Chapter 54

54

B y 9 p.m., Sol was munching on some funghi pizza, comfortably seated on the IKEA sofa and wondering why she ever got rid of hers. Oh right, she'd moved to California and couldn't fit it inside the suitcase with so many other things she'd left behind over the years.

"You look lost in your own thoughts," Divya said, sitting next to her and giving her the glass of water she'd just brought from the kitchenette area. She had a beer for herself.

"I would tell you I wasn't," Sol said, "but I think you'd see the lie."

"So you were lost in your thoughts but don't want to talk about it."

"I guess, as usual, you're spot-on," said Sol. "Any chance I could hire you as a therapist?"

"I'd love to have an excuse to ask you all sorts of intrusive personal questions, but I'm afraid I won't have much time for extra gigs now with the new agency and all."

Sol tilted her head. She didn't know anything about a new agency.

Divya clearly noticed her confusion. "Luke has told you, right?"

"No…"

She was one hundred percent sure that none of the things Luke had whispered to her in the shower before the guests started arriving were about a new agency.

"Luke!" Divya yelled. He promptly made his way from the kitchenette, where he'd been talking to Sanjay and another T no drugs—not even the marijuana-laced edibles that had become so popular during her last few years in California but were illegal in the UK; no overly drunk people throwing up—Divya had had perhaps a beer too many, but Sanjay was seeing that she got home safely; no dancing—although a nice selection of jazzy indie pop music was playing in the background all evening; and no people fucking in the bathroom—not during the party, at least.

Everything had been so grown-up after all, and she suddenly became aware that Luke and his colleagues were in their early-to-mid-thirties, not their early twenties. Sol could be such a provincial, prejudiced snob sometimes. Perhaps there wasn't such a humongous age gap between her and Luke after all.

When Divya and Sanjay left and she was alone with Luke again, she asked what had been plaguing her for the previous half an hour.

"Should I also get going?"

"Only if you want to," he said, looking genuinely surprised. "Do you need to leave?"

"Not really." She wasn't sure if she was making the right decision. What if Luke wanted to be alone but was too polite to say otherwise? On the other hand, she had brought a medium-sized purse, and the many cosmetic products necessary for her nightly skin routine didn't all fit in there. "Are you only telling me to stay to be nice?"

"I'm not telling you to stay," he said, smiling. "I'm saying there's no need for you to leave if you don't want to. I distinctly remember the terms around me staying at your place not being so thoroughly discussed and analyzed."

"I'm just trying not to overstay my welcome." It was that and also making sure that her mature skin got all the extra moisturizing it needed.

"I don't think you overstaying your welcome is possible," he said. "Not here. But I understand if you'll be more comfortable at your home. This place is not much."

"What? I love your place!" She really did. It was notably small, but he'd managed to make a tasteful home imbued with his personality, and she liked that the most.

"Sol, you said your place was cramped. Look at this," he told her, gesturing to the studio.

"This is the same size as the first apartment I rented in Barcelona. Only there, the shower pressure was nonexistent. The first apartment I rented in Los Angeles wasn't much bigger either, and I had to cohabit with a nesting family of spiders," Sol said. "Please don't forget I've also been young and poor. Not that I'm implying you're poor or anything." Why couldn't she stop blundering?

But he seemed not to fixate on that last part.

"You're still young," he protested, and his earnestness warmed Sol's heart.

"You know what I mean," she said. "Forgive me if I've been a bit stiff tonight around you."

"I don't remember any stiffness," he said, getting closer to her.

"It's just that I'm coming to terms with the fact that I am… perhaps… how did you put it? Mad about you," she said, relieved that she'd been able to find the words but also a bit scared of having uttered them out loud.

"You are?" he asked, almost hesitantly, but then he smiled. "I warned you I was addictive."

"To be honest, I decided to let myself be mad about you once I saw the good taste with which you've decorated the place and the cleanliness of your kitchen and bathroom. I would have talked myself out of it if this place looked even mildly unkempt."

"What if I told you I cleaned because I knew you'd be coming?" he asked playfully, pulling her closer to him and kissing the back of her neck.

"I'll have to live with the possibility of you not being as archetypically ideal as I initially thought, I guess."

She was hooked.