“But Lucas . . .”
“Yeah, it’s a bit different, he looks like a Brazilian god,” I point out, whirring the blender. “Sorry, milkshake. Mr. Figgle looked like a meerkat.”
“Do you think . . . maybe . . .”
“It’s OK,” I assure her. “You can be Mean Jem.”
“Sometimes you can be a tiny bit stubborn? And sometimes . . . you like to take the easy option.”
I pour out my milkshake in silence.
“Sorry, I love you,” Jem says. “I love you, I love you.”
“Yes, I love you, too,” I say tetchily. “What do you mean, take the easy option?”
“Well, committing to a relationship with a man who’s hurt you before? That’s hard. Having sex with him and insisting that you don’t want anything serious? Much easier.”
This blows my mind a little. It feels terrifyingly true.
“Shit.”
“Truth-bomb?” Jem says apologetically.
“Yeah, kind of. I felt like doing it this way would be safe,” I say, testing the thought out, chewing my bottom lip. “But when I realised he’d left the flat, I felt . . .”
Jem waits patiently. But I do feel the pressure of her impending frostbite.
“I felt scared.”
“Ooh, OK, now we’re getting somewhere!” whispers Jem. “Scared of what?”
My voice keeps getting smaller and smaller.
“. . . Having lost him.”
“This guy you hate, you mean?”
“Fine, hate is over-dramatic, I know that. But we don’t get on. We disagree on everything. We argue all the time. He behaved like a twat last Christmas and never apologised!”
But even as I say it, a hundred other things come to mind. How fiercely he stands up for what he thinks, even when it would be easier to back down and agree with me. How his eyes go soft when he talks about his baby nephew. How he pulls me against him when I turn up at his door, like he can’t stand another second of distance between us.
“What would happen if you talked to him about last Christmas, little pigeon?”
I recoil at the very thought. My whole body shrinks inwards as though someone’s doused me in cold water.
“No,” I say firmly. “No, we have a rule about talking about the past.”
“Do you think . . . maybe . . .”
“Go on, just say it.”
“Do you think this is why you made that stupid rule in the first place?” Jem says in a rush. “Like, why don’t you want to talk to him about last Christmas?”
“Argh. Because—Jem, it’s so humiliating.”
“And why’s that?”
“Because . . .”
“Without wanting to put the pressure on, I have lost all sensation in my feet.”
“Because it actually hurt,” I blurt. “I didn’t think it would. I thought it was fun and brave when I wrote it, but knowing he laughed at that card? Tossed it aside and made out with Drew, of all people? It makes me want to curl up in a ball.”
“And why’s that?”
“Because . . . because . . .”
“Even my hair is cold right now.”
“Because I really liked him.”
“Yesss,” Jem says. I hear a creak down the line—I suspect she just did a small hop on the porch. “It wasn’t a casual ‘Hey, I fancy you,’ that card. It was you handing him your heart. And you’ve never done that with a guy before.”
“I’ve had loads of boyfriends,” I say. I can hear how defensive I sound. This whole conversation is making me squirm.
“Ye-es,” Jem says. “But men like Tristan and Dean.”
I scrunch up my nose. “Yeah?”
“They’re sort of, umm . . . nothingy? Like, they’re safe options. You’re OK when it ends because you never really cared about them in the first place.”
“Can we do you now?” I say, getting a bit desperate. “Are you having a crisis at all?”
“We can do me tomorrow, when I can feel my extremities again. Lucas isn’t safe and nothingy, right?”
He’s not. He’s fire and steel and ice. When I’m with him, whether we’re in bed or in the hotel, I’m always feeling something.
“I have a really horrible feeling about how this conversation is going to end,” I say.
“I think you have to talk to Lucas about last Christmas,” Jem says.
I make a sound somewhere between a wail and a growl. “No! No, you’re wrong, I can just keep that in a box forevermore and keep having lovely sex with my annoying colleague!”
“OK, so, none of that is happening. But I really love you. And I’m sorry. Can you forgive me for being Mean Jem?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, you’ve been a massive help,” I say. “Thank you for risking frostbite for me.”
“Always!” she says, and then she shrieks. “Piddles! Oh, shit.”
I wince at the cacophony on the other end of the line. There is definitely a cat yowling over there. And possibly a dustbin falling over.
“Anything I can do?” I say, sipping my milkshake.
“Unless you can catch Piddles remotely, no,” says a breathless Jem. “Bye, pigeon.”
“Good luck!” I call just as the barking begins.
Lucas
When Izzy walks into the forest manor lobby in the morning, I’m braced. I’m sure my face is wearing the wary expression I’ve seen so often on hers over the last year.
I was up until three a.m. and still I have no idea what I want to say. I walked out of her flat and left the bath running. That is ridiculous. I don’t do things like that, but then, around Izzy, I do all sorts of things I thought I would never do.
And I can’t stop hearing the words she said. I’ll never be his girlfriend, will I?
Every time I remember how good it feels between us, I come back to that, and the anger flares up again. The worst part is that I’ve led myself right here: I went into this situation knowing that she disliked me and wanted nothing more than a physical relationship. She has been extremely clear about that. So I can’t be angry. Which only makes me feel more furious.
“Hello,” Izzy says. Her tone is perfectly cool. “As you can see, I have not drowned. No thanks to you.”
If she wants to rile me up, she’s done it. That’s how she wants to start this conversation? Flippancy, finger-pointing, childishness? It’s everything we used to be, and I hate it.
I jerk my head towards the lost-property room and spin away from the desk. There’s nowhere to sit in here except on a box, so I stand with my arms folded, and after closing the door behind her, she does the same.
“I apologise about the bath . . . situation.” I can hear how stiff I sound. I’m being the Lucas she used to know, the one I’ve been working so hard to help her forget. That guy.
“Thanks. And how about the disappearing act?”
“I heard you on the phone. I had to leave.”
Her eyebrows fly up. “You were listening to my phone call with my friends?”
“No! No. I went to run you a bath, and the wall . . . I just heard it.”
“Right.” Her gaze is level. “And what exactly did you ‘just hear’?”
The air crackles between us. It always does. I’m furious and scared, but I still want to walk her back against the wall and kiss her.
“What you really think of me. That’s what I heard.”
She frowns. “I don’t remember exactly, but I don’t think I said anything about what I really think of you except maybe . . .” Her cheeks are turning slowly pink. “How good it is between us. The sex.”
There’s a knock at the door just as she says sex. We both jump as if we’ve been caught half-dressed.
Izzy opens the door. It’s Louis Keele. The way my body reacts is shameful. A rush of adrenaline, my fists bunching, muscles flexing. It’s pure, animal jealousy and there’s no place for it—but the way he looks at Izzy makes me want to hit him.
He’s still a contender, she said. That’s how he’d put it.
?, com certeza . . .
“Can I grab you for a sec, Izzy?” he says. Ignoring me completely.