My phone buzzes and my first thought is: my missed call from Izzy, but when I see Liam’s name on the ID, I smile … and the day just got better. It’s like he knows when I need him to bounce off. He’ll understand. I laughed at him when he got together with Vanessa, but he just smiled knowingly and said one day I’d understand. He’s probably the only friend I have who would not take the piss out of me for getting hooked on a girl after one night.
I hit the green button on my screen. “You fucking fell off the face of the Earth, man. Where the hell have you been?” I ask with a laugh. I wait to hear his snarky comeback, but there isn’t one. Instead, I hear a strange sniffling sound. “What’s up, bro? Are you sick?” I ask warily.
“Tyson?” A woman’s voice, thick with tears.
Just like that, my blood runs cold.
Chapter Ten
Izzy
“Stop being so coy and bloody well tell us what happened last night,” Lina demands.
The dressmaker is getting Charlotte into her meringue dress, a complicated affair with boning, petticoats, tapes and stuff so we’re staying well clear and having a quick glass of champagne outside the bedroom.
“I had a great night,” I say casually. “We went dancing to this really fun sixties club, then we ended up in his hotel room.”
“Ended up in his hotel room? What the hell kind of story is that?” Catherine huffs. “We need details, girl. How many times? Positions? Length? Girth? You know, the usual works.”
“Well, at least tell me the guy has a small dick,” Kylie says, gulping down her champagne.
I smirk.
“What?” she explodes. “Are you telling me he is to-die-for good looking, rich, famous, and has a big dong too!” She shakes her empty glass at me. “I’ll say this for you, Izzy Faraday. You sure know how to pick your one-night stands.”
I frown. “It was not a one-night stand. We’re meeting for dinner tonight.”
Not only Kylie’s but both Lina’s and Catherine’s jaw drop. “What?” all three cry in unison.
I had to pinch myself in the taxi because I simply couldn’t believe what happened to me could be real so I totally get their surprised faces. “Yeah, we’re meeting for dinner tonight,” I say, and can’t help feeling totally smug about it all. Tyson is so amazing. Everything had been so perfect.
“Are you guys going to date?” Lina asks in a shocked voice.
“I don’t know.” I shrug. “We didn’t get a chance to talk much last night—”
“I bet,” Kylie interrupts sourly.
“But I really hope we do. He’s really special,” I say ignoring Kylie’s sarcastic comment. “Anyway, we’re meeting for dinner to talk. He wanted to come for the wedding, but I didn’t think it would be fair to Charlotte. It’s her big day, and the last thing I wanted was to make it anything else but her day.”
Catherine is the first to let out a whoop of joy. “That’s incredible, Izzy. I mean, do you realize that you’ve hooked up with the famous Tyson Eden? The guy who’s been voted by GQ as the number one guy you’d sleep with in secret, but wouldn’t take home to meet mama.”
I grin. ‘Last night was perfect, Cat. Just perfect. It was everything I ever dreamed of.”
Catherine grins back, genuinely happy for me. “I’m glad to hear that, honey. You deserve a good man.”
“Be careful though. He’s known to be a player,” Kylie says.
“Stop raining on her parade,” Lina scolds Kylie. “A man is a player until he meets the right woman. Look at Clooney. The guy was a confirmed bachelor until he met Amal.”
“That reminds me. I should call him. He asked me to give him a missed call so he has my number too,” I say, digging into my purse, my stomach lurching with fear. I search all round, then frantically pour the contents of my purse out, but my phone’s not in it.
“Don’t tell me …” Catherine says.
I look up at my friends with a frown. “I can’t believe it. I’ve lost my phone.”
“Where was the last time you had it?” Lina asks.
“I keyed in his number in the hotel room and remember putting it back into my purse in the elevator. I must have dropped it in the taxi.” I pause. “Or maybe I left it at Monsieur Armand’s shop when I went to collect the ribbons.”
“You’ve got everything backed up, haven’t you?” Cat says.
I nod. “Except his number.”
“Can’t you call him at the hotel?” she says.
“No, he said he was going to see his friend who lives two hours away about a horse.”
“I don’t think you should call him, anyway. You don’t want to seem desperate,” Kylie says.
Lina turns to Kylie. “Excuse me. Don’t want to seem desperate? You’d have rung his phone five times by now if it was you.”
“Never mind, I’ll just see him tonight.” I look at Catherine. “Do you think he will be upset that I didn’t call?”
“Of course not. He will just assume that you were busy with the wedding. Talking of the wedding here comes Charlotte.”
I turn towards the bedroom door and Charlotte is standing there with a horrified expression on her face. “I tore the veil,” she wails.
We all rush towards her. It is only a tiny tear and Catherine who is a whizz with DIY stuff says she can repair it with a bit of glue. I run downstairs to look for glue. I will think about Tyson later.
Chapter Eleven
Tyson
“Vanessa?” I ask in disbelief. Only she would call from his phone … and there’s only one reason why she would call in tears.
“Yes,” she confirms with a sniff.
‘What’s wrong with Liam?”
“First off I got to tell you that I’m going against Liam’s wishes here. He didn’t want me to tell you. We’ve argued about it numerous times. I’ve told him he should tell you, that you would want to know, but …”
I grip the phone tight. “Tell me what, Ness? What is it?”
She lets out a choked sob. “I’m calling from the hospital, Tyson. Liam’s been here for weeks.”
“What?” It should have come out as a shout because there was a lot of emotion behind that word, but it exits as a horrified whisper.
“I’m so sorry. I wanted to tell you—”
“For what?” I manage to sputter.
“It’s cancer, Tyson. They operated last night.”
“What the fuck?” That comes out as a shout, shocking the people bustling around me. “Liam’s got cancer? For how long?”
“He’s known for six months.”
“Six months!” I exclaim, utterly shocked. Liam is the only true friend I have. He’s more like a brother. He’d have my back no matter what, and the same goes double for me. I’d do anything for him. And he didn’t even want to tell me he has cancer. Cancer! Him? My head spins.
“Tyson, I’m sorry,” she sobs brokenly. “I know it isn’t right, and I told him so many times that you would want to know. That you deserve to, but … he didn’t want to see pity on your face. He didn’t want anyone feeling sorry for him. And he knew you would, because you love him. I know you do.”
“Oh, fuck,” I whisper, stunned. He’s twenty-six, just like me. People in the prime of life don’t normally get cancer. That’s for people who don’t take care of themselves, the ones who smoke and drink too much, and eat food full of nitrates and shit like that. Not us.
“He knew there was nothing you could do for him. There was nothing any of us could do, believe me. I’ve been with him every day and I’ve never felt so helpless in all my life. Watching him waste away …”
I shake my head, wishing I could make sense of the thoughts racing through it. Liam has cancer. He’s dying. He’s wasting away. And he didn’t tell me. “You said there was an operation?”
She sniffles loudly. “The operation went all right, but something happened overnight. I don’t know what, but since then he’s been going downhill. They’ve been working on him all day. They can’t tell
what it is, but it seems like his body’s just … I don’t know, just shutting down. Tyson, please come. They don’t think he’ll make it past tonight.” She breaks down then, sobbing horribly. I can’t sob. I can’t even muster a tear. I can’t feel anything.
“I’ll be on the first flight out,” I promise.
“Please, hurry. I’ll tell him you’re coming. I know he would want to hold on for you, Tyson.” I get the address. There’s a fist squeezing my heart when I end the call. Liam, you fucking idiot. How dare you not even give me the chance to help?
I pull up a random travel site on my phone and search frantically for flights to Ireland—my fingers keep hitting the wrong buttons at first, but I eventually manage to schedule a flight going out in two hours. I buy the ticket on the spot and rush back to the hotel.
I rush up to my room and start throwing things into my suitcase, cursing him, mourning him, and wishing I could wring his fucking neck for being so stubborn and stupid. He is dying in some hospital bed in Ireland and there’s nothing I can do about it. He should’ve known I would want to be there, the jackass. A lifetime of being my best friend and he thought it would be all right not to tell me he was fuckin’ dying.
Suddenly, I remember Izzy.
“Damn it!” I whisper, running my hands through my hair. I look around, frantic, in a panic. I’m losing my fucking mind. I grab the phone that I tossed on the bed. I have to keep myself from hurling the damn thing to the floor when I see she still hasn’t given me that missed call.
I pace my suite restlessly like a caged tiger.
She’ll call soon. She’s just busy doing whatever bridesmaids do. Fuck, what if she calls while I am airborne? I change the recorded message on my phone’s answer machine. My message tells her that I have to fly to Ireland on an emergency and could she leave a number and I’ll call her back.
Another thought hits me. What if she doesn’t have the time to call and she is just planning on showing up in Costa tonight? Another thought hits me. Maybe she hasn’t called me yet because she was in such a hurry to get her ribbons she made a mistake with my number.
In that case, she won’t hear my message. She’ll think I ditched her. That I was never serious in the first place. She was only a fling. I imagined her sitting there, waiting for me, hopeful. Until enough time passed and she knew I wasn’t going to show. I could actually feel her pain as though someone were stabbing me.
The thought of hurting her is almost as crushing as the pain of my best friend dying. Like a knife to my heart. She doesn’t deserve to be hurt like that, especially when hurting her is the last thing I want to do. It is at that moment I realize she’s even more special to me than I had recognized.
I slump on the bed. I have enough time to leave her a message with the staff at Costa.
I snatch my suitcase, check out, and rush out of the hotel. Outside I flag down the first taxi that comes my way and direct the driver to the pub in question. While we’re on the way, I call Louis to cancel my lunch with him, then I shoot emails to Ralph and several others, letting them know about the change in plans. Ralph gets back to me instantly, telling me he’ll handle things on his end. He knows how much Liam means to me, the brother I never had.
“Wait here, please,” I say when we pull up outside Costa. I fly through the door and up to the counter. I ask to speak to someone who can understand English.
One of the girls comes towards me from the other end of the counter. “Can I help you?”
“Yes, please. Will you be working here at about seven tonight?”
“Yes, I am working, how do you say, is it … double shift?”
I nod quickly.
“Yes, double shifts tonight.”
“Good. I need you to do a big favor for me,” I explain as I fumble with my phone, searching for Izzy’s photo. “I’m supposed to meet this girl here at seven tonight, but I have to leave the country because of an emergency. Do you understand me?”
She nods. “Yes.”
“I don’t have her number. I need her to know that I’m not standing her up, right?”
“Ah, I understand.” She smiles, a smile that tells me she understands and everything will be all right. “You want me to tell her you can’t make it tonight because of an emergency.”
Nodding, I smile back at her. The relief feels like physical sensation in my body. I exhale. Oh, thank God. She will look out for Izzy and tell her what happened. “Do you have a piece of paper I can use?” The guy behind the bar slides me a notepad and a pen.
Izzy,
I’m so sorry, but there’s been an emergency. My best friend is critically ill and I have to fly out a.s.a.p.
Please call me when you get this.
x Tyson.
Underneath, I scrawl my cell number.
“Here.” I hand it over to her. “Please, give this to her.” I show her the photo again. “This girl.”
“She’s beautiful,” she says.
“Yes, she is. Which is why I can’t let her think I stood her up. This means the world to me.” I pull out two hundred Euros and shove the bunch of notes into her hand. “Thank you.”
“Sure, no problem!” she says, grinning from ear to ear. “I’ll be here tonight, and I promise to give her this note. Actually, if you call here at that time I can even let you speak to her.”
A great weight slides off my chest. It’s not ideal, but it’s the best I can do at the moment. “That would be wonderful. Thank you.”
“No problem. When you call just ask for Margot.” She grins. “That is me.”
I smile at her gratefully. “You’re a life saver.”
“Good luck,” she says as I turn away, clutching the notepad with the establishment’s phone number.
As I walk out, I suddenly wish there was a way for me to take Izzy back with me. It seems wrong to leave her here, but I have no choice but to climb back into the taxi and tell the driver to take me to the airport. I get to the airport with just enough time to get through security and board the plane. As it takes off I look down at the earth below and my heart feels heavy with some unknown fear.
Izzy will be all right, I tell myself. She’ll call soon and hear the message. She’ll understand. I know she will. We have something special. Any other woman might think it was a brush off, but not her. She’ll know there was nothing else I could do. I have to be with my friend—or at least try to help his girlfriend through the aftermath … if I don’t make it there in time to say goodbye. He would do the same for me.
I can’t wait around another day. I gave my word. And my word is always good.
Chapter Twelve
Izzy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X930_IyhGfo
Dust to Dawn
I tap my nails against the glass of iced coffee. Condensation wets my fingers and runs down the side to pools in a ring around the glass. My eyes dart around—every movement on the street could be him. Every tall, dark-haired man makes me jump. Even the ones who aren’t so tall, or so handsome. My heart still skips a beat whenever anyone who looks even remotely like him strides past the windows. Whenever the door opens I turn my head. It might be him. It just might be.
But it isn’t.
I can just see the look on Kylie’s face when I tell her I sat around in Costa, waiting for a man who clearly had no intention of ever seeing me again.
Yes, that would go over really well.
My chest hurts. A deep, stinging pain that only gets worse with every minute that passes. Every tick of the clock feels like another second of my life gone. Last night comes back to me like scenes on a reel of film. His smile. The way he looked at me. The way he laughed at himself. The electricity of his touch. The way my breath caught when he swept me off my feet—literally—and carried me to the bedroom. The look in his eyes when I woke up the next morning. The way my heart pounded double time when he told me he wanted to see me again.
The images play like a movie I can’t stop. I wish I could stop it. It’s hell—th
e memories don’t bring pleasure or fill me with a secret joy like they did all day. Now they’re a reproach. The reminder of what an idiot I was to believe him.
And yet, I keep hoping.
Craning my neck whenever the door opens. When it doesn’t turn out to be him, my heart sinks further and further. I know I can’t sit here all night, waiting, but … just a little while more.
As the night moves on I feel the eyes of the wait staff watching me, pitying me. They’ve probably seen dozens of girls like me, maybe hundreds. Walking in with their heads high, all dolled up in their best clothes, their hair and makeup much nicer than they’d wear it if they were meeting up with just friends. Checking their reflection, self-consciously looking up every time the door opens. Just about radiating anticipation.
Until enough time passes. Until anticipation turns to embarrassment, then despair. And all the while, they try to keep up a brave front because they are in public. They can’t let anybody see them fall apart, even though falling apart is the one thing they are going through. What a pathetic fool I was to be roped in by a good-looking face.
I cringe to think that I was so easy.
The staff are roping off sections without customers. They are about to close shop. Some of them look in my direction. They want me to go.
The nasty, taunting voice in my head starts a monologue. Kylie was right. What were you thinking? A man like him is not for you. This was bound to happen. Better now than later. It was just a one-night stand. It’s life. Every night millions of men and women all over the world are doing it and walking away.
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