While this story is fine to read standalone, there is a (short) prologue to this story called Friends That Go Bump in the Night which helps to set the scene a little better, describing the night from a month before mentioned in this story. Either way, I hope you enjoy.
Sitting back and watching the green fields of the English countryside roll by through the train window, Anna sat back and relaxed. This weekend reunion with the girls, her core group of friends from her university years twenty five years before, was going to be fun. Two nights without squabbling kids or a lovely but fairly useless husband, back in their old stomping grounds... perfect.
The one fly in the ointment, and she wasn't sure if it was one, was that this would be the first time that she had seen Nathalie in person since Nathalie's steamy nocturnal visit to Anna's bedroom a month before.
After her best friend had left her room that night, leaving Anna exhausted but elated that they'd finally revisited their one night stand from university twenty five years before, Anna hadn't known what to expect next. But the next day she'd woken up excited at what the future might hold. Thrilled at what might come next. Finally, after 25 years of unrequited desire for her friend, it had happened, and she knew without a doubt that Nathalie felt the same, not least because Nathalie had been the instigator.
What she hadn't expected though was... nothing.
At breakfast the next morning Nathalie had acted as if nothing had happened between them. That was probably a good thing as seated around the breakfast table were also Anna's husband and children but still... Anna had hoped for something, even just some tacit acknowledgement, a look when they made eye contact or an accidental brush of their hands. Anything.
Nathalie had left that morning for the long drive back to her house where she lived alone giving Anna a perfunctory hug, breaking away when Anna tried to hold on a moment too long. And when Anna had messaged her privately later that day Nathalie's replies had been perfectly friendly but with no hint as to what had happened between them.
Since then Anna had been too afraid to initiate contact for fear of pushing Nathalie away, and their interactions had all been through the group chat set up for the reunion. Again, perfect friendly, but Anna was desperate for some indication from Nathalie as to what she thought about what had happened, one way or another.
In the meantime the memory of what had happened between them was living rent free in her head. At work, at home, out for dinner with her husband, she found herself suddenly slipping into daydreaming about it, fantasising about how it could play out again.
So... a pretty big elephant in the room when she saw Nathalie later. But, Anna was determined that she wouldn't let it get in the way of her having a fun and relaxing weekend.
They had arranged to meet for lunch at a favourite restaurant and Anna was the last to arrive, putting her overnight bag to one side and taking the last spare seat at the table after much hugging and greeting her friends.
As luck would have it Nathalie was seated at the far end of the table, although Anna wasn't sure if it was good luck or bad luck. On the one hand she was desperate to talk to Nathalie directly, to see how things were between them, but on the other she didn't want any weirdness between them to be obvious to her other friends.
Instead, Anna caught up with the friends sat nearest to her and was soon engaged in a deep conversation about the school woes that one of those friends was currently going through with their kids.
Glancing to the other end of the table, Anna couldn't tear her eyes away from Nathalie. She was wearing a casual blue dress which fit well on her lean, sporty physique, accentuating her slim waist and perfect breasts. Her shoulder length light brown hair was half worn down, half in a top knot and she wore a necklace and multiple earrings as well as a bracelet that Anna had given her many years ago for her 21st birthday. Anna wasn't sure if that was deliberate or not, but it gave her hope when she noticed.
My God, thought Anna, she's beautiful. I want her so much. Her mind started drifting to imagine Nathalie minus the dress, and she felt her breath catching at the thought.
At that moment, Nathalie glanced over and made eye contact with Anna, before looking away again. Anna felt her heart sink. There had been nothing there, if anything the expression on her face and the way that she'd looked away so definitively without a further glance back was cold, dismissive. There was a hardening of the eyes and a pursing of the mouth that, while barely noticeable to anyone else watching, said with crystal clarity yes, something happened but no, there is nothing there. Zero.
Throughout the meal Anna kept stealing glances but Nathalie didn't so much as look her way, even when Anna was saying something to the whole table.
Anna didn't know what she'd expected, only that she had hoped there would be something. The prospects of a repeat of the night a month before were dwindling and, while Anna wasn't sure if that would be a good idea anyway, she had certainly hoped that there would be some spark there, something that could then lead to something more.
Covering her disappointment up well, Anna continued talking to her friends and, that aside, thoroughly enjoyed the lunch that lasted well into the afternoon.
When they'd finished, the six of them dropped their bags off at the three bedroom apartment they'd rented, leaving them with the concierge who promised to get them up to the apartment in one piece as it was still being cleaned.
Free of baggage, they had an appointment for the second half of the afternoon at a spa that had recently opened in town. Despite her disappointment from lunch, Anna soon got into the mood of things and by the time she'd had a massage and was relaxing she genuinely was relaxed. Ok, she thought, nothing happening on the Nathalie front. Never mind. This is still an opportunity to spend some time away with some of my dearest friends. Forget that one night, that is irrelevant now.
As afternoon turned to evening the group went for cocktails at an old haunt of theirs which was still going strong 25 years on. Finally, Anna found herself sat next to Nathalie with the opportunity to see how things really were between them.
"Did you drive down?" Anna asked.
"I thought about it but parking can be tricky, so I got the train. You?"
"Same." They lapsed back into silence, both clearly overthinking what to say next. Their stilted conversation had gone on like this for the last ten minutes and was going nowhere, the elephant very much in the room.
Finally, making sure that no one else could hear over the music in the bar, Anna said, "Were you ok after you came to stay?"
Nathalie looked at her for a second, then said, "Yes, but... I don't want to talk about it. You?"
"Err... yes, I was ok thanks. Tired the next day but ok," replied Anna, trying to make a joke out of it. "I just wanted to check how... well, how we were? I mean are?"
Nathalie looked Anna in the eye, and said harshly with a shake of her head, "It was a mistake. A silly mistake. Can we forget about it?"
That hit Anna hard. She could understand it might be awkward, that they might have some things to talk through, but forget about it? Dismiss it just like that? For Anna that night had been the fulfilment of twenty five years of longing. It wasn't just something to be dismissed as a silly mistake. It had meant something to Anna.
She felt tears welling up and thought to herself please, please can I not burst into tears in front of everyone. Anna choked out an, "Ok, consider it forgotten," before excusing herself and locking herself in a toilet cubicle, taking some time to pull herself together.
Anna was subdued after that for a while, but by the time the group moved onto dinner she was back in the spirit of things and that continued right through to the bar they went to after.
The one thing that Anna was conscious of though was that Nathalie was keeping clear of her, not engaging in any one to one conversations and soon slipping away when Anna joined any conversation that Nathalie was already in. Anna started to grow worried that not only did Nathalie want to forget their silly mistake, but also that their friendship had suffered irreparable harm. She didn't know what to do.
"That's... not ideal," said Nathalie quietly with classic understatement. It was close to 11pm and the friends had just arrived at the apartment having chosen who they were rooming with at random. Fate had intervened and dictated that Nathalie and Anna would share a room, something that neither could wriggle out of without letting on to their friends that something was up. So instead they both had to grin and bear it.
Anna turned to look at her, and keeping her voice down replied, "No, it's not. These were supposed to be twin rooms."
In front of them was a very nicely decorated and appointed master bedroom, with a large ensuite bathroom, but with one critical flaw... instead of the two single beds that their friend Fiona had booked was one, standard sized double. The sort that, while nominally for two adults, was always going to be a squeeze, the chances of not bumping against each other during the night slim.
"Do we say something?" asked Anna.
"We can't," replied Nathalie quietly. "Fiona has put so much effort into organising, she'd be devastated to find this isn't right. She's on a knife edge as it is, she was almost in tears telling us about her domestic woes earlier."
"You're right. You're ok with this though?"
"I'll have to be. First world problem, right?"
"Right." Anna looked around the room and then at Nathalie and smiled. "So, you want the left or right side of the bed?"
Nathalie smiled back, and Anna felt a little spark of joy inside her. Maybe things weren't quite as bad between them as she'd feared?
They took it in turns to get changed into pyjamas in the bathroom, then went to re-join the rest of their friends to drink tea and eat biscuits in the apartment's living room.
It was gone midnight by the time the friends all headed off to their respective beds.
Nathalie and Anna both brushed their teeth at the same time, sharing the sink in the ensuite, and each took some time to go through their usual bedtime routines of make up removal and sorting out their hair. Both had seen each other so many times without make up on that neither would even have noticed the difference.
