Watching You: A Novel

Alfie got back from work at midnight. He slid into bed beside her smelling of shower gel and toothpaste, and also something else, something Joey couldn’t quite define but which made her feel strangely queasy.

She crawled into the open space between his arms that he offered up to her and buried her face between the solid planes of his pectorals and she breathed in hard, a sense of release and relief, but also of sadness, that by this time tomorrow night she would have done something unbearable and irreversible, something cruel and shattering. She felt his heart beating under her cheek, a slow, hypnotic pulse, the rhythm of his life force, his innocence, his purity. She sighed and held him tighter. She didn’t want to let him go. But she didn’t want to let go of her feelings for Tom either.

‘How was your night?’ she asked, her lips grazing the sweet-smelling fuzz on his chest.

‘It was …’ He paused. She felt him tighten up, heard his heart begin to pound a little faster, a little harder. But then he loosened again, kissed her behind her ear. ‘It was fine,’ he said. ‘Busy. But good.’

‘Good,’ she said, burrowing herself back into Alfie’s body, her hands curled in towards her chin. She took a deep breath to calm her heart. And as she did so, it hit her, hard and clear. The smell on Alfie. It wasn’t shower gel. He didn’t use shower gel. It was perfume. And it wasn’t hers.