𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐈𝐬 𝐀 𝐋𝐨𝐰. ⁽⁽⁽ᵐᵃᵗᵗʸ ʰᵉᵃˡʸ⁾⁾⁾

Our Mutual Financial Friend.

Tracklist:

Change - Djo

Wake Up - The Walkmen

She's Mine - Alex Cameron

Silently Leaving The Room - Carissa's Wierd

***

Ray hangs back. The Arrivals hall of Heathrow is, as ever, crowded and noisy and full of bodies. The crowd at the barrier is five, six people deep, so instead she hovers by the Caffe Nero stand, blue takeaway coffee cup clutched in one hand. She scans the app on her phone, checking the flight number and status for the third time in the last twenty minutes. It's still exactly the same. There's the nostalgic sound of cardboard wobbling, a sign heaved up from the ground as the first people start streaming out the doors and into the hall. Ray looks sideways at them, covertly observing. Perhaps she ought to have written a sign herself. Her mind conjures the image of something with looping, adolescent handwriting and pink cartoon hearts alongside the question of whether Ari will even remember her face at all.

When she thinks of him, she thinks of broad shoulders in navy suits, a wide toothy grin, the scent of something clean and expensive. She's estimated how long it will take for him to get off the plane, trudge through border control, collect his luggage. The minutes tick over: six past eleven, then seven, then eight. She has around six more minutes before he'll be anywhere near Arrivals. As the crowd swells, she makes her way closer to the barriers, scanning and trying to catch a glimpse of him. He strides through the doors pushing an Away case, his light puffer jacket thrown over one arm. He finds her first; he marches directly over and reaches for her faster than she can process that he's here, in London, pulling her in for a kiss and that soon he will be in her flat. He'll sit on her sofa and arrange his toiletries in her shower and he'll eat the food in her fridge and it all feels so terribly, dangerously real. This thought is halted by the kiss he draws her into, the feel of his mouth gently insistent against hers. She leans heavily against him and breathes in lemons, vetiver, sweat.

Back in Battersea, Greebo treats Ari with an aloofness that, if affected by a human, would be abjectly rude. As if conscious of this, Ray makes excuses while the cat remains stubbornly under the dining table, curled up on one of the tucked away seats. Ari bears it with a good-natured chuckle and says something about cat treats. But Ray has a ringing in her ears, one that hasn't disappeared all day, and she smiles instead of answering. She has no idea what he's actually said. Which is probably obvious, now she thinks about it, so she makes herself busy, Etain-like, making tea and searching in her cupboards for biscuits. She knows, before she's even set the packet down on the coffee table, that Ari will call the chocolate hobnobs cookies.

***

So..... how's it going with your boyfriend :)

Lydia

Why is it that when you use that word I feel like you're teasing me

Cuz I am :)

Can you not?

Ray you okay??? xx

Yes

Mostly

I don't know it's just weird sharing my space you know