Will Harris rekindles the embers of an old flame

A few weeks after I bump into old flame S at a work event, I decide I will acquiesce and meet him for a drink. No one is more surprised at this turn of events than me. After all, when our previous entanglement unravelled, so that he could go trotting back to his ex boyfriend, I marked the occasion by sending him a furious opus of a text message, which rambled on for several adjective-filled paragraphs and caused the entire Orange network to collapse with nervous exhaustion for the rest of the day.

He was not to try to contact me, the message spat; not under any circumstances, not even if his life depended on it (all this high drama, so far as I can remember, had poured forth from the neck of a bottle of Sailor Jerry’s). The message was unequivocal. I was through. Done with him. So help me Beyoncé, if I never saw him again it would be too soon.

S, presumably fearful of aftershocks, has been careful not to pitch our meeting as a date. Instead, it is a ‘drink and a catch up’. “It doesn’t have to be any more or less than that,” his email reads. “I just thought it might be nice.” So, as I head off to our not-quite-a-date, I decide I am not quite sure how I feel about it.

But after wine has been poured, and pleasantries exchanged, it’s difficult not to click back into those old, comfortable patterns of conversation. You know, like when you bump into an old school-friend you haven’t seen for years, and you find yourselves gabbing away as if no time has passed at all. Like that. Only not quite.
“So what happened then?” I ask, eventually. “Things didn’t work out with you and old what’s-his-name?”
“No.” S looks up from his wine glass. “Much as I hate to say it, you were right.” I pull a face. “Sorry to hear that.”
“No, you’re not,” says S, matter-of-factly.

“It’s difficult not to click back into those old, comfortable patterns of conversation”

“I’m really not,” I laugh, reaching for the bottle. On it goes, on into the night, ice-breakers into anecdotes, anecdotes into banter, banter edging dangerously close to flirting. It’s nice. S offers to walk me to my train, even though it’s in totally the wrong direction for him, and I notice the conversation take on that self-conscious, slightly confused edge that you get when one or the other of you is plucking up the courage to make a move.
“It was good to catch up,” says S, at the entrance to the station. “Do you think we could do it again sometime?”
“Well, I’m not quite sure…” I start to say, but something stops me before I can finish. It is not-quite a kiss. Which seems appropriate.