Disclaimer: All recognisable characters are the property of Val McDermid and Coastal Productions. The title, and the line near the end to which it refers, are inspired by JK Rowling.
Easier Than Falling Asleep
He can't find her.
The crowd of academics, students and assorted riff-raff push and pull around him, and he cannot see her at all.
"Alex? Alex!" He calls out, as the countdown begins, whipping around and craning his neck, searching for her face with a desperation he can't explain.
Ten, nine, eight...
The crowd seems to pulse with expectation, but she is lost to him, close but nowhere to be found in the strobe-lit ballroom.
He seizes a glass of something masquerading as champagne from a passing waiter's tray and scans the room once again. The faces around him look joyous, but he is ridiculously miserable, as if something has been stolen from him. He hadn't even thought about it, not when he invited her to this god-awful party, not when he had picked her up and she'd looked more beautiful than he could possibly have expected. But now the opportunity is gone, and he is alone, at midnight on New Years' Eve, and not for the first time.
Seven, six, five...
He swigs the cheap sparkling wine in one gulp and deposits the glass on a side table; even from the wall he cannot find her, but he is desperate and so he strikes out into the surging, well-dressed crowd again, marvelling at the thought of people at rock concerts who do this for fun.
Four, three...
He begins to give up, and the people around him are so enthused that he feels it necessary to plaster a smile upon his face, biting back his disappointment.
Two...
A tap-tap-tap on his shoulder. Just like Alex, tapping on his front door, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel, on the touch screen of her phone. He has a dreadfully depressing image of Professor Sanders, with her lipstick-smeared teeth, looming in for a kiss, but when he does turn, with slow trepidation, his heart buoys in his chest and he begins to laugh.
"You're a hard man to catch, Tony Hill."
She is grinning, in her uniquely mischievous way, more lovely than any woman in this ballroom, or anywhere, and he is suddenly very happy.
"You found me."
One.
Her smile is utterly, utterly beautiful, and his heart swells as if to burst. Time slows like a movie as he reaches for her, fingers finding her impossibly soft cheek, and before he knows it, quicker and easier than falling asleep, he kisses her, and, in the space of a heartbeat, she kisses him back.