Page 73 of The Wedding Forecast

At the door, I stop and look back, and he’s watching us. I wave and he lifts his hand in return, and then I step outside. Hayley has flagged a cab and is getting in, and I am hesitating, because I want to run back to him. It feels impossible I won’t see him again.

And then suddenly he’s there beside me, no jacket, and it’s freezing, and he is a little wild-eyed.

‘Just. Wait. Wait,’ he says, grabbing my arm. ‘Come over.’

‘Come over where?’

‘To my apartment. Tonight. Stay over.’

‘Stay over—?’ Does he mean…? What does he mean? I don’t know and I don’t know if he knows.

Hayley is hanging her head out of the cab.

‘What’s happening? Did I leave something behind?’ She’s shouting to be heard over the traffic and the wind.

‘No, no, it’s okay,’ I yell back.

‘Okay,’ I say, turning to Mac.

Does he want to have sex, does he want to talk, does he just want to hang out? I don’t care, I’ll take any option.

He is looking at me.

‘Really?’ I say, touching his arm.

‘Yes,’ he says, his eyes warm.

‘Just me.’

‘Yes.’

Hayley is hanging out of the cab again.

‘The driver is threatening to drive off. What is going on?’

I walk over to her. I don’t even know what to say.

‘You go.’

‘Where are you going?’ She looks totally confused.

‘I’m going to go back to Mac’s. For a while.’ I can’t bring myself to say all night.

‘You’re what? What the fuck? Are you guys sleeping together?’ She is screeching, almost.

‘No. I mean, maybe. I don’t know. He asked me to come back to his place.’

‘What? When? Have you kissed?’ The car is starting to roll a little bit.

‘No. Yes. Kind of. No.’

Hayley is almost falling out of the cab window trying to process this.

How to say we sort of have, but not on this trip. It’s too much to say with the wind blowing and the cab moving.

Hayley slithers back inside the cab and has turned away to argue with the driver.

‘He says he has to go,’ Hayley says. ‘He doesn’t like English tourists.’