anyone wanted me. Danny seems like he’s actually interested though, like he’s enjoying the food – things couldn’t be going better.

He’s sitting across from me, shirtsleeves rolled up, leaning forward slightly as he talks. I like it, it feels like we’re quite literally growing closer. People don’t lean in towards people they’re not interested in, do they? I’m sure I saw that in a video somewhere while I was doomscrolling.

‘—and so Col and I are at the top of Snowden, he looks cool as a cucumber, I feel like I’m fighting for my life, but because he’s looking great I don’t want him to see what a state I’m in, so I’m trying to style it out…’ He takes a pause to have another bite of his food. He seems like he’s really enjoying it. So am I, now that I’m relaxing a little – even if I do say so myself. My aim was ‘edible’ but I might actually have landed somewhere a little closer to delicious.

I’ll say this for Danny: he tells a great story. I’m on the edge of my seat, my fork hovering in front of my mouth as I wait to find out what happened next. I mean, how many people have climbed a mountain? Okay, probably more than I realise, with my sedentary lifestyle, and my generally sedentary friends, but he’s the first person I’ve met to have a mountain-climbing story for me, so I’m all in. Danny is a blokey bloke. The kind who climbs mountains with his mates before getting absolutely hammered in a cabin. He’s into sports – any sports, it sounds like from our conversations – and I can see his job (a carpenter) literally etched into his hands. Dings and scars. He must have taken a chunk out of one of his fingers at some point because one of his nails looks like it has a piece missing. Removed by force. That’s pretty masculine, right? Not the girly-girl ‘I broke a nail’ vibe I seem to squeak out if I – I don’t know – open a cupboard at a funny angle. No, no. A proper, hardy ‘I’ve chopped a bit of my finger off, lads – can you hold my brew for a minute’ kind of toughness.

Did I mention it’s been a long time since it felt like a man wanted me? Because I’m finding the most bizarre things sexy. He could probably tell me that he collectedFireman Sammemorabilia and liked to flick his bogies at the ceiling light, and I would probably find a way to tell myself it was attractive. Oh, he hasn’t expressed any interest in either of those things, don’t get me wrong. He seems like a nice, normal man. Nice – there’s that word again. Nice is all I want.

‘So I’m mortified, Col is eligible for some kind of “hiker of the year” award. The rest of our mates bailed on the way up. It’s just me and him, and I’m properly exhausted, but he’s still. Too still. And then I realise he’s looking a bit white… and then he passes out.’

‘Oh my gosh,’ I blurt. ‘Is he okay? What happened? Is it, like, the altitude? Or…?’

My voice trails off. I know nothing about mountains or altitude or exercise generally. Best I stop talking, before I embarrass myself.

‘It turns out he was exhausted too,’ Danny says with a chuckle. ‘He didn’t want me to realise that he was out of breath, so he was basically holding his breath. He blacked out.’

‘Wow…’

‘They say pride comes before a fall,’ Danny reminds me. ‘He would have fallen all the way to the bottom, if I weren’t there to help him – no, no, not really. But I did help him up, he caught his breath, and we took it steady on the way back down.’

‘That’s so nice of you,’ I tell him.

‘Yeah, well, I’m not all nice, I did use the time while he was unconscious to catch my breath.’

I laugh – because I assume he’s joking. He laughs too, thankfully.

‘You can’t tell anyone this, by the way, because I swore I would never tell anyone,’ he adds, still smiling playfully. ‘He had to rub a cramp out of my thigh on the way back down, so we said we’d take the stories to our graves. I swear that’s why neither of us is married yet, because we’re worried about it coming up in a best man’s speech.’

‘Well, when you meet the love of your life, you’re going to have a hard time selling that excuse to her,’ I point out.

‘Which is why I always tell dates all about it… once I’ve decided it’s going well,’ he replies.

I smile.

‘It’s going well, eh?’

‘It’s going really well,’ he assures me. ‘This is the best cannelloni I’ve ever had. The bread is amazing too – I can’t believe you made this.’

I did not, in fact, make the ciabatta bread. I didn’t say that I did either, Danny assumed, and I was simply being a good host by not correcting him. I wouldn’t want to be impolite. I made the money that bought it, so… we’ll say that’s pretty much the same thing.

I take a sip of wine, peeking at him over the rim of the glass. This is going well, I think.

He smiles at me. I love the way he smiles – soft and simple. Everything seems genuine with Danny, which makes a change. It’s hard to put your trust in a man, and it’s difficult enough to do it for the first time, but there’s a hopeful excitement that comes with it. But when you try, and fail, to trust a man, again and again, then suddenly the thought of placing yourself in his hands feels like an extreme sport. Far more extreme than climbing a mountain. Then again, Danny sounds like a great guy to have by your side at the top of a mountain. So long as you don’t mind rubbing his thigh, which I don’t, because he’s gorgeous. Messy dirty-blonde hair, the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen, a great smile. The attraction is definitely there.