In the privacy of her own head, Rachel agreed with him.
‘You’re not made-up,’ she argued, pushing the thought of Jack to one side and waving a finger at Tom. ‘You’re right there.’
Tom rolled his eyes at her pedantry. ‘I will be your not-invented-but-fake boyfriend on your birthday. For one night only. But, Rach, this is a standalone performance. I won’t come out of retirement after this – so no more lies.’
‘I promise,’ she said as Anna waved at her to hurry up and start the short walk home. ‘As soon as my birthday party’s over, I’ll find a way to end the charade. And, Tom? Thank you.’
He nodded at her wearily, his arms limp and hanging at his sides. ‘Don’t mention it.’
He threw her a weak, joyless smile before he shouted goodbye to Anna and Will, then turned and headed home.
26
On Saturday evening a fortnight later, Rachel and Anna were walking through Clerkenwell towards the venue for Rachel’s birthday party. They’d both dressed up for the occasion, Anna in a leather miniskirt and Rachel in heels, black skinny jeans and a vintage chiffon blouse the colour of Parma violets.
‘That shade makes your hair look insanely red,’ Anna had said approvingly before they left the flat, insisting that Rachel amp up the drama by donning a darker shade of lipstick than she’d usually wear.
Rachel had complied, and Anna was right – she looked good. She should be feeling good too, but the absurdity of what she and Tom were about to do wouldn’t leave her alone; it was buzzing around her head like a wasp, determined to sting her before it deigned to fly away.
Also, she hadn’t yet confessed to Anna that this evening was the stage for a fauxmance of the kind you’d usually see in a made-for-TV movie. But they were almost at the piano bar, and she was going to have to warn her friend what was coming before they went in.
‘You’ve told Jack WHAT?’ Anna demanded after Rachel’s first attempt at an explanation. She was aghast, and she had less than five minutes to adjust to the news that tonight, Matthew, Tom was going to be … Rachel’s boyfriend!
It wasn’t only cowardice that had led Rachel to leave her admission to the last minute. She knew that Anna wouldn’t approve of the ruse, and the less time she had to get indignant and teachery about it, the better.
‘In my defence, I didn’t tell Jack anything. At least, not to begin with,’ Rachel said. ‘He made an assumption I chose not to correct, and … well. Perhaps it ended up going a bit far.’
‘A bit far?!’ Anna thundered. ‘That’s one way of putting it. For God’s sake, what a MESS … And I presume this is all for the sake of driving Jack wild with jealousy?’
‘Not exactly,’ Rachel said, choosing this moment to examine, then pick at, the rough edge of a fingernail. ‘Though it does appear to have had that effect. It was as much about trying not to feel so pathetic around him – trying to send a signal that he couldn’t just pick me back up and play with me whenever he felt like it.’
Anna let out an angry breath that Rachel was surprised didn’t ignite the fence they were standing next to. ‘After everything – the cheating and the endless tears and the bottomless rage – you couldn’t send him that message another way?’ she asked, incredulous. She shook her head briefly, as though she were embarrassed on Rachel’s behalf. ‘Did it even work?’
Rachel felt like the wind had been knocked out of her. ‘Not exactly.’
Anna was wearing a pained expression, as though she could smell something unpleasant.
‘And Tom is in on this?’ she asked. ‘He’s agreed to this ridiculous pretence?’
Rachel nodded weakly but kept quiet – fearful that saying the wrong thing might fan the flames of Anna’s rising, righteous anger.
‘I suppose you didn’t think at all about Tom’s feelings,’ Anna said, starting to walk again. ‘About how this might affect him.’
‘Well … I suppose it’s annoying for him,’ Rachel mumbled, not quite sure what Anna was expecting from her and stumbling to keep up as she strode around the corner. The piano bar was now in sight. ‘And I know it’s wrong of me to have involved him in a lie.’
Anna squeezed her eyes shut and took a deep breath. ‘Un-fucking-believable.’ Rachel noted that her friend’s shoulders had travelled several centimetres north towards her earlobes. Also that she was swearing, which years spent in the classroom had largely cured her of – no matter what the provocation.
Anna sighed, then seemed to collect herself. ‘We don’t have time to talk about this now; your birthday guests – or should I say audience? – await.’
Rachel flinched at her sarcasm.
‘The one thing I will say is this,’ Anna went on. ‘In all the years I’ve known you, I’ve never thought of you as manipulative. Guarded, definitely. Scared to let people in. Economical with the truth at times, for the sake of self-preservation. But this is game-playing, Rach: messing with other people’s emotions for your own ends. And it seems not to have occurred to you that someone might get hurt.’
With that, she marched forward, pushed open the huge wooden door to the bar and went in, holding it open behind her.
Reeling, Rachel followed.
That could have gone worse, she told herself – though she wasn’t entirely sure how.
Will handed Rachel an amaretto sour, and after eating the sticky cherry garnish off the side she told herself to sip it slowly. Resist the temptation to neck it.
The cold tang of the drink was delicious on her tongue: a welcome distraction from the weirdness of the situation. Almost everyone who’d been invited to her birthday celebration was here now, and she’d already dealt with Kemi’s astonishment at being introduced to her ‘boyfriend’.
‘I’d have believed you weren’t shagging Harper if you’d told me you had a hottie at home,’ she’d said, dumbfounded. ‘And he is super-hot. Maybe even more so than Jack, if you’re into the sexy scientist look.’
Rachel had bristled at this. ‘Tom’s a graphic designer, Kemi. Not everyone who wears glasses is a scientist.’
‘Whatever. He’s still a total snack,’ she’d said, shrugging. Rachel, unreasonably annoyed by the exchange, had been glad when Ella appeared and Kemi flew screaming across the room to greet her.
The combination of bourbon and amaretto in her drink had already begun to tamp down Rachel’s anxiety. What was initially a rolling boil of worry in her stomach had reduced to a simmer. She suspected she’d be able to ignore it altogether by the time this glass – or maybe the next one – was empty.
A moment later Tom was back from the bathroom. With some difficulty he squeezed himself onto the velvet-covered bench that Rachel, Anna and Will were already sitting on, separating her from the others. Greg and his husband Carlos were sharing their booth – one of several that had been reserved for Rachel and her friends.
Tom could have sat next to Greg, in the obviously available space on the other side of the table. When she looked at him to query why he was squashing her, he widened his eyes in a meaningful stare. ‘We’re supposed to be an item, aren’t we?’ he whispered when no one was looking. ‘And wasn’t this your idea?’
It felt odd being this close to Tom when it wasn’t strictly necessary. They were crushed together from shoulder to knee, their legs touching under the table and their arms colliding each time one of them moved. It wasn’t uncomfortable or unpleasant, but it was definitely unsettling.
He smelled so much like himself: of citrus, soap powder and something else enticing that she couldn’t put her finger on. It was the same fragrance she’d noticed that day in the beer bar, when he’d gone off on his mysterious date. All of Rachel’s senses were overloaded, short-circuiting. The nearness of someone large and male, the noise of the bar and the sharp sweetness of her drink were all conspiring to muddle her thinking.
Carlos’s voice cut through the general clamour and brought Rachel back to the moment. ‘It’s lovely to meet you, finally,’ he said. ‘Greg’s told me so much a
bout you.’
‘Oh God,’ she laughed, ‘don’t believe a word he says.’
‘I’m told you two are great friends,’ Carlos chuckled, his low voice and Spanish accent somehow making the word friends sound softer and warmer.
Carlos was taller and more conventionally handsome than Greg, with high cheekbones, abundant white-streaked hair and eyes the colour of chocolate truffles – but he lacked the easy, open confidence that came naturally to his husband.
‘Well, that’s true,’ Rachel said, smiling. She looked at him and Greg side by side and decided they were well matched. A look of perfect understanding passed between them and Rachel felt briefly envious: painfully aware of her isolation. Greg was sure to quiz her about her own relationship the moment his chance arose – and for a few short seconds she sincerely wished it weren’t faked.
Impatient to get some singing underway, Anna and Will went to find out when the band would begin playing. Tom and Carlos made their way to the bar for more drinks and – as Rachel had anticipated – Greg immediately rounded on her.
‘So, tell me about Clark Kent,’ he said. ‘I want to know everything – or as much as you can spill in the time it takes for him to buy you another cocktail.’
‘Who?’ Rachel asked, nonplussed. Greg looked at her like she was the most tiresome person on the planet.
‘Your tall drink of water over there,’ he groaned, gesturing at Tom. ‘He’s lovely, but he clearly plays it down. He’d stop traffic with those eyes if he started wearing contacts.’
Rachel nodded, dumb, and felt herself flush. Then she told herself it was stupid to be coy. If she felt embarrassed, it should be because she’d allowed a tiny lie to become a huge one and – as of tonight – had dragged poor Tom into helping her maintain it.
‘Stacked too,’ Greg pronounced, always happy to hold a conversation mostly with himself. ‘Nice arms, and I bet he has abs for days underneath that T-shirt.’
Rachel flashed back to bumping into Tom in the park, seeing him peel a layer of damp fabric away from the stomach muscles it had stuck to. Her cheeks were burning.
‘Oh my God, you’re smitten,’ Greg said, amused by Rachel’s silence. She felt terrible – sickened by her own dishonesty.
Before Greg could say anything else that made her want to curl up and die, Tom reappeared. He sat down on Greg’s other side and within seconds they were chatting like old friends. Rachel felt her shoulders sag in relief. He was playing his part brilliantly.
‘Music’s going to start in ten,’ Anna said, plonking herself back down at the table. ‘So people can start requesting songs anytime now. Will and I already have about five numbers on the list.’
Rachel smiled and raised her glass in salute, and Anna mirrored the gesture – but her answering grin didn’t make it as far as her eyes.
Tom looked at Rachel and mouthed the word ‘Five?’, then set his face in a horrified grimace.
Rachel laughed, and he laughed with her. Perhaps this was all going to be fine.
Jack arrived at the bar just after nine – fashionably late and armed with a large gold gift bag.
‘Happy birthday,’ he said, leaning in to kiss Rachel on the cheek. ‘Sorry I’m a bit late. You look gorgeous.’
‘Thanks,’ she said, taking the present from him and willing her heart to stop hammering. ‘You really shouldn’t have, though.’ Inside the bag was a bunch of beautiful pale-pink roses and a bottle of champagne.
Anna and Will were halfway through a lusty, tuneless rendition of ‘I Got You Babe’. Greg was watching them, boggle-eyed at the massacre of a beloved Cher song, and Carlos was talking to Tom.
‘Drink?’ Jack asked Rachel, inclining his head towards the bar and throwing his dark-grey jacket over the back of a nearby chair.
‘A glass of fizz, please,’ Rachel said. She watched him move through the mass of drinkers in the main bar, marvelling as several people – men and women – tried to catch his eye in the seconds it took him to cross the floor.
Then Tom was beside her, his hand on her shoulder. ‘So. That’s him.’
‘Yeah.’ Rachel nodded.
Jack had somehow managed to jump the bar queue; he was being served already. He didn’t even do it deliberately, she thought – things like this just seemed to happen for him, and he let them.
‘I get it,’ Tom said. She turned to look at him, eyebrows up. ‘I mean, he’s obviously handsome. And he has some charisma, which a surprising amount of beautiful people lack. He looks like he belongs in an ad for an heirloom watch brand.’
Rachel wasn’t sure what to say. Tom wasn’t being nasty – in fact everything he’d said about Jack was complimentary. It just didn’t sound that way.
‘You’re absolutely sure you want to let him think we’re together?’ Tom asked, pushing his glasses up his nose a little and looking down at Rachel for an answer. She felt a bit like a first-year student who’d just been asked a tricky question by the not much older but significantly better-read tutor she wanted to impress. Her stomach turned over.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. We have to – I mean, as long as you’re still willing. I promise that after tonight I’ll spin some story that sorts this out. You won’t have to lie for me a second time.’
‘Okay, then,’ Tom replied, looking at her steadily. His grey-blue eyes seemed to blaze in the semi-darkness of the bar. Then he took her right hand and held it in his left, weaving his fingers through hers as Jack made his way back to them.
Jack handed Rachel a glass of cava, then extended his hand to Tom.
‘Nice to meet you,’ he said. ‘I’m Jack.’
It was almost as if he expected some sort of reaction; like he thought Tom would wince or turn suddenly pale when he realised who he was meeting. Tom looked blank, as if he’d never even heard of him.
Rachel felt like laughing, and was also morbidly satisfied to note that Jack stood a good three inches shorter than Tom – who took full advantage of the height difference when he leaned forward to greet him.
‘Tom,’ he said. ‘Nice to meet you too. You’re a colleague of Rachel’s.’
It was a statement rather than a question, and it didn’t entertain the possibility that there could be – or ever had been – anything more between Rachel and Jack.
Rachel was impressed. Tom, whose default setting was affable, sunny and smiling, was suddenly ice-cold. His poker face was outstanding.
Annoyance flashed on Jack’s face, so briefly that Rachel would have missed it if she’d blinked. He smoothed out his features, then took several deep pulls on his bottle of beer.
After a few more minutes of stilted, awkward conversation, Rachel, Tom and Jack drifted over towards the stage. Someone was hitting all the high notes in a heartfelt rendition of ‘Somebody to Love’ by Queen, and when she got close enough to make out his face, Rachel was astonished to discover it was Theo.
Kemi, Ella and Ella’s boyfriend whooped and cheered as Theo finished, triumphantly belting out the final ‘tooooooooooooo looooooooove’ and bowing as he made way for the next performer.
Greg was up now, singing ‘Your Song’. What he lacked in melody he made up for with feeling, swaggering up and down the stage and imbuing every word he sang with high emotion.
Kemi and Ella had found Jack, pulling him into a conversation he looked desperate to escape. He looked over at Rachel pleadingly, clearly appealing for assistance. She shrugged at him and tried not to laugh. Tom was holding her hand again.
Rachel felt eyes on her and looked up to realise they were Anna’s. There was a crease between her pale-blonde eyebrows. She glanced at Tom, then back to Rachel, then at their entwined fingers. She turned to talk to Will.
He’d apparently taken the news of Rachel and Tom’s fake date far better than Anna had, electing not to ask questions but instead concentrate on enjoying the evening. If Anna had hoped Will might talk his friend out of what she’d called ‘this ridiculous pretence’, she was sure to be disappointed. Accord
ing to Tom, the sum total of his reaction had been, ‘Bit weird, but okay.’
As Greg left the stage, the karaoke compère began reviewing his list of would-be performers.
Tom tucked Rachel’s hair behind her left ear, then whispered into it: ‘Don’t freak out, but you’re next.’
‘What?!’
‘Rach, we have to stop them from singing again, at least until we’ve had a few more drinks.’ He indicated Anna and Will. ‘Come on, we both know nobody in here deserves to suffer through their version of “I Know Him So Well”. Consider this your civic duty. Also, you’re the birthday girl: you need to have your moment in the spotlight.’
Rachel was smiling nervously, still unconvinced.
‘Okaaaaay, do we have Rachel ready to sing?’ the compère asked through the microphone, his eyes sweeping the room.
‘If you don’t, they will,’ Tom breathed in her ear. Then he twisted around a few degrees to look at her, his face stony and serious – as if they were in an action film and she was the only person who could defuse the bomb.
‘Oh, fine!’ she laughed. Sod it. How bad could it be?
Rachel waved her arm above her head to make her presence known, then pushed to the front of the crowd and climbed up to take the stage.
The band struck up and she recognised the song immediately: ‘Valerie’, as performed by Amy Winehouse. Being up there was less scary than she’d expected. The lights that illuminated the band and stage shone so bright in her eyes that she could barely see the people watching her. It was freeing, and before long she was fully absorbed in her own performance – strutting and shimmying as she sang, reacting to the cheers of the audience.
Then it was over, and Tom was helping her down off the raised platform.
‘That was ace,’ he said, gathering Rachel into a bear hug. She wasn’t sure whether the embrace was real or for show, but she leaned into it anyway.
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