Chapter Forty-Seven
Jenny
Haze and Fox.
Fox and Haze.
How long had it been since I’d got through a day without uttering their names? Without thinking of them? They had become as ingrained in my life as my son, as my parents, as breathing.
It would be difficult to try and explain us to anyone else. We weren’t just friends, we weren’t just colleagues; we were family.
Haze, Fox, and Jenny.
Jenny, Haze, and Fox.
It might not be as catchy, it might sound a little crowded, but that was what we were. A team.
Before Haze came into my life, I was a single mother living at my parents’ house, on the brink of being made redundant. My job as a detective, the one I’d worked so hard for, the one place where I’d started to shine, was about to be taken from me for good.
Felix was my one bright spot. He was my reason for getting up every day. Loving him made everything feel better, yet also worse. He deserved the world, and what could I give him? The poor sod, to be lumbered with me for a mother.
And then I met Haze, and everything changed.
Spotting her across the room at some god-awful kiddie music class, I was immediately drawn to her.
In a world of women who all second-guessed themselves, who’d been subliminally brainwashed into thinking they weren’t ever enough, she held her head as high as one of her eyebrows as she assessed everyone around her.
Maybe I wanted to be friends with her just so I could see her up close.
Haze had the type of beauty where she just fell out of bed, and her bone structure and perfect skin gave her the glow of a woman who’d spent hours perfecting a no-makeup look with ten different products.
She might have faced much hardship in her early life, but she’d never once had to face down the indignity of looking in the mirror and not liking what she saw.
Haze ate without thinking and never had to cope with the pinch of jeans that were too tight.
She didn’t know what it was like to see creases, lines, and bulges, and still try putting your best foot forward to get out there and seize the day.
Maybe I wanted to be friends with her because I loved to self-hate, and being so close to perfection fueled that daily.
Don’t get me wrong, I could feel good about myself.
I wasn’t totally beyond hope. It just took the magic combination of seven hours’ sleep, a crate of makeup, a trip to the hairdresser, support pants, a new outfit, and soft lighting.
Haze had no clue that people treated her differently because of how she looked.
She never noticed the eager-to-please attitude of those happy to be talking to her, the constant double-takes in the street, the grumpy shopkeepers who always managed to have a smile for her.
I understood part of why she always had the balls to ask for whatever she wanted, as in her experience people would say yes.
Neither of us obsessed over our appearances.
But it was for different reasons. For Haze, it was because she never had to give it a second thought.
For me, it was because it was a lost cause—an irrelevancy to my everyday life.
All that mattered was a quick glance in the mirror to check I didn’t have breakfast on my face before I left the house.
Her commendable inherent confidence was helped by both her beauty and the peace of having found her soulmate, her life partner, her other half.
Haze and Fox had the kind of love immortalized in poetry, songs and Hollywood movies.
Their passion, the deep, all-encompassing love they had for each other, their meet-cute in Paris over the gut of a bleeding-out bad man, the joining together of two beautiful beings with a serious purpose, united by their mission to rid the world of evil—who could not be charmed in the presence of such intense perfection?
And what did I get?
Bill, my dead ex, was a gaslighting, abusive, deadbeat dad who couldn’t have given a shit about me.
I often thought about how one night coming home from dinner with friends, I’d fretted over how quiet and distracted I’d been, worrying that our friends must be thinking I was boring.
Bill’s reply of “Yes, probably” had crushed me.
If Haze had said that to Fox, I knew, I just knew, that he would’ve exclaimed it was impossible that anyone might feel that about her, the most exciting person he’d ever met.
To him, she was it. Everything. The peak.
No question we were all lucky to breathe the same air as her.
That’s how much he believed in her, how much he enjoyed her and worshipped her.
The fact was, though, Haze would never have questioned or cared what other people thought in the first place.
She believed in herself in a way I’d never seen before.
Certainly not in another woman. We were more guilty of getting bogged down with insecurities, second-guessing, self-hate.
And that was all before the perimenopause party of things really going to shit.
Haze might hide her darkest side, but otherwise she was unapologetically her, from her resting bitch face to her deep frown at anyone talking shit. She was easy to read because she didn’t bother hiding what she was thinking.
It had taken me time to realize that I wanted to channel Haze’s confidence more than anything else.
I didn’t want someone to love me like Fox loved Haze. I wanted to love myself like Haze loved herself.
Believing in myself would make life far better than just relying on someone else to make me feel good.
Haze had helped me realize I needed to be true to myself.
I had never really thought about what I wanted.
My disastrous love life was a perfect example.
I had gone out with men because it was what was expected.
I’d never felt that spark, that overwhelming desire the movies and the books all talked about.
Then last year, one night out in a bar after work, a woman with red hair and a dirty laugh had bought me drinks and kissed me.
Then it clicked. This was how it was meant to feel!
How had it taken me decades to realize this was who I was?
I’d been so suppressed, I hadn’t let myself realize what I actually wanted.
I’d rung Haze and told her about the redhead, pretending it was a funny random story.
“Well, did you like it?” was all she’d responded with.
It took months until I was able to tell her yes.
It might have taken me too long to put my own needs first, but not anymore.
I wanted another child. I had enough love to give, especially to someone who had not been blessed with the loving parents I’d had.
The old me may have tied herself in knots chasing the traditional nuclear family.
But the new me, the real me, knew that family was what you made it.
I might have accepted who I was and what I had, but it was hard not to be envious of Haze and Fox. Their looks, their love, their money. This perfect, glamorous package. They glided while others walked.
I’d never been a greedy person. All I’d ever wanted was enough to give Felix everything he needed. But seeing Haze and Fox and their lifestyle had made me realize how truly life-changing money—proper money—was. It allowed them to live however they wanted to live. It cushioned everything.
Our first summer trip abroad together had been to Corfu with a three-year-old Felix and Bibi. Haze and Fox had insisted my parents come with us (“They’re grandparents to our kid too!”). It was the best week of my life. Out in the sunshine with the people I loved most in the world.
Once we’d successfully dispatched the target we’d followed out there, it had become a real holiday.
Haze and Fox had rented a fully staffed superyacht for a few days.
I think mum took at least two hundred photos.
Sitting on the deck, sunning ourselves, we’d passed a small boat.
An overweight man with a beer in hand was splayed out at the back, asleep.
A sunburnt woman my age in a flowery swimsuit was gripping the steering wheel, her mouth set in a thin line.
I looked down at their open cool box, the wilted sandwiches, a plastic bottle of Pepsi.
I had never felt surer—that was more the type of holiday I was meant to be on.
That’s what staying in my lane would’ve looked like.
Ice-cold vintage champagne, a butler offering lobster rolls, silk sheets, and jacuzzi baths—this was a type of living I’d never been destined for.
This was Haze and Fox’s life. I’d made the leap.
I’d broken through the gold ceiling—even though it was only because they had issued me a guest pass, given me a taste of the high life with their money.
Haze and Fox had shown me you didn’t have to stick to the path you were given. You didn’t have to accept your lot in life. You could go out there and change it.
We worked together, making the world a better place.
I wasn’t quite one of them, but I was with them. They were the strutting peacocks. I was the pigeon basking in their reflected glow.
I didn’t need the glory of being out there on the front line. I knew my place: in the back office, making sure everything was ticking over smoothly. I was the paperwork queen, the one worrying over the details and the CCTV traces.
They went out and spilled blood, and I was the one making sure our hands were clean of it.
I had chosen this life to give my son a better one.
The ten percent I made from Fox’s investments, off the back of a bad man’s dying intel, helped pay my mortgage and finance the endless expensive DIY projects I had going on.
Haze killing Bill had got me the house, and now working with them was helping me turn it into a proper home.
I could pretend that risking my life, my freedom, for Haze and Fox’s enterprise was all for Felix, for the money, but really, it was for me.
I finally felt like I was living, not just watching everyone else.
I’d become a police officer because I wanted the high of the chase, of being the person who got to cross behind lines.
But I’d never got the buzz I’d thought I would.
The long hours, the endless paperwork, the average pay.
Then, just when I’d hit rock bottom, humiliated, chased out of work, Haze came into my life.
She killed my bastard ex, got me my job back, even set me on the path to a promotion.
When everything kicked off, when I discovered the truth about them, I could’ve ended them.
Got them locked up for good. But I chose to join them.
The buzz I had always been chasing was found, not in interview rooms at police stations, not onsite at crime scenes, but being out in the field with Haze and Fox. Knowing that we weren’t just going to catch the bad man, but punish him too.
What kind of person would I be if I was resentful—jealous, even—of everything they had? They had made my life infinitely better. I was nothing without them.
I felt good seeing how far I’d come. How much they’d improved not just my life but me.
I had a faith in myself, in my abilities, that I hadn’t had before.
I watched them now and realized they weren’t so different from me.
I might never have their natural beauty, their charm and grace, but I knew what was needed to get the job done.
If I’d been a different person, I might have started thinking that I could be like them, maybe even better than them.
I’d had a taste of their life, of how things could be, and it was difficult to not want more.
Wasn’t it human nature to keep aspiring?
I knew I should just enjoy all I had, but who ever really stopped wanting more?
If I had their kind of money, imagine the life I could have? The good work I could do, the people I could help.
I was brought up to always be grateful, to appreciate the little things.
I’d been blessed with wonderful parents.
Love. Support. Guidance. All in abundance.
Full marks. But all that attentiveness had also made me feel a certain pressure that Haze and Fox, with their terrible parents, had never experienced.
Haze and Fox were trying to lead good lives despite their parents.
I had to lead a good life because of mine.
I didn’t want to let them down. I couldn’t.
Not after everything they’d done for me.
Making them proud was the very least I could do.
Even at my absolute lowest points, they’d never made me feel any less for the literal car crash of my life.
Instead, they’d loved me extra hard. Come round even more.
Done even more. There was never any tut-tutting, never any judgment.
I needed to reward them for this by being everything they had wanted for me and more. Seeing me happy made them happy.
Sometimes, it felt too much. Smiling despite the cracks. Always being the one everyone else could rely on. Trying to be a good mother, a good daughter, a good friend, a good worker bee. Sometimes I wanted to blow it all up. Let loose.
But of course, I’m not that type. I’m good old dependable Jenny. The back-office pigeon. Flying high in their tailwind.