‘You mean physically?’
‘I guess that’s what I’m saying.’ Alex’s face reddened and an awkward silence hung between them.
‘Is that what you want?’ Nick asked. ‘Don’t we have to be, like, sexually attracted to each other?’
‘That’s how it usually works, yes.’
‘And … are you?’
‘I’m not going to lie to you – I don’t know one way or the other, mate. This is unchartered territory for me, well, both of us. I mean, I like sex, well, to be honest, I bloody love sex and I reckon it’s a huge part of a relationship. And if you and I aren’t doing that, then can we actually be together? Is what we have between us now enough for sex not to matter? Are we supposed to live like monks for the rest of our lives or do we get our rocks off somewhere else with women?’
‘That’s a lot of questions.’
‘Imagine what it’s like being in my head right now.’
‘I have a fair idea,’ Nick said. ‘What if we do, you know, try … it … and one of us finds we enjoy it but the other doesn’t? Then what happens?’
Alex rubbed his eyes, turned his head and shrugged. ‘This is so screwed up.’
‘You can say that again.’
Alex let out a long breath then ran his hands through his hair. ‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘I’m not going to “say that again”. We’ve done enough talking to last us a lifetime.’
Nick watched as Alex tilted his head and slowly moved towards him. He closed his eyes and reciprocated.
Alex’s lips were much softer and warmer than Nick had imagined a man’s to be, but his stubble was more prickly. Instinctively Nick moved his hand up to Alex’s face as they continued to kiss silently. He felt Alex’s hand on his thigh and pushed himself closer until their chests touched, connecting and slotting together like they’d been designed to do.
And in that moment, as they felt each other’s hearts racing, yet beating at exactly the same speed, they felt as if they were two halves of a whole.
Chapter 65
ELLIE
Tim appeared puzzled at first when Ellie had suggested they kept their engagement under wraps for the time being.
‘Please don’t think it’s because I don’t want people to know,’ she was at pains to point out, ‘but believe me, when the creator of Match Your DNA announces she’s found her own Match, things are going to get pretty crazy for the man involved.’
‘Like, how crazy?’ Tim asked. His naivety made her want to protect him all the more.
‘The press are going to try to find out everything there is to know about you. They’ll track down your ex-girlfriends and one-night stands.’
‘As long as they say I have a big cock and I can go like a steam train, I don’t care.’
‘I’m being serious, Tim! They’ll write about your late mum, they’ll find your dad – if he’s still alive – and they’ll offer money to anyone who ever knew you in the hopes of some scandal. Trust me, I’m not exaggerating. I’ve been through this before and it’s not pleasant.’
‘Shit,’ Tim said and rubbed his eyes. ‘Will they find that porn film I did when I was at college?’
‘What porn film?’ Ellie asked, a look of dismay spreading across her face.
He laughed. ‘You know, for an intelligent woman you can be extremely gullible.’
She gave a sigh of relief and thumped his arm.
‘Don’t worry, the only skeletons in my closet belong to the mice.’
When she’d informed Andrei, he had nearly broken into a smile. And when she’d told her family that they would be gaining a third son-in-law, she’d had to ask them to promise not to tell anyone outside their circle.
‘I thought Tim would be more old-fashioned than that,’ her sister Maggie had said.
‘In what way?’
‘I thought he’d ask for Dad’s permission to marry you first.’
‘He did, when we came up at Christmas.’
‘That’s not what Dad said. It’s not a big deal or anything, we were just a bit disappointed.’
‘I think he’s getting confused,’ Ellie said. Tim has no reason to lie, she told herself.
To date, she had successfully shielded her fiancé from the unwanted gaze of the paparazzi by withdrawing from public life. On their rare excursions, they entered restaurants or theatres at different times and through different doors. She enjoyed having Tim all to herself and was pleasantly surprised the media hadn’t discovered their relationship, especially after taking him to her work’s Christmas party.
Ellie adored the engagement ring Tim had slipped on her finger, an unobtrusive diamond set upon a white gold band. She assumed it hadn’t cost the earth but it meant more to her than any of the jewels she kept in the safety deposit box at her bank. At work and in public, she kept Tim’s ring on a gold chain around her neck, buried under a blouse. Every now and again, she’d catch herself playing with it. And each night, as soon as she got back in her car on her way home, she’d slip it on to her finger and examine it from all angles.
On one rare evening not spent in each other’s company, Ellie arrived back at her London home and immediately it felt empty without Tim. They’d FaceTimed before he went to play his five-a-side game of football and he’d scoffed as she flipped the phone to show him the mountain of paperwork she had to get through.
But before she set about tackling it, she heated up the meal her housekeeper left for her in the oven and sat in the kitchen, listening to a Spotify playlist of 1990s’ indie bands Tim had made for her. The engagement book he’d created sat on the counter top. She couldn’t stop herself from re-reading it.
‘Number forty-two: I love the way we shared the same haircut when we were kids,’ she read and took another look at the pictures on the page. On the left-hand side was a school photograph he’d borrowed from her mum, of her as a seven-year-old and when she sported an unfortunate pudding-bowl style. And on the right was Tim with an almost identical haircut. He looked adorable in his school uniform.
The way Tim had proposed with his book was so personal, so thoughtful and so romantic, it was worth more than any gift she’d ever received. In fact, throughout their relationship, it had always been Tim who’d been the one to wear his heart on his sleeve, while she was aware she appeared more detached. She didn’t feel like that, and she sometimes worried if Tim ever found it a turn off.
Suddenly, she had an idea. If Tim could make a book of what he loved about her, she could do something for him too. She would piece photos and mobile phone video footage of them together and create a mini movie.
She found a website on her laptop that would allow her to create her project, and she set to work harvesting media from her phone and iPad. As she went to log in to her Cloud account, she noticed her iPad was already logged in to Tim’s. He must have borrowed it recently. She wondered whether she could pilfer anything.
It contained images from the Christmas they’d shared with her family, a spontaneous weekend getaway to Berlin and some old photos of him as a schoolboy. She smiled as she flicked through the variations of him and wondered if or when they had children together, who they might look like. She came across several childhood photos of a young Tim with a woman, and by the various places and span of time they’d been taken, she assumed it was his mum. That puzzled her – when she’d asked to see a photo of her, Tim had claimed he had none and that they’d been destroyed in a fire.
‘I guess that’s what I’m saying.’ Alex’s face reddened and an awkward silence hung between them.
‘Is that what you want?’ Nick asked. ‘Don’t we have to be, like, sexually attracted to each other?’
‘That’s how it usually works, yes.’
‘And … are you?’
‘I’m not going to lie to you – I don’t know one way or the other, mate. This is unchartered territory for me, well, both of us. I mean, I like sex, well, to be honest, I bloody love sex and I reckon it’s a huge part of a relationship. And if you and I aren’t doing that, then can we actually be together? Is what we have between us now enough for sex not to matter? Are we supposed to live like monks for the rest of our lives or do we get our rocks off somewhere else with women?’
‘That’s a lot of questions.’
‘Imagine what it’s like being in my head right now.’
‘I have a fair idea,’ Nick said. ‘What if we do, you know, try … it … and one of us finds we enjoy it but the other doesn’t? Then what happens?’
Alex rubbed his eyes, turned his head and shrugged. ‘This is so screwed up.’
‘You can say that again.’
Alex let out a long breath then ran his hands through his hair. ‘No,’ he said firmly. ‘I’m not going to “say that again”. We’ve done enough talking to last us a lifetime.’
Nick watched as Alex tilted his head and slowly moved towards him. He closed his eyes and reciprocated.
Alex’s lips were much softer and warmer than Nick had imagined a man’s to be, but his stubble was more prickly. Instinctively Nick moved his hand up to Alex’s face as they continued to kiss silently. He felt Alex’s hand on his thigh and pushed himself closer until their chests touched, connecting and slotting together like they’d been designed to do.
And in that moment, as they felt each other’s hearts racing, yet beating at exactly the same speed, they felt as if they were two halves of a whole.
Chapter 65
ELLIE
Tim appeared puzzled at first when Ellie had suggested they kept their engagement under wraps for the time being.
‘Please don’t think it’s because I don’t want people to know,’ she was at pains to point out, ‘but believe me, when the creator of Match Your DNA announces she’s found her own Match, things are going to get pretty crazy for the man involved.’
‘Like, how crazy?’ Tim asked. His naivety made her want to protect him all the more.
‘The press are going to try to find out everything there is to know about you. They’ll track down your ex-girlfriends and one-night stands.’
‘As long as they say I have a big cock and I can go like a steam train, I don’t care.’
‘I’m being serious, Tim! They’ll write about your late mum, they’ll find your dad – if he’s still alive – and they’ll offer money to anyone who ever knew you in the hopes of some scandal. Trust me, I’m not exaggerating. I’ve been through this before and it’s not pleasant.’
‘Shit,’ Tim said and rubbed his eyes. ‘Will they find that porn film I did when I was at college?’
‘What porn film?’ Ellie asked, a look of dismay spreading across her face.
He laughed. ‘You know, for an intelligent woman you can be extremely gullible.’
She gave a sigh of relief and thumped his arm.
‘Don’t worry, the only skeletons in my closet belong to the mice.’
When she’d informed Andrei, he had nearly broken into a smile. And when she’d told her family that they would be gaining a third son-in-law, she’d had to ask them to promise not to tell anyone outside their circle.
‘I thought Tim would be more old-fashioned than that,’ her sister Maggie had said.
‘In what way?’
‘I thought he’d ask for Dad’s permission to marry you first.’
‘He did, when we came up at Christmas.’
‘That’s not what Dad said. It’s not a big deal or anything, we were just a bit disappointed.’
‘I think he’s getting confused,’ Ellie said. Tim has no reason to lie, she told herself.
To date, she had successfully shielded her fiancé from the unwanted gaze of the paparazzi by withdrawing from public life. On their rare excursions, they entered restaurants or theatres at different times and through different doors. She enjoyed having Tim all to herself and was pleasantly surprised the media hadn’t discovered their relationship, especially after taking him to her work’s Christmas party.
Ellie adored the engagement ring Tim had slipped on her finger, an unobtrusive diamond set upon a white gold band. She assumed it hadn’t cost the earth but it meant more to her than any of the jewels she kept in the safety deposit box at her bank. At work and in public, she kept Tim’s ring on a gold chain around her neck, buried under a blouse. Every now and again, she’d catch herself playing with it. And each night, as soon as she got back in her car on her way home, she’d slip it on to her finger and examine it from all angles.
On one rare evening not spent in each other’s company, Ellie arrived back at her London home and immediately it felt empty without Tim. They’d FaceTimed before he went to play his five-a-side game of football and he’d scoffed as she flipped the phone to show him the mountain of paperwork she had to get through.
But before she set about tackling it, she heated up the meal her housekeeper left for her in the oven and sat in the kitchen, listening to a Spotify playlist of 1990s’ indie bands Tim had made for her. The engagement book he’d created sat on the counter top. She couldn’t stop herself from re-reading it.
‘Number forty-two: I love the way we shared the same haircut when we were kids,’ she read and took another look at the pictures on the page. On the left-hand side was a school photograph he’d borrowed from her mum, of her as a seven-year-old and when she sported an unfortunate pudding-bowl style. And on the right was Tim with an almost identical haircut. He looked adorable in his school uniform.
The way Tim had proposed with his book was so personal, so thoughtful and so romantic, it was worth more than any gift she’d ever received. In fact, throughout their relationship, it had always been Tim who’d been the one to wear his heart on his sleeve, while she was aware she appeared more detached. She didn’t feel like that, and she sometimes worried if Tim ever found it a turn off.
Suddenly, she had an idea. If Tim could make a book of what he loved about her, she could do something for him too. She would piece photos and mobile phone video footage of them together and create a mini movie.
She found a website on her laptop that would allow her to create her project, and she set to work harvesting media from her phone and iPad. As she went to log in to her Cloud account, she noticed her iPad was already logged in to Tim’s. He must have borrowed it recently. She wondered whether she could pilfer anything.
It contained images from the Christmas they’d shared with her family, a spontaneous weekend getaway to Berlin and some old photos of him as a schoolboy. She smiled as she flicked through the variations of him and wondered if or when they had children together, who they might look like. She came across several childhood photos of a young Tim with a woman, and by the various places and span of time they’d been taken, she assumed it was his mum. That puzzled her – when she’d asked to see a photo of her, Tim had claimed he had none and that they’d been destroyed in a fire.
