We stayed in the pub until everyone had left, and Adam helped with the clearing up like it was something he’d always done. And when we’d switched off the lights and Alice and Freddie had said goodnight, we were left alone in the bar. We’d walked through into the vestibule, and this time there was no need to ask which of the four doors we’d choose. We turned left and climbed the stairs to my flat, my heart hammering and my knees feeling all trembly, and Adam filled Frazzle’s water bowl while I scooped out his litter tray, and although it shouldn’t have been the most romantic thing ever, somehow it was. It was like there was an electric current running between Adam and me that intensified whenever we passed each other, and sent sparks flying between us when our eyes met and we smiled. He’d probably say it was just static from the cheap nylon carpet, but I knew better.
‘Two hundred metres to go,’ I said. ‘You’re doing brilliantly, keep pushing. Yeah, we did. And it was off. The Scale. Like we’d had years of practice. Or maybe he’s just a natural at it, I don’t know. But it wasn’t awkward or cringe or anything, just lovely. Even when my cat jumped on the bed in the middle of it. Honestly, he and Adam have this total bromance going. Frazzle thinks he’s the best thing ever.’
‘He’s not the only one,’ Dani said, giving me side-eye from her position on the rower.
‘Oy! Who was it who just referred to her new boyfriend as “the most amazing person in the world”?’
Dani opened her mouth to argue – possibly to make the point that clearly, from her objective point of view, Mike was the most perfect man ever to have drawn breath, in which case I’d have had to argue the toss and tell her that clearly, going purely on the evidence, Adam was a superior human being, and it would all have got a bit silly – but fortunately she didn’t have the breath to say anything at all.
‘One more pull,’ I encouraged her, feeling like someone on Call the Midwife, ‘and you’re there.’
‘Right.’ Dani lay on her back on the floor, her chest heaving. ‘Your turn next, and then we’re done, right?’
‘Then can we go to that place down the road that does the incredible cupcakes?’
‘For sure.’
I got back on the machine, telling myself that I’d be finished in just another couple of minutes. But my legs were still feeling trembly with fatigue, and I knew I’d need all the help I could get to last the final kilometre.
‘So I take it you haven’t heard from Fabian again?’
‘Oh. My. God. I was saving this up to tell you over cake, but do you want to hear it now?’
‘Go on then.’
‘I didn’t hear anything from him for ages. Like, over a week. I was so relieved the calls and the bloody flowers had stopped, because I was starting to feel like I was living in a flaming funeral parlour and I kept having to go round to the old people’s home with these ridiculous bouquets, and I was worried they’d start thinking I was crushing on one of the residents. So I reckoned Mike warning him off had worked, and I was right. Kind of.’
‘What happened then?’ I panted.
‘Then, last Friday, I was at work, and he walked in through the door. Only he wasn’t alone.’
‘Oh shit.’
‘My mum was with him.’
‘What?’ Literally thrown off my stroke, I slowed down and almost stopped.
‘Keep going, Zoë. Think of the cupcakes. Yeah, he turned up with my mum, at my work. I almost died.’
‘But how…?’
‘Obviously I had no idea what had happened, but Mum explained it all to me afterwards. I’d told him a bit about her, how we didn’t have the best relationship and stuff, and how sad it made me, and how I hoped one day we’d be able to make things right again. I thought at the time he wasn’t listening, because he never really did, but he must’ve been. Because he found out her address and wrote to her.’
I kept rowing and didn’t say anything, but my mind was whirling. Fabian Flatley? Getting in touch with Dani’s mother to try and arrange a reconciliation between them? It seemed about as likely as Frazzle setting up a shelter for homeless mice.
‘He sent her photos of me,’ Dani almost whispered. ‘Of me… you know.’
‘Revenge porn?’ I gasped. ‘The bastard!’
‘Bastard is right. God knows what he thought was going to happen. I mean, it couldn’t have made things that much worse between her and me than they already were, right? But he picked a fight with the wrong person when he did that. Twenty metres to go… ten… and you’re done.’
‘Never mind done, I’m broken. So what did your mum do?’
‘She went full mama bear. She looked him up on LinkedIn – I didn’t know she even knew what LinkedIn was, but she did – and she found his work address and she got a train from Liverpool and marched right into the office and demanded to see him.’
‘What?’
‘I know, right. And when the receptionist told her he was in a meeting, she was like, “That man is trying to blackmail my daughter” – although he wasn’t really; he knows I don’t have two quid to rub together – “So you fetch him out of his meeting or I’ll walk in there myself and tell everyone what kind of person he is.”’
‘No way!’
‘Yep. So the receptionist went and got him and they sat in his office and Mum gave him the bollocking of his life and told him he ought to be ashamed of himself and she was going to go the police, and that must’ve put the fear of God into him because you know he doesn’t pay anything like the tax he ought to and he’s really paranoid about scrutiny of any kind. So he literally begged her not to, and she said she might reconsider if he deleted every last pixel – I didn’t know she knew what those were either – of every image he had anywhere of me, and got in an Uber with her right that second and went round to my work to apologise to me.’
‘Shut the front door!’
‘Yep. So the first I knew of it was them turning up and Mum saying, “Mr Flatley would like a word with you in private, Danielle,” and I was like, what the fuck? But what could I say? So we went outside and he said he’d treated me appallingly and he was deeply sorry, and he accepted my decision to end the relationship and wished me every happiness. And then he got in another Uber and went away, and I took the afternoon off and had tea with Mum.’
‘That’s amazing!’
‘Isn’t it? And she said she felt awful about having been cold to me all this time, and she should have supported me wanting to make a life for myself away from home, but she’d never known how to say sorry, and now she was. And I said I was sorry too, for not making more of an effort, and we agreed that Mike and I will go there for Christmas.’
I stood up and finished my water. ‘Well, that calls for a celebration.’
‘Prosecco with our cupcakes?’
‘Word.’
And we swished out of the gym together, Dani only pausing to blow Mike a kiss over her shoulder.
Thirty-One
Christmas Day
The sound of church bells woke me just before seven. It was still dark outside and I could feel cold seeping in through the window, which was open just a crack because Adam got too hot otherwise. But under the covers I was perfectly warm. I turned over, pulling the duvet up to my chin, and opened my eyes.
There was Adam’s dark head on the pillow next to mine, the black eyelashes sweeping down over his cheeks. And there, lying on his chest, gazing adoringly at him and purring like a freight train, was Frazzle. In the corner of the flat, a tiny Christmas tree twinkled with gold and silver lights, and under it was a small pile of carefully wrapped presents.
For a minute, I let myself luxuriate, still half asleep, looking at my two boys.
Then I sat bolt upright and said, ‘Shit, fuck, bollocks! The turkey stock!’
‘What?’ Adam pushed himself up on his elbows, careful not to disturb the cat who was already half his. ‘It’s Christmas Day, Zoë. The pub’s closed. You’re not going near a kitchen today.’
‘Oh. Oh my God, of cour
se it is. Merry Christmas.’
‘Merry Christmas. And happy day off. You’ve been working too hard.’
I smiled. ‘I’ve been working just right.’
He did have a point, though, I thought. The last couple of weeks had passed in a blur of mince pies, Brussels sprouts and chestnut wellingtons, Robbie and I both rushed off our feet. The Ginger Cat had been buzzing from the moment we opened the doors until late in the evening – or, as it seemed to me, from spiced pumpkin muffins to roast dinners, via turkey sandwiches, Christmas cake at teatime and sausage rolls on the bar at six o’clock.
Robbie had complained that he’d almost forgotten what Rex looked like, and Maurice had told me I looked like I needed a nice sit-down in front of the telly. The only night off I’d managed had been to go with Adam to his work Christmas party, at a five-star hotel. I’d been terrified of having nothing to wear and not knowing what to say, but he’d assured me that they’d all loved me and, amazingly, they seemed to, even though my dress was from eBay and my hair had frizzed.
But now it was all over, and I had two blissful days off in which I could do anything I wanted, or nothing at all if I wanted that.
I snuggled closer to Adam in bed, and felt the comforting warmth of his body and the weight of Frazzle’s. It was strange, I reflected, how the flat, which had always felt too small when Jude was there, seemed to have expanded, Tardis-like, to accommodate Adam. He spent most nights there, and I teased him that it was because when he went back to his place, he missed Frazzle too much.
‘Of course I do,’ he’d said. ‘But he’s not the only one I miss.’
‘So what do you want to do with your Christmas morning?’ he asked now.
In answer, I ran my hand up the hard length of his thigh, and Frazzle grumpily got up and moved to the end of the bed, where he spent the next half an hour looking pointedly away from us while we celebrated Christmas in the best way ever.
‘You know,’ I said afterwards, ‘I never thought this would happen. I thought I’d completely blown my chances with you. I was sure you weren’t interested, and if you were, I’d managed to put you off.’
‘Ha! I was interested from the moment I first saw you, when you came over to ask me about D&D.’
‘But you didn’t even want to do it! I practically had to beg.’
‘That was just because I was too worried about showing myself up in front of you and the entire pub, and blowing my chances. And then whatsisname came on the scene…’
‘Jude. You know a weird thing? I saw him a couple of weeks back, when I went into town for a drink with Dani. He was with a girl. His friend, Indigo. But they didn’t look like they were just friends.’
‘You didn’t mind, did you?’
‘Mind? God no. Why would I? She’s welcome to him. I’ve got you, now.’
Adam pulled me closer. ‘You do. For as long as this lasts.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘It’s just… I can only truly thrive when I find someone who shares my world view and my long-term vision of the future.’
‘I…’ I began, and then I stopped. I wasn’t sure what to say and, more importantly, I wasn’t sure what Adam was saying. Was he telling me he wasn’t as confident in our relationship as I was and trying to put that on me? Was he going to dump me on Christmas morning, right after we’d had sex?
If he was, it would surely be a new low in my dating life – possibly in everyone’s dating life, ever. I’d be the world’s most disastrous dater, officially. In years to come, there’d be a blue plaque outside the Ginger Cat, saying that Zoë Meredith, the unluckiest woman in love, had lived there.
I swallowed and waited for him to carry on, still in the warm embrace of his arm. If this was the end, I was going to enjoy every second of happiness with him while I could.
‘I find it hard to conform to society’s norms and expectations,’ Adam went on. ‘Many people who think they know me, don’t really. And of course, because I’ve been single for so long, I’m often thought of as the eternal bachelor. My friends all say I’ll never settle down until I find a woman who’s one hundred per cent perfect for me.’
‘But…’ Then I stopped again. I might as well hear him out.
‘My attitude to sexuality can appear somewhat transactional,’ he said. ‘Casual friends-with-benefits arrangements appeal to me while I flit through life, relishing my independence, wary of putting down emotional or practical roots. And because I have the image of the perfect woman in my head, it’s often hard for a real-life relationship to live up to that.’
I turned my head against his shoulder and looked up at him. His eyes were solemn, but there was the beginnings of a smile turning up the corners of the lips I loved to kiss so much.
Suddenly, I realised what he was up to.
‘Adam! You’ve been reading stuff about Aquarius men, haven’t you?’
He burst out laughing. ‘I wondered how long it would take you to realise.’
‘If your work ever sack you, you could get a job working for Fabian Flatley. And I’ll have you know that Aquarian women can be prone to bouts of fierce temper, so you’d better watch out.’
‘What does your app thing say about today then? Because if it says there’s a picnic hamper hidden behind the bar downstairs, containing what Fortnum & Mason describe as a luxury plant-based feast for two, I’ll be seriously impressed.’
‘What’s in the feast, though? Because you might want to bear in mind that Aquarian women, while unencumbered by the expectations of society, have exacting standards that are entirely their own.’
‘Let me check.’ Adam reached sideways for his phone, careful not to disturb Frazzle or me. ‘Organic Perugian olives. Fair trade dairy-free chocolate ganache selection made from single-sourced Ecuadorian cacao beans. Sourdough bread made with wild Cotswolds yeast. Sustainably produced mushroom pâté. Smoked Catalan almonds from bee-friendly orchards. Half a case of champagne. And three packets of truffle crisps, only I got those from Archie, not Fortnum’s.’
‘Hmm. It’s not sounding too bad so far.’
Frazzle got up from his perch at the end of the bed, stretched all his four legs in turn, then strolled up and nestled in between Adam and me. I thought about the parcels under the Christmas tree that I’d wrapped for Adam, which were from both me and my cat, and hoped he’d like the signed edition of the Dune books I’d got off eBay, the bottle of his favourite shampoo I’d found out the brand of from Tansy, and the framed picture of Freezer I’d asked his last shared cat’s owners to send. I was just as proud of them as he was of what he’d bought me, but there was no way I was hinting at any of it.
‘Anything else?’ I asked.
‘Four packs of Oreos, a box of cat treats and two bottles of extra-hot chilli sauce,’ Adam finished smugly. ‘They were from the corner shop. So what does your Stargazer app make of that?’
‘I haven’t a clue,’ I told him. ‘I deleted it round about when you kissed me out in the garden.’
‘How about Tinder?’ He looked at me again, now definitely smiling.
‘I deleted that, too,’ I said.
If Thank You, Next had you laughing out loud, grinning like a Cheshire cat and loving Zoë’s happy ever after, then don’t miss out on Sophie’s incredible bestseller Sorry Not Sorry. This joyful and hilarious romantic comedy will have you roaring with laughter and craving a delicious margarita.
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Sorry Not Sorry
Is this all there is? I scraped the last dregs of Caramel Chew Chew ice cream out of the bottom of the tub with my finger and licked it. It left a sticky smear on my phone’s screen when I typed into Google, ‘How to find love, sex and happiness.’
Charlotte has always been a good girl. But being good is getting boring…
She’s not just stuck in a rut – she’s buried in it up to her chin. The only company she has in bed is the back catalogue of Netflix and falling in love feels like the stuff of fairy tales. So when
she stumbles across a popular podcast, ‘Sorry Not Sorry’, which challenges women to embrace their inner bad girl, she jumps at the chance to shake things up.
Old Charlotte would never ask for a stranger’s number, go on a blind date or buy lacy lingerie… But New Charlotte is waving goodbye to her comfort zone (with a side order of margaritas). And it turns out that good things happen to bad girls…
A fabulously feel-good novel that will make you laugh till you cry and leave you living life to the full, margarita in hand! If you’re a fan of romantic comedies by Sophie Kinsella, Lindsey Kelk or Matt Dunn, and love TV shows like Girls, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and Jane the Virgin, you won’t be able to put down this hilarious read.
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On the day this book is released into the world, I should have been waking up with the mother of all hangovers, dragging myself into the shower, eating cold pastry with leftover roast pork for breakfast, then carrying my share of at least forty empty prosecco bottles out to the recycling.
Thank You, Next: A perfect, uplifting and funny romantic comedy Page 27