‘Yes! This is incredible,’ Jo sighs quietly.
‘So – when I say I wondered if you’d like to go for dinner sometime …’ Lucas draws breath and continues: ‘What I really wonder is, if you, too, hope we have one of those first dates that turns into days and nights, not only due to lust but because we can’t stand to be apart.’
A lady-gasp goes up from the table, and I blush.
‘What I really mean by dinner is, I wonder if you’d like me to take your top off again in a hurry, and this time not because it’s covered in stripper urine.’
I guffaw.
‘A lot of history here indeed,’ Rav murmurs.
‘I wonder if you’d like to end up spending so much time at each other’s places, sooner or later it makes sense to get our own place. With room for Keith, obviously.’
‘Who’s Keith?’ Clem loud-whispers.
‘My dog,’ Lucas says.
‘Oh I’m sorry I thought you had an idiot brother or something. Carry on,’ Clem says, while Rav puts his hand over her mouth.
‘I have that as well,’ Lucas says.
‘What about room for Jammy?’ I say.
‘And Jammy, certainly.’
Lucas draws breath.
‘I wondered if you wanted someone to help zip your dress up before a night out. I wondered if you wanted someone to call first in a crisis. I wondered if you wanted someone to text to bring you fish and chips when you can’t be arsed with a proper dinner. I wondered if you wanted someone in your corner when you visit your family, someone who will tell them how lucky they are to have you. I wondered if you wanted someone to fetch the Lucozade when you have the flu. I wondered whether, if that comedian shitbag ever comes within ten paces of you, I can hit him in the face. To be honest if I see him, I will probably do that whether I’m your boyfriend or not because he is an utter shitbag and he has it coming. No court in the land would convict.’
My friends applaud and shout ‘hear hear’. Lucas reaches out and takes my hand in his, his warm fingers curling around my palm.
‘I wondered, Georgina, if you could imagine being in love with me again, the way I’m in love with you. And that given you’re the best thing to ever happen to me, if you could give me the chance to try to be the best thing that ever happened to you.’
‘Ah my God,’ I say, because I’m half-laughing, half-crying, as it seems is everyone else, except Rav, who mutters: ‘Well cheers, the bar just went up for the rest of us.’
I stand up, straightening my tiara.
‘I want all those things, from you. Thank you. Offer accepted. I’m going to hold you to the chippy run in particular.’
‘Did I embarrass you? I think I made good on only embarrassing myself.’
‘You … I falter, as declaring yourself is difficult enough with this little gallery of eager faces in the Lescar. ‘… It was everything I could ever want, to be honest. You are everything I could ever want.’
It wasn’t embarrassing until now, but reaching the And We Kiss moment with onlookers? Yeah, that is.
We look at each other uncertainly and Lucas says: ‘Excuse us for a moment, please,’ and holds his hand out for mine. I take it and let myself be led out of the pub. We head through the doors and into the arctic cold of the street and Lucas turns, pulls me to him and kisses me with a passion that is still somehow unexpected. It’s got a purpose to it that’s so incredibly hot: something he’s waited and planned and wanted to do, and now he’s demonstrating just how much he wanted to do it. I can feel our future in this kiss.
I kiss him back just as hard, my fingers in his hair, this time not needing to persuade him of anything, not having to hope. I thought nothing could rival how we felt as teenagers, but I was wrong. This time is better. This time, we’re not blank sheets of paper, we’re grown-ups who’ve written who we are, who’ve decided who we want to be. We’re bringing so much more to each other, and saying we want to share it.
When we break free, Lucas says, nodding his head towards the door: ‘Sorry, but I have my limits with what I’m prepared to do with an audience. I’m not that modern.’
‘Neither am I,’ I laugh. ‘I’m stuck in … I think 2005 was the glory year, for me?’
‘And for me,’ he says, hand on my face. ‘God. Georgina. I’ve missed you. Why didn’t you call me?’ Lucas moves both his hands to my upper arms. ‘All you had to do was say you wanted me around, and I’d have come running.’
‘You went back to Ireland!’
‘I only said that when you asked me, to make it clear I wasn’t – you know. Looming over you, and moping. Haunting you, like Heathcliff. I thought it was obvious I’d be back and forth. I thought the speech about how I was dementedly in love with you was enough encouragement, if that’s what you needed.’
‘In love with me twelve years ago.’
‘Why would that have changed? Nothing’s changed. Actually, that’s not true. I feel even more for you now than I did then.’
Lucas and I nearly lean in to kiss again, and Lucas hesitates. ‘I have to say I’m only one more kiss away from saying let’s sack your birthday plans off and dragging you off to my cave, and that feels rude to your friends. Shall we save it for later?’
I laugh, and agree. Later. I can hardly believe it will arrive, and yet this time, it will.
We turn, go back inside, still holding hands.
‘I’m thinking you’re stopping then, Lucas,’ Rav picks up a pint and places it in front of him.
Lucas shrugs off his coat and takes the spare chair, still holding my hand tightly, and Clem and Jo clasp his arm in the over familiarity of half-cut emotion. A small moment is incredibly large, and everything has changed.
We got here. The long way round.
As the evening rolls forward, Lucas, politely concentrating on the conversation, holds my hand underneath the table, unable to let go. I wind my fingers through his.
I glance at him, and his dark, amused, intelligent eyes meet mine.
I don’t know what he’s thinking. I look forward to finding out.
Acknowledgements
It takes a village to raise a child and it takes quite a few people to make a book, so, hoping very much I don’t forget anyone here goes. Thank you to my editor, Martha Ashby, for all her hard graft and tireless dedication in making it the very best it can be. Our two-hour phone call discussing storyline deserves a special mention alone. Other editors would’ve reasonably bailed at least the one hour mark of but maybe, how about this … thinking-it-through, but you were nails. And I like to think the value of that patience is all on the page. Thanks also to the whole team at HarperCollins for your enthusiasm and support, without going too ‘Gwyneth’ you always make me feel valued – Lucy Vanderbilt, I now live for your seal of approval. No pressure. Props to Keshini Naidoo, my copy editor, a funny joy and a great respecter of text: thank you once again.
Much gratitude goes as always to my unflappable agent Doug Kean of Gunn Media, to paraphrase Fleetwood Mac, you make working fun.
I’m so lucky to be in an industry where women generously ‘signal boost’ each other, as they say, so thanks to Lindsey Kelk, Paige Toon and Giovanna Fletcher for being absolutely the best wenches and so nice about the last book. This is the first chance I’ve had to thank you in print and by God I’m taking it.
Thank you to my first draft readers, you always help more than you realise – Ewan McFarlane, Tara de Cozar, Sean Hewitt, Kristy Berry, Jennifer Whitehead, Katie and Fraser, Jenny Howe and Laura McFarlane (great notes! You gonna go far, girl).
Thanks to Julian Simpson and Stuart Houghton for being my de facto office colleagues in the magical internet space and providing jokes worth nicking.
Thank you to my brilliant readers, because I’m on my fifth outing and still blown away you give me a book’s worth of your time! I hope I earn it. (Shout out to superfan Kay Miles, I always love hearing from you.)
Thanks to all friends and family who cheerfully let me use their anec
dotes, keep me sane and accept they’re not going to see much of me around a deadline, without complaint. (Maybe it’s a bonus to be fair.)
And last but never least, thanks to Alex, for his endless belief and support. I’m only mad and sweaty and still in pyjamas at 3pm some of the time during the artistic process, be fair.
‘The perfect balance of romcom and drama!’ GRAZIA
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An achingly funny story about how to be your own hero when life pulls the rug out from under your feet. From the author of the bestselling You Had Me At Hello
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‘Think of the great duos of history. We’re just like them.’
‘You mean like Kylie and Jason? Torvill and Dean? Sonny and Cher?’
‘I think you’ve missed the point, Rachel.’
Rachel and Ben. Ben and Rachel. It was them against the world. Until it all fell apart. It’s been a decade since they last spoke, but when Rachel bumps into Ben one rainy day, the years melt away.
They’d been partners in crime and the best of friends. But life has moved on: Ben is married. Rachel is not. Yet in that split second, Rachel feels the old friendship return. And along with it, the broken heart she’s never been able to mend.
Hilarious, heartbreaking and everything in between, you’ll be hooked from their first ‘hello’.
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Anna Alessi – history expert, possessor of a lot of hair and an occasionally filthy mouth – seeks nice man for intelligent conversation and Mills & Boon moments.
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About the Author
Mhairi was born in Scotland in 1976 and her unnecessarily confusing name is pronounced Vah-Ree.
After some efforts at journalism, she started writing novels and is a Sunday Times bestselling author. Don’t You Forget About Me is her fifth book. She lives in Nottingham, with a man and a cat.
Also by Mhairi McFarlane
You Had Me At Hello
Here’s Looking At You
It’s Not Me, It’s You
Who’s That Girl?
About the Publisher
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Don't You Forget About Me Page 32