Chapter Twenty-Nine
Jess
When Lily opens the door, Jess almost falls into her arms as if she were the love interest in an old-fashioned romantic film.
Truth is, she’s desperate for a hug. Hugs steady her, and she needs steadying.
The thing with Alex, it’s starting to feel like a roller coaster.
The unspokenness of what it is they are to each other, and then his questions about her dad – questions she’s never cracked open before with anyone, let alone any quasi-boyfriends.
She’s always loved roller coasters, but the thing is, if you stay on them long enough, you end up feeling a bit sick.
Not to mention dizzy and disorientated. And like the ground is shaking under you.
Jess knows she isn’t making up her chemistry with Alex. You can’t make up what they had in Godalming, and there’s something soft in his voice when he talks to her that tells her how he feels about her. But this reluctance to commit, to call a spade a spade – it’s odd, and she doesn’t like it.
‘Are you sure he’s not just being, you know, male?
’ Lily asks her when she’s got to the bottom of why Jess is hugging her a little longer and more desperately than usual.
‘They can be like that. Non-committal. They think playing hard to get is going to make us work harder for their affection, somehow.’
‘Did Gareth do that with you?’
Lily looks at the ground. ‘No.’ She’s always been aware of how easy her love story with Gareth has looked from the outside, though when Jess hints at this, she gets defensive, says things like, All relationships take work and Nobody’s perfect, not even Gareth.
She moves off the subject now, back to Jess and Alex.
‘Honestly, Jess. I’ve seen the way he looks at you.
He’s smart, he’s funny, he’s got a killer dimple. Don’t give up on this one.’
‘Who said anything about giving up?’
‘Just – I know what you’re like. You get all excited about a guy, and then things get tough, or he wants to talk about stuff that isn’t as fun, and you move on to another crush.’
Now it’s Jess’s turn to feel defensive. But the truth is, she knows Lily’s right.
This is the great thing and also the worst thing about having been best friends for years.
There’s no hiding; there’s no convincing Lily that she is anyone other than who she is.
And in Jess’s case, that’s flighty, pain avoidant, easily distracted.
Except when it comes to books – the passion she’s stuck with the longest. But maybe that’s because each book is different, its own journey with its own setting and story and characters, each one lasting a comparatively short amount of time.
Reading is, in many ways, the perfect hobby – the perfect career – for people always looking for adventures.
‘It feels like this isn’t like the other times,’ Jess says, and this isn’t a lie.
‘That sounds familiar.’ Lily is smiling. They both know this is always what Jess says.
‘No, but I really do mean it.’
‘That sounds familiar, too.’
Lily isn’t wrong. Maybe Alex isn’t any different from the many crushes she’s dabbled in her entire adult life.
She broke up with her first boyfriend at school for no specific reason – just because she stopped being excited about him.
The poor guy was crushed, and Jess felt terrible, but less terrible once she’d moved on to another boyfriend.
The pattern had pretty much repeated itself all the way through her uni years, until the most recent drought, which had lasted a while.
She was sick of the merry-go-round. She wanted to find someone she could commit to, someone who would keep her on her toes.
Someone with whom life would feel like an adventure, so she wouldn’t feel she was giving up on adventure when she settled down with them.
Jess was pretty sure she’d found that person this time.
Alex’s brain, his creativity – they are a source of endless fascination to her.
She knows that when two or more bookworms are gathered, they are never short of conversation: whether it’s a spirited disagreement on the personal ranking of Emily Henry novels, or a passionate defence of their favourite independent bookshop, or discussions on the relative merits of prologues and epilogues – there’s always something to talk about.
And the problem with a lot of Jess’s previous boyfriends was that they just hadn’t been that interested in all of that.
When she met Alex, she’d thought his strong views on romance as a genre were the biggest imaginable turn-off, but actually, the biggest imaginable turn-off is having no strong views at all, especially on matters having to do with books.
Convincing him to love the genre will be a challenge – the kind of challenge she loves – although, thanks to Nathan’s choice of reading recommendations, perhaps an easier challenge than she’d anticipated.
‘Just …’ Lily says, brow wrinkled in concern. ‘I say this with love. But I’m concerned you won’t give this one enough of a chance.’
‘There’s nothing I’d like more than to give him a chance. But it feels like he’s not giving me a chance to give him a chance, you know?’
Lily grabs the gin from the cupboard. She doesn’t ask if Jess would like any; she knows the answer. Besides, this is an emergency situation; the gin is medicinal.
‘Speaking of shots,’ she says, putting a glass in front of Jess. ‘You’re sure he’s not just leaving things on hold till the book is done?’
‘No,’ Jess says. ‘I’m not sure he isn’t. But I’m also not sure that he is. It feels like there’s something he’s not telling me.’ She hadn’t even realised this till the words were out of her mouth – but yes, that’s exactly what it feels like.
‘Like a wife in the attic?’
‘He doesn’t have an attic.’
‘But if he did, and there was a wife in there, do you think you would know about it?’
Jess pauses, thinking. Alex has definitely been vulnerable and transparent in some ways, for sure. But maybe those ways are a cover. Maybe he’s told her just enough so that he doesn’t have to tell her everything?
‘It’s possible that I wouldn’t,’ she concedes.
‘Well, then. Maybe you could start there. Push on some conversational doors. See where they lead.’
The idea of making Alex uncomfortable – of, frankly, making things uncomfortable for them both – while they are in this forced-proximity situation, while the book is still being worked on, being worked out, seems extremely questionable. Jess squirms and grimaces.
‘I’m telling you, Jess,’ Lily says. ‘I’ve got a good feeling about this one. This relationship is worth fighting for.’
The word fighting doesn’t exactly make Jess feel any less squirmy. Relationships should be about joy and fun, especially at the beginning. Surely?
‘You always end up having to fight for your relationship at some stage. And maybe you do it now, then the rest of it is relatively struggle-free. Or maybe it isn’t, and you’ve learned the hard things about communication and openness now, and they’ll stand you in good stead later.’
The thing with having a married friend is that sometimes it feels like Lily is light years ahead of her in terms of emotional maturity and general wisdom.
Like she’s an adultier adult. Like she knows some secrets of the universe that Jess doesn’t.
If it was anyone other than Lily, or if theirs was a different kind of friendship, maybe it would come across as smug and unlikeable.
But Jess knows that Lily’s wisdom is hard won, that she is sharing it to help her and not to show off.
Still. Words like fight, words like struggle – they make Jess wonder. If anyone is worth putting herself through that, it’s definitely Alex. But still. ‘I don’t know, Lily. Maybe being single is easier.’
‘Well, I don’t think that’s true,’ Lily says. ‘I think being single and being in a relationship both have their challenges in different ways. But even if that was true – let me ask you this. Is something being hard a good enough reason not to do it?’
She might as well repeat what she said when Jess was deciding whether to write the book with Alex.
It’s not like you to shy away from a challenge.
It was true then, and it’s true now. And maybe the boys she used to get bored with weren’t as much of a challenge.
Maybe it’s a good sign that making it work with Alex might take more work.
She smiles. ‘Obviously not. You know I love a challenge.’
‘Exactly,’ Lily says. ‘That’s the spirit.’
Never able to resist a good ‘speaking of …’ segue, Lily pours them both more gin, topped up with tonic this time. Food is supposed to happen at some stage this evening, but there’s no evidence of that yet. Still, that’s what Deliveroo is for. For now, gin. And gossip.
‘So what do you think his secret is?’ she asks. ‘If it’s not a wife in the attic?’
‘A secret baby?’ Jess pulls a face. ‘That has to be one of the worst tropes in all of romance.’
Lily nods vigorously. ‘Agreed. A secret stash of money, then?’
‘Nah, it can’t be that. He’s made it clear that he needs this book deal as much to stay afloat as he does for his ego. Besides, he’s got a huge family, so even if there was a massive inheritance, it would be divided between a lot of kids.’
‘Ah. Secret pen name as a writer of erotic fiction?’
They dissolve into giggles, and it feels good.
Everything has been a bit intense lately – all these big feelings about Alex, all this hard work around the book.
Imagining Alex blushing away at his typewriter (it would have to be a typewriter) takes the edge off all of that. And so, if she’s honest, does the gin.