I said yes. Of course I said yes. The alternative was the night bus from Parsons Green at twenty past one, full of people who have also made decisions they will not respect in the morning, and I am not a masochist. I like a warm bed. I like not standing at a stop in heels that have already done their job. I like the version of the night that does not include me hunting for an Uber while my eyeliner is migrating south.
Sophie heard the kettle at six.
How we even got here
We had been at that cramped place off Old Compton Street that still thinks it is exclusive because the door is painted black. A friend of Mia’s birthday. Warm wine. A playlist that kept slipping into songs everyone pretends they only like ironically. He was tall enough, funny enough, and he had that London thing where he sounded clever without actually saying anything clever. Will. Finance adjacent. Lives somewhere that requires two changes and a walk, which is relevant later.
I was not hunting. I want that on record even if nobody believes me. I had done my lipstick in the mirror behind the bar twice, which I do anyway, and he watched the second time like it was a show put on for him. Maybe it was. I am not going to perform humility about that. Attention is not an accident when you dress for it.
We talked about nothing useful. Work he would not explain properly. A holiday he had booked and not taken. The fact that I write things down for a living and he found that “dangerous,” which is the sort of line men use when they want you to think they have depth. I let him have it. I was already bored of the party and he was standing close enough that boredom felt optional.
In the taxi he put his hand on my knee like he had invented knees. I almost laughed. Then I did not, because the hand was warm and I had decided, somewhere between the second drink and the coat check, that I was taking him home. That is the honest version. The pretty version is we had chemistry. Both can sit in the same sentence if you squint.
The ask
My room is at the back of the flat. You can hear the road if the window is open and you can hear Sophie’s door if anyone is being precious about privacy. I left the big light off on purpose. Overhead lighting is a crime after midnight and I have not spent this long on my face to be inspected like produce.
We were past the polite bit. Shoes off. His shirt in a heap that told me he does not fold things. I had already decided I wanted him, which is not the same as deciding I wanted a guest. Those are two different permissions and men love to smash them together.
Then, quiet as anything: can I stay?
Look. There is a whole performance available here. I could have said I have an early thing. I could have said my flatmates are weird about it. I could have done that modern thing where you have sex and then immediately start planning the exit like you have a board meeting. I did not. I was tired, I was still a bit drunk, and I did not fancy putting last night’s dress back on to go and stand in the cold.
So I said yes. Stay. Just do not be loud in the morning.
He looked relieved, which I found interesting. They always look relieved, as if the hard part was asking and not the fact they are now sleeping in a stranger’s bed with a stranger’s eyeliner on the pillowcase. I almost told him that. Then I thought, no, let him have the win. I had already got what I wanted.
What the night actually was
I am not going to write you a play by play. If you want that, there are other corners of the internet and they are welcome to it. What I will say is this. He was better than the conversation suggested and worse than the confidence suggested, which is the usual split. Hands a bit too eager at first. Then he caught up. I like a man who can take instruction without getting sulky about it. He managed that, just about.
There was a moment, after, where he tucked his face into my shoulder like we had done this before. That is the bit that catches people out. Not the sex. The quiet. The body deciding it would like to stay warm next to another body. I let him. I am not made of stone. I also reached for my phone on the floor, checked the time, and put it face down again. Habit.
I do not sleep well with someone new in the bed. I never have. You stay half awake listening to their breathing, wondering if they snore, wondering if you snore, wondering whether you should have taken your makeup off properly. I did not. I never do on nights like this. In the morning I will look like a rumour and I will deal with it then.
He slept like a person with no enemies. Typical.
Six o’clock and the kettle
I woke up because the bed felt wrong. Too much heat. An arm that was not mine. For a second I had that stupid blank where you cannot remember the name, and then it came back. Will. Black door. Taxi. Yes.
He was already sitting on the edge of the bed pulling his jeans on in that careful way men do when they are trying not to look like they are fleeing. I watched him for a bit. Morning bodies are honest. Less lighting. Less performance. He still looked fine, which helped my mood.
“Tea?” he whispered.
I should have said no. The kitchen is shared territory. The kitchen at six in the morning is a diplomatic incident. Instead I pointed him toward the door and told him the mugs are the ones that are not chipped, and the teabags are in the tin that looks too nice to be a tin.
That was my mistake.
The kettle in this flat is not subtle. It is old and it roars like it is personally offended by the concept of boiling. I heard it go from the bed. Then I heard a cupboard. Then I heard Sophie’s door.
I put my face in the pillow.
By the time I got to the kitchen he was standing there in last night’s shirt, holding two mugs, looking pleased with himself. Sophie was in her dressing gown with her hair in that bun she does when she is about to be reasonable at someone. She looked at me. She looked at him. She looked at the kettle like it had betrayed her.
“Morning,” I said, because what else do you say.
Sophie did that smile that is not a smile. “Hi.” Then, to him, very polite, “The green mug is Mia’s.”
He switched mugs immediately. Credit where it is due. Some of them would have doubled down.
I took my tea and leaned against the counter and tried to look like a person who had planned this. I had not planned this. I had planned sex and sleep and a discreet exit after nine, when Sophie would already be on the Tube and Mia would still be dead to the world. Six o’clock is a different country.
The bit nobody puts in the caption
He drank his tea too fast. Asked if I wanted breakfast. I said no before I had even thought about it, because breakfast is how a night becomes a morning and a morning becomes a question. I did not want a question. I wanted him out before Mia woke up and started doing a full inquiry with toast in her hand.
We stood in the hallway while he put his shoes on. He kissed me at the door, which was decent of him. Soft. Not sloppy. He smelled like my sheets and someone else’s cologne that had given up overnight.
“I’ll text you,” he said.
“Will you?” I said, and I smiled so it landed as a joke.
He laughed, which means he heard it as a joke. Fine. I will decide later whether I want the text. That is the luxury of saying yes to the stay and no to the story he is already writing in his head.
When the front door clicked, Sophie did not even wait for the footsteps to fade.
“The kettle, Chels.”
“I know.”
“At six.”
“I know.”
She poured the rest of his tea down the sink. Not in a dramatic way. In a hygiene way. Then she said, quieter, “Was he nice?”
That is Sophie all over. She will judge the timing and still check the temperature of the man.
“Nice enough,” I said. “Better than the bus.”
She shook her head, but she was almost smiling. “You are unbelievable.”
I went back to my room and sat on the edge of the bed in last night’s leftover makeup and looked at the dent in the other pillow. I should have felt something complicated. A bit of me did. A bigger bit of me felt smug that I had been warm, that I had been wanted, that I had not stood at a bus stop like a cautionary tale.
I took a photo of the two mugs in the sink before Sophie could finish washing them. Not to post. Not yet. Just in case the sentence needed a picture later.
Why I keep saying yes
People love a rule about this. Do not let them stay. Do not stay yourself. Do the sex and then leave so nobody has to see you in daylight. I have read all of that. Some of it is sensible. Most of it is fear dressed up as standards.
I let him stay because I wanted the rest of the night, not just the useful part of it. I like the weight of another person when the city has finally shut up. I like not performing an exit while I am still buzzing. And yes, I like being chosen twice. Once in the dark, and again when they could have gone home and did not.
Does that make it a relationship? Please. It makes it a sleepover with benefits and a slightly ruined morning. I can hold both. I have been holding both for years.
Will might text. He might not. If he does, I will see whether I still fancy the sound of his voice without the wine. If he does not, I still got a warm bed and a story Sophie will bring up at Sunday lunch for the next month. That is not nothing. That is, if I am being honest, quite a lot.
Mia woke up at ten and said the hallway smelled like a man. I told her it smelled like tea. She did not believe me. She never does.
I redid my face in the bathroom mirror, properly this time, and thought about the way he asked. Quiet. Hopeful. A bit pathetic, if you want to be unkind, which I sometimes do. They always ask once the lights are off because that is when they think you are already theirs.
I said yes because I was already mine, and the night bus can wait.
