‘Dude, you can wear my hat,’ Neeve says.
Kiara bites back a squeak. ‘The one in the vlog? With the flowers?’
‘That one.’
Kiara wavers. Then, abruptly, her resolve collapses. ‘And maybe the scarf?’
‘I’ll even throw in the gloves.’
‘Yaaaaaaaaas!’
‘Come on now, ladies.’ Neeve claps her hands. ‘Let’s all get in formation!’
They flutter around, grooming each other, swapping coats and fixing hair-dos until Neeve decrees we slay: Kiara is in knee-high Doc Martens, skinny combats, a huge boxy black mohair sweater and the beautiful hat, scarf and gloves on loan from Neeve. ‘If anyone asks you about them,’ Neeve says, ‘you say they’re mine.’
Because Sofie’s clothes are at Urzula’s or my mum’s, Neeve styles her in a denim parka with a bright blue fake-fur hood. Neeve herself wears an oversized boyfriend coat, black jaguar-print leggings and silver brogues, and I’m in one of my prize pieces – possibly the prize-iest of all my pieces: the tightly waisted, swingy-skirted red coat from Dior, which I’d found on the floor in TK Maxx for a price so low I’d thought I was having a psychotic break. I’m wearing it with shiny black knee boots, and Neeve decks me out with berry-coloured lips.
‘Selfie! Selfie!’
The photo is all hair and lips and cheeks and smiles – Neeve looks adorably wicked, Kiara a little solemn and Sofie as cute as a kitten. My heart nearly bursts with love for them.
The four of us stand in the hall, furiously uploading the picture to our preferred social media, then out we go into the cold September evening. We decide we’ll walk and the four of us hold hands and I feel okay.
31
Seventeen months ago
So I said, ‘I’m joking,’ and Josh Rowan looked like he wanted to shove me on to the bed and start unbuckling his belt. Then he said, ‘That’s a shame.’ And what he meant was, It’s a shame because I think you’re the hottest woman I’ve met in the longest time and –
‘Mum?’ Kiara’s voice made me jump. ‘What are you doing up here?’
My fuzzy-edged reverie was broken. ‘Lying on my bed,’ I said snippily. ‘What the feck does it look like?’
‘But, like, why?’
To keep reliving the moment when Josh Rowan said, ‘That’s a shame.’
‘I’d a really tough week at work and I’m tired.’
‘Still tired?’
God above, I’ve been lying down for less than an hour and they’re all behaving like I’ve been bed-bound for a month.
‘Yes, still tired. I’m going to have a snooze now. Don’t come back up.’
‘Why are you so mean?’
‘Because I’m tired.’
… and he said, ‘That’s a shame.’
He’d thought it was a shame! That I was only joking about staying in the hotel with him! Which meant he wanted to stay in the hotel with me! In the bedroom! In the bed!
And the thought of me and him naked and him pulling my hair and pressing his hardness against me … It was both thrilling and terrifying.
‘What does he look like, Amy?’
‘Like he’s nursing a secret sorrow.’
‘Oh! That’s so romantic.’
Okay, so I had a crush on Josh Rowan, the sort of thing that could happen to anyone, right? But it was a first in all my years with Hugh.
Like, I fancied Jamie Dornan and Aidan Turner and most of the men in the Scandinavian TV series (Hugh called them my ‘Scandilusts’) but this was the first time I’d got properly giddy about an actual real-life man. Some coupled-up women I knew had flings, affairs, one-night stands. Sometimes they even jumped ship from a long-term thing to a man they’d been overlapping with and embarked on a new relationship. It happened. Derry had done it.
But I’d literally never even snogged another man since Hugh and I had got together. The thought was alien. I loved Hugh, the very bones of him. Plus I liked him – which I’d come to realize happened less often in long-term relationships than you’d think. I respected him, appreciated him and felt huge fondness for him. He was a million times my favourite person.
So it was far from normal to find myself alone late at night in a hotel room with a man who was probably a creepy player but who, at that moment, seemed really hot.
Not textbook handsome, nothing like that, but confident and just-macho-enough. It was hard to say what was suddenly so wantable about Josh Rowan. You couldn’t single out his eyes or his cheekbones, none of the usual, but something in the combination of his hangdog features worked.
Also, there was more than a hint of the unreconstructed about him. Definitely not a vegetarian. That was a description I liked and I was using it a lot in my many imaginary conversations.
‘What’s he like, Amy?’
‘Not a vegetarian. That’s what he’s like.’
And the conversations were rapidly becoming more elaborate.
‘What’s he like, Amy, this man who’s in love with you?’
‘A journalist. English. Hot. Not a vegetarian.’
‘Ooooh!’
Every time I thought about Josh Rowan, it felt like stars were sparking under my skin and coursing through my blood. Suddenly a part of my life had exploded into glorious technicolour.
Would we get to see each other again, Josh and I?
He’d called me the morning Premilla’s piece had run. I’d spent the night in one of those hotels at the airport where, if you breathed too close to a bottle of water in the mini-bar, your credit card instantly got charged a king’s ransom.
‘You’ve seen the spread?’
‘It’s great. Thank you …’ I paused, then tentatively said his name ‘… Josh.’ Hearing myself say it felt oddly daring. ‘It’s great.’
‘You off to Ireland now? Have a good weekend.’
‘You too … Josh.’ This time saying his name fizzed me with a powerful little thrill.
‘Bye, Amy.’
‘Bye.’ I didn’t say his name a third time – vaguely anxious about what could happen. I might combust or something.
Maybe we could have a working lunch. I’d suggested that in the past and been rebuffed. Things were different now, we definitely had a working relationship, but then I’d be making the running and those feels weren’t lovely ones: those feels were a little pathetic.
Perhaps it would be best simply to let things lapse.
But no! That drained me of every drop of joy. Quick! Before the joyous feels slithered away completely! … and he said, ‘That’s a shame.’ I savoured the memory of how he’d looked at me before he’d spoken – like he meant it, like he’d fucking meant it!
But he was probably a player … Wait, of course he was a player! How naive was I? The man was married!
Then again, so was I. Did that make me a player too?
No. No, no, no, no, no. In my heart of hearts there was no intention of actually doing anything with Josh Rowan – if there was, wouldn’t I just have had sex with him there and then? After all, there had been a hotel room, a bed, the two of us – there had been nothing at all to stop us – but we’d refrained.
Neither of us were players. Yes: that was the conclusion that suited me best. God, it was only a little flirtation. What was the harm?
He said, ‘That’s a shame …’ He was a loyal man who’d never strayed from feisty Marcia, but was so drawn to me that he couldn’t help himself. He saw things in me that bypassed most people. He didn’t mind that I was short and not-young. He liked my peculiar clothes – he saw them as evidence of a rare, uncommon person.
Reality crashed in. He was a man. With a dick. In a hotel room with a woman. Who had – let’s not forget – suggested they both spend the night there. Yes. I had. Not him – me.
What the hell had I been thinking?
Mixing work and flirting – worst idea ever. But in retrospect I’d had an off-the-scale stressy thirty-six hours: my intense focus on saving Premilla had cauterized all my links with the outside world and I’d temporarily forgotten who I was.
It had just been a stupid giddy thing blurted out in the giddy heat of the giddy moment.