That momentous evening with Cal seemed like it would never end. Actually, it didn’t. We walked Rob home and put him to bed, grinning at each other the whole time. When we ended up back in the living room, alone, with revolting cups of instant coffee cooling in front of us, we didn't speak. We sat and stared. Slowly, as the sun began to seep through the window, we reached towards each other. From the first touch, we were possessed - clothes ripped off in a flash, electricity passing through our bodies in waves as we grabbed for each other again and again.
We couldn't have known it, but from here - this inauspicious beginning on a tatty sofa, with the noise of our friend retching in the background, wet coffee stains covering the lino, the smell of beer and fags in the air - everything changed. By the time we finally got to sleep, I felt that we had been together for ever, and I know Cal felt the same. When Rob stuck his head sheepishly into the living room, he was rendered completely speechless by the fact that we were lying on his sofa, limbs entwined, covered only by his grubby throw. But Cal and I were beaming from ear to ear.
Eventually, of course, Cal had to get up and go back to his girlfriend. Although I was walking on air, I truly believed that was that – a great night, never to be spoken of again. Another one to add to Bee's Catalogue of One Night Stands TM. Until I arrived for my shift in the coffee shop on Monday, saw him, and realised that I had completely lost the power of speech. He didn’t seem to be doing much better – we grinned at each other like idiots all morning, then shot out of the shop on our break, legged it round the nearest corner, and snogged the faces off each other like two sex-starved teenagers.
This became the pattern for the next few months. Cal was cheating on his girlfriend, and I was no saint – I had started seeing someone a few weeks before, although it hadn’t seemed significant then, and definitely didn't now. As bad as it sounds, I think that kept him on to fill the moments when Cal went back to her, to stop me sitting and worrying that this would be it, that our luck had run out. Every break we had, we broke free from the confines of the shop and walked until we were out of sight, before sitting down and exploring each other. Cal made me feel like no one had before him – I actually physically burned to be with him, something I’d never believed in but now couldn’t avoid. We took as many opportunities to be together as we could; stolen, glorious nights when his girlfriend was away, or at drunken house parties; once, when the shop was closed, in the store cupboard where we kept the syrup bottles, glass clinking as the shelves wobbled, the cloying smell of vanilla essence rising in the heat.
It wasn't just sex. We talked a lot about what we were doing, about the future, about the inevitability of coming clean to everyone and admitting we were an item. We both knew that had to happen. The day he came in, tears in his eyes, and told me that being with his girlfriend the night before had felt like he was cheating on me, I held him, heart hammering. We were meant for each other – I knew it, he knew it, and soon, once the housekeeping was taken care of, everyone would know it.
The day my heart broke started the same as any other. I was on the morning shift, Cal was not, and on the way to work I sent him a cheeky text, telling him I couldn’t wait to see him later on. Humming, I practically skipped down the hot pavement to the shop, grabbing my phone from my pocket as it beeped its bleak response.
**SHE KNOWS. I CAN’T DO THIS. IT'S OVER.**
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