He wrapped his arms around her, her cheek against his chest. She could feel the pulse at the base of his throat. He pressed his lips against the top of her head and, when she looked up at him, he kissed her again. The sensation travelled over her skin, ripples spreading from a stone thrown into water. Fleetingly she thought of the other time, years ago, up in the room that no longer existed, the rush of desire that had taken her by surprise. She hadn’t known then if he’d felt it, too – there’d hardly been a chance before Marianne and Turk came crashing in – but there was no doubt now. The kiss escalated in seconds, a dissolution of boundaries.
He pushed her coat off her shoulders and it fell to the ground behind her with a soft thud. Seconds later, his fell, too, and he pulled her upstairs. ‘Which room are you in?’ he said on the landing, his hands in her hair. Strange, she thought dimly, leading him down the dark corridor, to be taking him to her room here. She started to say so but he shook his head, Shhh, and backed her on to the bed. Kneeling at her feet, he unzipped her boot, cupped her heel with his hand then pulled the boot off.
Encircled by his arm, Rowan had an unpleasant memory of being in the same position with Theo only ten days earlier – not even that. But this wasn’t just a drunken thing, she told herself: she liked Adam, she always had.
Despite the coldness of the room, there was a light film of sweat on his skin. Turning on to her side, she propped herself on her elbow. She’d seen him in shorts and swimming trunks many times in the garden but his body had changed since then, become stronger and more defined. He’d mentioned over dinner that he’d rowed in California as a way to meet people outside the university, and now he was back at Cambridge, he’d rejoined his old coxless four. He was fit, flat-stomached, his arms and shoulders padded with muscle. The hair on his chest had thickened to become a soft triangle that spanned his pectorals and tapered to a point at his sternum.
She expected a smile but when he turned to look at her, his face was solemn. ‘It’s bad timing,’ he said.
Rowan’s stomach plunged. He was seeing someone. ‘Are you . . . going back overseas?’
‘No. I just mean, that this is happening now, that we’ll always associate it with Marianne dying.’
‘Yes. I know.’
‘But it is what it is. And I’m very glad about it.’ He pushed himself up and kissed her. ‘And thirsty. I’ll get some water – don’t move.’ He pulled back the sheets and swung his legs over the side of the bed. His back was tanned above a stark white line where his shorts must have begun and she imagined him running along a white American beach in dazzling sunshine. He showed no signs of self-consciousness as he walked naked to the door.
Rowan lay back against the pillow. She’d slept with Adam – she turned the idea over, feeling the strangeness of it. After the party, she’d thought about him, hoped, for months, but though there had been several gigs and other drunken parties that summer, they hadn’t ever got together again. At Christmas, he’d told Mazz he was in love with a girl called Saira at Cambridge and she’d had to accept that that was it. But now, years later . . . what did he think this was?
He returned with the bottle of Evian from the fridge door, sat down on her side of the bed and poured her a glass. When she’d finished, he filled it for himself, drained it and then got back in. His fingers found her hip under the sheet, doodled softly on her skin.
‘Do you remember,’ she said, ‘we kissed years ago, at that party? Mazz and Turk found us, we . . .’
‘I remember.’
‘Why didn’t we ever track each other down again that night?’ Or any other.
‘I wanted to – I was going to. And the next day, there you were in the kitchen and we’d had that one kiss and I just wanted to grab you and do it again.’
‘You should have. I wanted you to.’
‘Mazz asked me not to.’
‘What?’
‘She asked me not to get together with you – she knew I liked you, that it wasn’t just going to be a drunken thing. Well, maybe from your point of view,’ he raised his eyebrows, self-deprecatory, ‘but not from mine.’
‘I . . .’
‘She said it would be too weird, you and me getting together, her best friend and her brother.’
Despite all the time that had passed, the fact that Marianne was dead, for God’s sake, Rowan felt a rush of anger. The next day, while they were clearing up, filling one black bag after another with the bottles and plastic cups that littered the house and garden, Rowan had waited until she and Marianne were on their own then broached the subject of the kiss so that it didn’t become an issue between them. Marianne was the one who championed total honesty, transparency, but she hadn’t even hinted that the idea of Adam and Rowan together made her uncomfortable. She’d apologised again for bursting in on them and sympathised – yes, Rowan remembered quite distinctly – she’d sympathised that it seemed to have messed things up. And all the time, she’d secretly warned him off.