Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-One
Monday felt more like November than July, and when Jess accompanied Lola to the Gipsy Moth that evening, she had to zip her jacket up to the neck. Going to the pub was the last thing she wanted to do, but Lola had insisted and, after Felicity had messaged to tell her she wanted to talk to everyone about the house sale, she could hardly fail to turn up. But there would be no terrace for the group that evening, unless they were prepared to risk hypothermia.
‘My, my, my, if it isn’t Jess and Lola.’ Spade’s announcement was accompanied by a wave, his other arm slung around Felicity’s shoulders. Enzo was on his other side, and Jess might have been imagining it, but he seemed less pensive than usual, the dark smudges under his eyes less pronounced.
‘Hey, everyone.’ She smiled at Kirsty, Susie, Roger and Olga. Wendy was there too, and she tapped the empty bench next to her. Jess slid along it and sat down. ‘How’s Carolina, Enzo?’
‘She is a lot better,’ he said. ‘Since Sofia has been helping us, and our stall is looking brighter, she is less anxious. We have another meeting with her consultant on Friday, to review the medication she’s been taking.’
‘That’s brilliant,’ Jess said. ‘I’m so glad, Enzo.’
‘I’ve told everyone my house sale idea,’ Felicity added. ‘Including Enzo. They’re all on board.’
‘I’m going to make muffins to entice people in,’ Kirsty said.
‘And the Market Misfits are going to play a set, if you’re up for it, Lols?’ Spade raised his eyebrows.
‘Of course I am. We can’t disappoint our fans, can we?’ Lola laughed.
‘It’ll be a market away from the market,’ Susie said.
‘And it will mean Sofia can work for Enzo as long as necessary,’ Felicity added. ‘Carolina won’t need to rush back before she’s ready.’
Enzo shook his head. ‘I cannot thank you all enough. Your kindness and generosity – it’s almost too much.’
‘Nonsense,’ Roger huffed. ‘You would have done it for any of us. Us marketeers, we stick together.’
‘Ghouls included.’ Spade grinned at Felicity.
‘Of course,’ Felicity said. ‘But we’re not the only ones who are part of that club.’
Jess caught Kirsty’s eye, and got a sympathetic smile in return. She thought the baker had been acting oddly when she’d bought her muffin selection box that morning.
‘This isn’t just about the house sale, is it?’ she said. ‘I thought we were here to plan it.’
‘There isn’t much to do,’ Felicity admitted. ‘Wendy and Susie, particularly, have been marvellous. It seemed daunting at first, but knowing how you’ve all rallied to support Enzo, I knew I could ask for help, too.’
‘Teamwork makes the dream work.’ Kirsty held her wine aloft.
‘But I...’ Jess said, as they all clinked glasses. ‘You only told me about it yesterday.’
‘You’ve done so much for me already, Jess,’ Felicity said. ‘And we’re here tonight because you need help.’
She winced. ‘There really isn’t anything—’
‘We all love Ash,’ Susie cut in.
‘And, more importantly, we love you and Ash together,’ Felicity said.
Jess topped up her cider, watching it tumble over the ice in her glass. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt so uncomfortable. ‘We can’t Crowdsource me a boyfriend.’
‘Not just any boyfriend,’ Kirsty said. ‘Ash.’
‘Ash Faulkner,’ Olga added in a dreamy voice.
Jess folded her arms. ‘You can’t make a video saying how much you miss him and post it on TikTok. He only set up an account so he could watch the Misfits’ videos. He’s probably deleted it by now.’
‘You mean you haven’t checked?’ Kirsty sounded horrified. ‘What about his other social media accounts?’
Jess stared at the table.
‘Of course she’s checked,’ Lola said.
Jess rolled her eyes. ‘He has Instagram and Twitter, but he hasn’t used either of them for over four months, and his TikTok account has no activity. There’s no recent reel of him strolling through Covent Garden with a kooky backing track, so I can race up there and fling my arms around him.’
‘He’s a great guy,’ Spade said. ‘You didn’t have to spend much time with him to know that.’
‘He was so kind when I was worried about my new changing bags,’ Susie said. ‘He told me they were wonderful, let me give him a demonstration of all the compartments, even though he admitted he hadn’t spent a lot of time around babies.’
‘He came up with my latest bestselling flavour combo,’ Kirsty added. ‘My pistachio, lime and vanilla muffin is so popular.’
‘He looked good in every one of my hats, which is a pure anomaly.’ Olga shook her head.
‘If it wasn’t for Jess and Ash, I would still be living in an arsonist’s dream,’ Felicity admitted. ‘Without them, I would never have faced it.’
‘They may have started it, but the hard work has been yours.’ Spade planted a kiss on her forehead.
‘You’ve been amazing, Felicity,’ Jess agreed. ‘It’s a huge transformation.’ Her heart swelled as Felicity sat up straighter, basking in the praise. She waited for someone else to chip in, but it seemed as if, right now, she wasn’t going to escape the spotlight. She sighed. ‘I do miss Ash,’ she admitted.
‘You miss him because you love him.’ Susie pressed her clasped hands to her chest.
‘Oh, I don’t think...’ She cleared her throat, then took a long, slow sip of her drink. Did she love Ash? The fact that she’d taken two days off work because she was feeling too sad to play Happy Sales Assistant made her think there was something pretty cosmic going on inside her. She had tried not to examine it too closely, but she hadn’t felt this miserable for a long time.
‘We need to track him down, basically.’ Kirsty made it sound like the easiest thing in the world.
‘He’s not answering your calls?’ Spade asked.
‘He hasn’t even read my WhatsApps,’ Jess admitted.
‘He could have turned off the read receipts,’ Lola suggested.
‘He could have thrown his phone in the river,’ Susie offered. Everyone looked at her like she’d sprouted wings. ‘If he was upset, I mean.’
Jess sighed. ‘I don’t think we can find him. Thank you – all of you, but—’
‘Roger is an ex-cop,’ Spade said. ‘Roger, mate, you can pull some strings, can’t you? Get his address?’
‘You think I should just turn up at his door?’ Jess said.
‘That would be highly immoral, not to mention illegal.’ Roger frowned at Spade.
‘Address?’ Lola’s shout cut through the chatter. ‘You need his address, right?’
‘That seems a bit desperate,’ Jess admitted.
‘Things done in pursuit of true love are never considered desperate,’ Wendy said. ‘They’re charming and romantic, but never desperate.’
‘Surely that depends on the outcome,’ Susie said.
‘I have his address!’ Lola slammed her palm on the table. ‘I have Ash’s address!’
‘You do?’
‘You do?’ Jess echoed.
‘Yup. That day in the market, outside the pub. I asked Ash and Felicity for their release forms, remember? In case they ended up in the video.’
‘Woah,’ Spade said. ‘The best friend comes to the rescue.’
‘I don’t technically think this is an appropriate use of the private information he’s given you on his video release form,’ Roger said.
‘It’s in pursuit of true love,’ Felicity reminded him. ‘Nothing is considered either desperate or illegal.’
‘I’m not sure the Met’s finest would agree with you—’
‘I can’t just go to Ash’s flat and knock on the door, tell him I’m sorry for pushing him away and ask him to give me a second chance.’ Jess laughed, expecting her best friend and her work mum, and all the other people she’d got close to despite her best intentions, to laugh along with her.
Instead, she got expectant, hopeful gazes.
‘Why not?’ Lola asked.
Jess looked at the table. She missed Ash, more than she had admitted to anyone. She missed their Sunday mornings, talking about ghosts and pigeons, flying kites. She missed him asking her for motivational quotes, then offering examples himself. Whenever she’d come up with a new idea for the shop, she’d sent it to him and asked him what he thought. Since Thursday, she hadn’t even sat at her desk.
He had left her floundering, with too many thoughts and without access to the person she wanted to tell them to. She missed his warm skin pressed against hers, the pressure and taste of his kisses. If she’d known that night and morning they’d had together in her flat would be the last – the only – one, she would have held on more tightly. She thought they were at the beginning, that it was the first fumbling, deliciously imperfect time they’d be with each other, learning how they fitted together. She had thought it would be the first of many.
Now the people around this table were taking her fatalist approach – the one she’d always used that ensured her connections were temporary and all the better for it, so she didn’t end up getting her heart pulverised – and they were telling her it wasn’t the only way.
‘Why not, Jess?’ Lola repeated. ‘Why can’t you go up there, knock on his door and just be honest with him?’
Jess shrugged, her insides knotting tighter, making her restless. But it wasn’t sadness this time; it wasn’t the grief or guilt of losing him, of saying those things to him and telling him he had to go. It was the restlessness of possibility, the anxiety and anticipation that came with putting herself out there – fighting for someone, accepting she still wanted what they had. It was the panic that came with admitting love was sometimes worth the pain it caused, and Jess couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt, so strongly, that that was true. Now she wanted to put it on one of her prints and sell it in its thousands across the country, brand it onto her skin. But first, she had to go and get Ash back. Or, at the very least, she had to try.