Derek and Romy discover each other. It’s not what either of them ever expected.
Derek had expected Romy to leave.
He had expected it from the moment she arrived, really.
She was the sort of woman who made an entrance without seeming to notice she had done so. Tall, slender and effortlessly graceful, with dark brown hair falling past her shoulders and a face that seemed almost unfairly composed, she looked like someone who belonged in the life Derek had never quite managed to have.
She was wearing jeans, a loose white shirt and a battered leather jacket. Nothing remarkable. Somehow she made all of it look deliberate.
She stood in the doorway of Derek’s flat holding a small overnight bag.
“You live here?”
“Unfortunately.”
She smiled.
It was the first thing about her that surprised him.
The second was that she stepped inside.
Derek was handsome in a quieter way. Tall, lean rather than muscular, with dark hair that was perpetually in need of a haircut and an easy smile that appeared whenever he was uncomfortable. He had the sort of face people trusted without quite knowing why.
He also had absolutely no idea what to do with an attractive woman standing in his living room.
Romy looked around.
“You live like this?”
“I prefer minimalist.”
“You have three mugs.”
“Minimalist.”
She laughed.
“Do you have coffee?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
That was how it began.
Over the next few days, the circumstances kept arranging themselves into the sort of story Derek had seen a hundred times.
Romy stayed late.
Then later.
She laughed at his jokes, even the bad ones. She sat beside him on the sofa rather than in the armchair. Once, while reaching across him for the remote, she paused for just long enough that Derek became painfully aware of how close she was.
He waited.
Nothing happened.
The next evening they ordered takeaway.
The following evening they watched a terrible film and shouted at the characters.
Then Romy fell asleep halfway through it.
Derek sat beside her for nearly an hour, not moving.
In sleep, she looked younger. Softer. A strand of dark hair had fallen across her cheek.
He could have woken her.
He didn’t.
There was something profoundly strange about having another person asleep in his flat.
He had spent years thinking loneliness was the absence of people. It wasn’t. His flat had been full of people before. Parties. Friends. Dates. Neighbours dropping in.
Loneliness, he was beginning to realise, was the absence of someone who would still be there when nothing was happening.
Romy woke with a start.
“What time is it?”
“Nearly midnight.”
“Oh.”
She rubbed her eyes and pushed her hair back.
“You should go to bed.”
“I suppose.”
Neither moved.
Finally she said, “Can I tell you something?”
“Sure.”
“I don’t actually want anything from you.”
Derek laughed.
“That’s reassuring.”
“No. I mean it.”
She looked embarrassed.
“I know what this looks like.”
Derek looked around the room.
“What, two adults sitting on a sofa?”
“You know what I mean.”
He did.
And suddenly he realised that he had been playing the same game.
Every smile had become a signal. Every lingering glance had become an invitation. Every moment of silence had been interpreted as anticipation.
He had been waiting for something to happen because that was what stories like this were supposed to do.
“What do you want?” he asked.
Romy thought about it.
“I don’t know.”
She looked down at her hands.
“I think I want somebody to ask me that and actually wait for the answer.”
Derek didn’t know what to say.
So he waited.
Romy looked at him.
“There. That’s what I mean.”
“What?”
“You didn’t try to fix it.”
“I wouldn’t know how.”
“Exactly.”
They sat in silence.
After a while, Derek got up and made tea.
When he returned, Romy was looking at the photographs on the bookshelf.
“You don’t have any of yourself.”
“Never liked photographs.”
“Why?”
“I don’t like seeing evidence.”
“Of what?”
“That I was there.”
She turned around.
“You’re a strange man, Derek.”
“I’ve been told.”
“Who told you?”
“My mother.”
“She sounds perceptive.”
“Terrifyingly so.”
Romy laughed.
And Derek laughed with her.
It wasn’t dramatic. There was no sudden revelation, no music, no grand declaration.
Just two attractive people sitting in a badly furnished room at one in the morning, laughing quietly because something had finally become easy.
The next morning, Romy made breakfast.
It was terrible.
Derek ate it anyway.
“You don’t have to pretend,” she said.
“I’m not pretending.”
“You are.”
“Fine. It’s terrible.”
She threw a tea towel at him.
He caught it.
They both started laughing.
Later, they went to the supermarket because there was nothing in the flat except coffee, bread and half a jar of mustard.
They argued about cereal.
Romy wanted something healthy.
Derek wanted something with a cartoon character on the box.
“This is childish.”
“It has chocolate in it.”
“Exactly.”
“You’ve made my case for me.”
At the checkout, Romy looked at him.
“What are we doing?”
Derek glanced at the groceries.
“Apparently buying breakfast.”
“No. I mean…”
He knew.
He considered giving the answer he thought she wanted.
Instead he said, “I don’t know.”
She nodded.
“Me neither.”
They walked home carrying the bags between them.
That evening, Romy didn’t leave.
Neither of them mentioned it.
She simply put her overnight bag beside the sofa and began making dinner.
Weeks later, Derek would think back to that period and realise how often he had mistaken anticipation for happiness.
He had spent years waiting for the moment when something exciting would finally happen.
Instead, the important thing had been happening quietly all along.
Romy knew where he kept the spare mugs.
Derek knew how she took her coffee.
She knew when he was pretending to be fine.
He knew when she needed someone to sit beside her without asking questions.
Sometimes they talked until dawn.
Sometimes they watched television.
Sometimes they sat in the same room doing completely different things.
And sometimes, when one of them was having a bad day, the other would simply say:
“I’m here.”
That was all.
It turned out to be enough.
More than enough, really.
Because Derek finally understood that he hadn’t been waiting for somebody to desire him.
He had been waiting for somebody to notice him.
And Romy had.
She had noticed him.
She stayed.
And for the first time in a very long while, Derek stopped waiting for the story to begin.
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