Chapter Three
Three
The day after Boxing Day, Fliss agrees to meet up at our local pub for brunch.
I’m early and there’s a steady flow of people milling about.
It’s that weird time between Christmas and New Year where nobody knows what day of the week it is and we’re all still drinking eggnog before two in the afternoon.
Luckily, we close the gallery for the whole Christmas period, so I get a good festive break.
Fliss has been a rock during my break-up with Adam, always making herself available to talk it over.
She walks in through the main doors and pauses to look around.
I smile at the sight of her. I find Fliss’s dress sense to be a bit out there, and today is no different.
Her dark hair has been pushed back by a bright-fuchsia headband which matches her long teddy coat.
She’s always the sparkiest person in any room.
She exists in stark contrast to me, who likes to dress in dull colours so as not to draw attention to myself.
I prefer to be unseen as much as I can help it.
Unfortunately, my hair never got the memo.
It’s also no surprise when I see she is being flanked by her unfairly handsome boyfriend.
I mean, really, she could work harder not to rub it in.
He’s all dark features and long lines, with dazzling, blue eyes. He places a hand on Fliss’s lower back and nods in my direction, having spotted me first. She lights up, flouncing over and sliding into the booth on the bench opposite.
“Hello,” she says, smiling.
“Good morning, I see you brought James along to rub salt in my wounds,” I say, but she knows I don’t mean it.
James has introduced a calmness to Fliss that has helped her really come out of herself.
Going freelance was the best idea she’s ever had, after her previous high-stress, corporate role all but burnt her out, but I’m not sure she’d have believed in herself enough to take the leap without his undying support.
“I’m more pepper than salt,” James adds, standing beside us. “What can I get you ladies to drink?”
“Espresso Martinis?” Fliss asks me.
I nod. “Well, it’s still morning, so if we’re drinking alcohol, we really ought to make it caffeinated.”
“Right you are,” James says, turning and stepping up to the bar with a slight lean, hands in pockets. He’s so smooth.
I eye Fliss. “So, that’s going well then?”
She nods. “It’s our first Christmas together. His sisters have been nice… I think. They’re very protective of him. The younger one asked me what my intentions were with her brother yesterday evening.”
I snort. “I’m sorry? Your intentions?”
“Like I said, they’re a protective bunch. But his mum is lovely, and his nephew is adorable. And so far, my parents are treating James like he’s been in the family for years.”
“In the family?! That’s very serious.”
Fliss’s face colours. “I know but it just feels right. I hated him before I loved him…” She stops talking, twisting her gaze to James’s back, who probably didn’t hear her. I decide to torture her over it anyway.
“Love?!”
“SSHH!” she bats her hands at me as if to blow away the word.
“You said love!”
“SSSHH!”
“Oh, Fliss, that’s wonderful. I’m sure he feels the same about you. I’ve seen the way he looks…”
“Oh my God!” she whisper-hisses. “If you don’t stop talking right now, I’m going to throw my cocktail over you.”
“But then you’d have to explain to James why you wasted a ￡12 drink on me.”
“Worth it.”
“To be honest, this is mostly payback for being so cute and loved up…”
“Don’t say that word!”
“…when I’m so lonely and broken.”
Fliss sighs and tilts her head. “That’s not really what you think, is it? I thought you liked living alone?”
“It’s true. It’s nice. The novelty hasn’t worn off just yet.
But you know, my feet were really cold last night.
The sort of cold where not even fluffy socks can help you and I couldn’t be bothered to get up and find a hot water bottle, so I cried a little bit because I didn’t have a man’s hairy legs to warm them on. ”
“Fuck, that’s sad.”
“I know…”
“No, like you need to a get grip.”
I laugh. “Well, ok. But I have a plan. Dylan made some great points at Christmas lunch.”
“Dylan? Your perennially in-debt cousin whose been bailed out by his parents five times? The same Dylan who leant his car to a guy he met on Grindr and never saw it again? That Dylan gave you advice?”
“Well, when you say it like that…” I grimace. “In fairness, he let me join the Black Sheep Parade. It sounded right up my street.”
“No, Hattie, we don’t take advice from the resident black sheep. I’m so glad you called me because this could’ve been a disaster.”
She pauses as James returns with our drinks. He squeezes in beside her, stretching his long arm over the back of their bench. Fliss leans into him instinctively. A hideous thing to behold when you’re this single over Christmas.
“But humour me anyway. What was his advice?” she asks.
“I’m not sure what his exact advice was but I did conclude that I need to take back the final year of my twenties. You know, since Adam stole my youth from me.”
Fliss and James blink at me for a moment before she says, “As someone in her thirties who still feels youthful, I find that statement offensive. But if we dodge past that for a second, I think you’re onto something.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I do. I think you deserve to go a little wild. Why the hell not?”
James gives her a sideways glance. “Excuse me, have we met?”
Fliss ignores him. “So, what is your plan?”
“Ah there it is,” James laughs. “Go wild, but have a plan.”
Again, Fliss ignores him. “Make a list.”
“Oh yes. A super-wild list,” he adds, before he grunts from what I can only imagine is irritated-girlfriend elbow pressure.
“I have actually thought about this in detail,” I begin.
“First, I need to throw a party for my birthday. I was planning on a pub thing with Sam and the girls anyway after schmoozing with the family, but screw them, I think it needs to be bigger. It needs to be a whole trip. An adventure. Something Adam would’ve never approved of for all the many stupid reasons he always had.
And then I need take a whole year and just make it mine.
I want to travel, and I want to live on my own to prove to myself that I can. ”
Fliss leans forward, resting her hands on the table, while I take a sip of my cocktail. I swear you can never not look elegant whilst drinking an espresso martini. My pinkie finger is liberated.
“You’ve been living with Adam since you were twenty-one, yeah? If you feel like you need to prove your independence to yourself then do it. But own it. Don’t let yourself be forced off-track.”
“What do you mean by that?” I ask.
“Well… Ok, and don’t take this the wrong way…”
“I love sentences that start like that,” I quip.
“You definitely have relationship-girl vibes. I mean you’re a very sweet, kind and attractive girl. Any guy would be lucky to have you, and I think they’d give it a good go.”
“Adam didn’t seem too bothered anymore,” I point out.
“Screw Adam!”
“Yeah, screw Adam,” James imitates but with a glint in his eye that says he’s here and he’s supportive even if he doesn’t really understand why. In fact, he looks whiplashed by our whole conversation.
I hold my hands up in surrender. “Ok, well, I personally don’t think it’s going to be so difficult to avoid a relationship. I created a Tinder profile two weeks ago and within fifteen minutes, a man was requesting photos of my feet, so I deleted it.”
“I think I’m going to get another drink.” James shakes his head good-humouredly and gets up before I say anything else.
“Ew. Did he even flirt or was it just straight in there with the foot fetish?”
“In fairness, he did ask me what my favourite Disney character was.”
“Which is?”
“Bambi.”
“Oof. So, you basically insinuated you were an innocent little baby deer?”
“So, a fawn,” I correct. “He didn’t ask which character I related to most.”
“Which would be?”
“Ok, also Bambi… I’m curious and occasionally na?ve. And hey, that would make you Thumper.”
“We’re getting off topic,” she says, before pausing and trying to remember what we were talking about. “We need to set some rules. Have you got any paper?”
“I have a napkin,” I offer. Fliss, being Fliss, tucks her hand into her bag and produces three different colours of pen. “Always so organised.”
“Thank you.” She smiles.
“I don’t know if it was a compliment, actually.”
“I’m taking it as one anyway.”
I swipe the black pen because I’m going wild, not psychotic – I can’t use red or blue pen on pub napkin; that would be crazy. I write RULES at the top and underline it, only to rip some of it in the process. Never mind…
“First rule?” I ask.
“No serious relationships for the whole of next year.”
“Right. No issue. Easy.” I write it down, the ink blurring slightly on the dots. “Rule two?”
“Travel to at least four or five other countries?” she asks as if it’s up to me how many it should be. I write minimum of four.
“I love it. Any more?”
“The living-by-yourself rule,” she adds. “One whole year.”
I jot this down too then sit back and proudly stare at my napkin of rules.
“Oh! And the party thing. You should do that. I obviously can’t do anything for New Years, sorry, but you know Sam will and I’m sure your other uni friends will leap at it.”
I frown. “I don’t know… Priya has a nine-month-old baby and Sara has been really distant recently.
Besides, she probably wants to hang out with her fiancé.
” I shrug. “I’m sure Sam would be well up for a trip away.
Even if it was just the two of us, we couldn’t do it at my studio anyway. It’s too small.”
“Great! Make it happen, Hattie,” Fliss says. “Oh, and invite his hot older brother while you’re at it,” she adds with a mischievous grin.
I start. “I have no idea who you’re talking about. But also no, he’s very off limits.”
She takes a large sip of her drink. “Even better.”
*