He asks for five more minutes with Theo and I take a bench on the lawn, reluctantly agreeing to wait. I watch Tom and Theo engage in deep conversation, Tom’s hands gesticulating like he’s defending himself, Theo pointing at him and shaking his head, disagreeing time and time again – not taking any shit.
See, that is what I want… a man who isn’t full of shit and can see things for what they are.
I really hope Lily knows just how lucky she is.
Chapter Eight
May arrives and I’m zooming towards Heathrow in the Golf, heading over to pick up Chloe, who’s arriving a month in advance of Lily and Theo’s wedding to get her bridesmaid dress organised, plus her life, I expect. All I know is that Cole isn’t coming back with her… and I think there may be a lot to discuss.
I park up and wait for her in the arrivals hall. I’ve been keeping an eye on her flight, which appears to have landed on time. She should be here any minute, so long as her luggage didn’t get mislaid.
I’m looking down at my phone when a trolley pulls up next to me. “Fucking hell, Sass, live on that thing, much?”
She throws her arms around me and chuckles. I squeeze her tight and lift her off the ground, spinning her around.
“God, I had to get fucking trolleyed on the plane to get any sleep. I feel like death. It’s terrible.”
I cover my mouth and laugh, my eyes wide. “Oh my god.”
“What? What?” she asks, looking down to see if she’s got a rogue bit of food stuck to her or something.
“You sound so Aussie, that is so fucked up!”
She flaps her hand in front of her. “Oh, bloody hell, woman.”
“Oh my god, this isn’t right!” I grab her trolley for her and she drapes herself across the luggage, pretending to pass out.
“I’m dead, literally, dead. I’ve crossed time and space and been spat out, my cells rearranged wrong. Uh, don’t ever travel to the end of the world, Sass. It’s murder getting back.”
“Shurrup ya face while I get you to the car. Then you can stuff yourself with KitKats and salt and vinegar crisps and pink and whites and twiglets until your heart’s content.”
“Oh my god, I love you!” she screams, getting off the trolley and doing a little dance as I push her luggage over the ridiculously uneven roads and kerb edges, everything rattling around. “Did you bring dandelion and burdock as well?”
“That I did, you weirdo, that I did.”
“What did I do to deserve you?”
“Don’t fucking know, bitch.”
As I anticipated, she’s halfway through a KitKat in the back of the car when she falls asleep, her chin to her chest. I drive back to mine grinning like a Cheshire cat.
She’s back!
She’s just about awake when we get back to London. I park the car in the underground garage of my apartment building and she stares at me. “Sass has gone up in the world?”
“Ooh, you bet I have.”
“Fucking hell, woman.”
She looks around at all the cars parked alongside mine. They’re all a little snazzy, let’s say. My Golf looks a little humble compared to the others, but I don’t want to part with it just yet. I have one foot in New York and one here… I can’t make any new commitments.
We take the elevator and get to my floor.
“Are you ready?” I ask her, spotting her tugging and pulling at her printed t-shirt and her Daisy Dukes like she really wants to get out of them and feels unbelievably underdressed.
“Better had be, hadn’t I?”
I swing the door open and she peers inside. “No?”
“Yes.”
“All yours?”
“Yes,” I say, nodding.
“No? I mean, no. Come on.”
I throw my head back laughing. “All mine.”
She wanders into the flat as I pull her two huge cases inside alongside a weekender bag and a couple of rucksacks she must have battled to get through security… full of knick-knacks, by the feel of things.
“What the hell did you do?” she asks. “Rob a bank?”
I chuckle and slam the door shut, heading for the kitchen area. The thing I love most about this place is that it’s nearly all open plan… there isn’t even a door on my bedroom.
“I’ve earnt a lot of commission, let’s just say that.”
“This is amazing, and those views of the river… spectacular.”
“Being a bitch pays off,” I say, giggling, setting the kettle to boil.
She starts hand feeding herself from her bag of twiglets. I’m assuming this strange snack doesn’t exist in Oz.
“You’re not a bitch,” she growls, standing by the windows and watching the world outside. “Fuck, it’s mega to be back.”
“Couple of weeks here and that accent will be dead and gone, that’s for sure. And your optimism.”
She laughs hard and asks, “So, what the fuck have I missed? What the fuck has happened? I need to know everything. Every dirty, filthy little thing. Come on.”
I carry two cups of tea to the living area and we sprawl across the square sectional seating. When I bought this place, almost everything was included – this white leather couch being one of the items this place came with. I guess they don’t plan for single women buying places like this, all on their own. I haven’t had the time to go sofa shopping and replace it. After all, when I sell this, it’ll probably be a single man who buys it.
“Where do I start?” I ask her.
“Anywhere.”
“Shouldn’t we start with you first?”
She rolls her tired blue-green eyes and fluffs her tragically unkempt hair… definitely need to take her to my salon very soon.
She squints because it’s so light in here, her body clock no doubt screwed. I could press the button for the blinds to come down, but we need her to stay awake until proper beddy byes.
“Well, Cole proposed with a plaggo ring. I said no. The end, goodbye!” She takes a deep breath and moans with pleasure as she sups a proper cup of Yorkshire tea, which they definitely don’t have out there.
“What the hell, woman? I don’t… hang on! When did he propose? I mean, how? Why? What happened! I’m overloading here.”
She shakes her head and rubs her face. “I’m not ready to digest it yet. I don’t wanna talk about it. All I know is that he only asked me to try and get me to stay. It was too little too late.”
“Yeah… but… he did propose? And did he promise to be a good boy if you get married?”
She slaps her hand against her forehead. “I knew you’d be like this. Closet fucking romantic, you are.”
I smile, glad she’s getting back some Yorkshire sass. “You’ve been gone two years nearly, Chlo. Two fucking years. I’ve slept with at least fifty very beautiful American men during the time you’ve been gone. And you’ve been out there, with him, for two fucking years and you come back and tell me he’s proposed and that you’ve rejected him… and yet… TWO FUCKING YEARS, Chloe. That means something. It means you love him. Plus, he’s amazing. You’re not gonna do any better for yourself.”
She flails her arms around, annoyed with me, and with the whole thing, I’m betting.
“No, you can’t still be…” I see that look in her eye. That moony look. That same look she used to have when she was shagging Adam. “That’s why you’re back here. Because I said things were on the rocks with them.”
“I can’t help it,” she barks, “there’s unfinished business. I can’t forget him and what if Cole knew there is another guy in the world that I love? He’d fucking freak.”
“You don’t love Adam,” I exclaim. “He has this weird hold over you, that’s all. You worry he’s the one that got away. Which he didn’t, by the way. You just stopped hanging around with him. You’re the one who ended it.”
“Yeah, because he was clearly ashamed of me.”
“I don’t think so. I just think you were kids and it happened because you were helping him to explo
re something new… and at the end of the day, he can’t have loved you back or else he would’ve come after you, and you know it.”
She rubs her forehead and sighs. “You’re not inside my head, Sass. You don’t know what it’s like.”
“I don’t.” I can’t disagree with her there. I’ve never loved anyone.
“Cole is fucking amazing and yeah, I probably love him, but it all started as a bit of fun and he’s so often made me feel like I’m his reserve. Like I’m safe or something. It’s hard to explain, but he’s never done anything to prove his commitment to me and the proposal was half-arsed and silly. He didn’t declare his undying love. In fact, I think his exact words were, ‘Babe, what do you think? How about it?’”
“So, he’s emotionally stunted. So what? Isn’t he good in bed?”
“Yeah.”
“Isn’t he hot?”
“Yeah.”
“Isn’t he rich and well turned out and a bloody beast of a guy?”
“Yes, yes, yes,” she agrees, “but I’m back here now. What will be, will be. I’ve been on my jollies far too long. Got far too comfy. It’s time to get back into the swing of things. Out there, it’s just one perpetual holiday.”
I sigh and try to hide my huge disappointment. Maybe she’s changed a little. She has a great tan and thinner legs than she did before. She has some amazing natural highlights in her hair and she looks healthy. But deep inside, she’ll always be that girl who knows her mother doesn’t value her, so who else will? She will always be second best, whatever situation she finds herself in, because that’s what her mother brought her up to believe.
“Well, she’s a fucked-up whore like we always knew,” I tell her, knowing we’ve squeezed the subject of her and Cole dry – she’s not going to talk about that in any more depth, she’s closed it off.
“Susan? What’s she done?” Her eyes suddenly light up.
Maybe she sees a path back to Adam… a way inside. I don’t know.
“She’s got fertility issues but she made Adam think he was the one who was deficient.”
“How the hell—”
“I only know what I’ve heard from Theo and Lil but apparently it chronically backfired because even when he thought he was infertile, he refused to let Susan’s dad pay for IVF. He put his foot down.”
“Hot damn.”
“And she’s five years older than Ads.”
Her face changes completely, shock and horror. “NO!”
“He didn’t know. She just… didn’t tell him. Didn’t correct him, rather.”
She bites her nails and shakes her head. “We knew she was mental, though.”
“It’s really sad. I think it’s really sad. One, that she thinks she has to tell all these lies. Two, that Adam is still defending her, even now. Three, that she couldn’t be honest about her issues. Adam’s a good guy. He would’ve been okay with it all. I don’t understand why she lied.”
“She must have had IVF before… that’s why.” Chloe is stroking a finger under her chin, her body posed in thinking mode.
“She did. Apparently, she was once engaged to a guy who used to work for her dad, Boris. Adam didn’t even know she’d been engaged before. That she’d also had IVF with this other guy.”
Chloe frowns, utterly perplexed, which is not surprising. In my emails I’ve been brief about comings and goings. Some things just aren’t to be written down. Once it’s in someone else’s inbox, you don’t know who else might see it.
“So. Wait, what? She has had IVF with Adam?”
I nod fast. “She must have really done a job on him if he was reluctant at first.”
“It sounds like a story you read about in one of those trashy mags.”
“Yeah, but it’s true. The last thing I heard from Lil, they’d exhausted IVF for a while and don’t have any other options right now if they want to conceive naturally. Plus, she got wind of us and Marie being bridesmaids and has been sending Lily some rather unfriendly texts.”
Chloe’s face turns to thunder. “Not our Lily.”
“Yep, she’s even going after her now. And she told me at Theo’s funeral that if any of us get between her and Adam, she will make us pay. All of us.”
Chloe’s jaw falls open. “And she threatened my Sass?”
“Oh yeah, she proper threatened me, at a wake no less. Accused me of bitching to Lily about her, all sorts. And when I said you’d likely be back for the wedding, you should have seen her face. She is such a child.”
“That’s it, then. I’ll have to go back to Leeds and sort this out. I don’t have any other choice. She can’t keep getting away with this. I should’ve dealt with it when she threatened me but instead, I ran off to Oz. Not this time, though. She has to be dealt with, Sass. I’ve gotta find out more… maybe from her ex. He must know what she’s really like. Perhaps if Adam knows he’s not alone, that she’s done this sort of thing on this level before, he will be able to move on and escape. I don’t know. But we can’t let her continue being a bully on this kind of level.”
It’s clear Chloe is dog-tired and rambling a bit, but I know she will do anything for her friends and this isn’t just Adam now who’s affected. Lily is receiving horrible texts and both me and Chlo have been threatened.
She finishes her tea and the pack of twiglets, staring at me with bleary eyes.
“You need to sleep,” I say.
“Sorry, yeah.”
“Okay.”
I go into the bedroom and pick up all the bedding I laid out for her earlier. Taking it back into the living room, I unfold the middle of the sectional seating so it becomes a big bed.
“Bloody hell, this is alright,” she says.
“Bloody bachelor pad bullshit,” I grumble.
She laughs loudly, even snorts. “I missed you, Sass. Big time.”
“Me too.”
“But you know, while I was in Oz I lived every day for two years knowing there were all kinds of creatures lurking always within a few feet of us. Snakes, lizards, huge, hungry marsupials, not to mention all manner of spiders, insects and other unknown dangers… and yet, the thing that still scares me most is that I left behind something in Leeds I shouldn’t have done. And it feels like I need closure.”
“You have to go back.”
“Yeah, do you hate me?”
“No, I don’t understand why you’d go back, but I don’t hate you. I’d love it if you moved back to London again. Obviously, you’d probably want your own place. But… if you have to go, you have to go.”
“You don’t ever miss home?” she asks, looking around at my rather minimalistic, modern space… for a space is all it is.
“It doesn’t feel like I’ve found home, yet,” I admit, as she gets comfy beneath the covers.
“You don’t ever just drive up to Leeds, ride round, look at all the places we used to go and sigh, reliving all the memories?”
“No,” I chuckle.
“No?”
“How can you miss something that holds so many bad memories? Besides, the best time of my life was when we first moved to London. It really hurt me to let go of that flat… and that was when I was moving into Gregory’s Chelsea pad temporarily while I got sorted. If you think this place is swanky, well…”
She smiles, a little sad. “Still the same old Sass, just richer.”
“Just… I don’t know… doing what I do.”
“Eh, put the telly on, love,” she says, like I’m her old man and she’s a past-it little lady.
I grab the remote and the TV comes out of the floor.
“NO WAY!” she screams.
“As I said, fucking bachelor twats.”
She laughs. “I’d live here.”
“You’d live anywhere with a TV and a bed.”
“Very, very true.”
She puts on some crap daytime TV while I make myself a salad in the kitchen. I eat it at the counter on a stool and let the TV keep playing even though she’s snoring already.
/> Each of my old friends – even Chloe now – are being proposed to or proposing. I feel a lot left out and a little deflated about Chloe going back to Leeds. I’ll drive her there of course, once she’s acclimatised and got herself together. I’ll leave her there like I’m fine when really, I’ll be crying inside.
It’s true what they say about making friends being such a hard thing to do the older you get. I have acquaintances but I don’t think I could ever be friends with people who’d want me to speak about my past or about my family or anything like that. With the St Anne’s gang, we have enough history that we don’t have to go into detail about any other crap – because we’ve been and done so many things together, therefore we know one another through all that. It’s a type of joint history that, in many ways, means you don’t always have to explain yourself to them.
With that thought, I’m reminded of Robert, who may have been the closest thing to a romance I ever came to… and what a disaster that might have been.
I shake off the memory of him in his beautiful white shirt, his hair perfectly styled, his big eyes full of mischievousness and… perhaps a lot of deceit.
Maybe I’ll never know.
Chapter Nine
A June wedding. It’s a perfect day. A crisp morning, clear skies, promising much more sun later on and a fresh breeze to keep us cool in these clingy pink bridesmaid dresses. If only my own serenity extended to everyone else.
We’re gathered at the house Lily grew up in and the bride is having a meltdown in the make-up chair. Her stylist is trying to convince her she doesn’t have pregnancy freckles, but it’s quite fucking obvious she does. Chloe has tried calming her down with half a glass of champagne, but that only made her cry, too. I can see why you’re not meant to have sex before marriage now. Marie is somewhere chasing after the flower girls and ring bearer. Lily’s sister Lauren is absolutely useless, more interested in her own dress (looks gopping on her). Meanwhile, the mother-of-the-bride just got a menopausal headache and has gone upstairs to take some really strong painkillers and wrap her head in a cold towel.
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