Chapter 12 #3
“And you get to go to Buckingham Palace, right?” Stella asked.
“If you complete gold, you sure do. We met the Duke of Edinburgh.” Dexter pulled out his phone and brought up a picture of him and his mum and dad in front of the palace gates. We all had a similar picture. And of course, we had plenty of the six of us.
“You all seem very passionate about it,” Stella said.
“Well, Beck here is,” Dexter said. “If he hadn’t done Duke of Edinburgh, he would have fallen down a plughole.”
“Fuck off. I was lean.”
Stella laughed and part of me wanted to strip down naked and challenge anyone to take the piss out of me.
I was still lean, but unlike when I was fourteen, I now had the muscles that defined my shape.
I didn’t get out into the country to hike as much as I’d like, but I was committed to running and the gym.
“So, what else do I need to know about this guy?” Stella asked.
“He’s disgustingly competitive,” Tristan said.
“Coming from you?” He had to be kidding. Tristan was one of the most competitive people on the planet and the worst loser who ever lived.
“We’re not talking about me,” he replied. “We’re talking about you.”
“We’re all competitive,” I said. None of us could argue with that. What went unspoken was that we’d all step in front of a train for each other.
When Gabriel’s father died when I was seventeen, I caught three trains and walked seven miles to get to the funeral.
Two years ago, when Tristan’s sister’s boyfriend punched her, Joshua tracked him down online, drained his bank accounts of money, destroyed his credit rating, and gave him a criminal record for aggravated assault.
When I bought my first flat in Hackney, all of them showed up and helped me gut the place.
We were brothers. I’d learned some time ago that family wasn’t about blood that you shared but experiences that bound you.
“Okay, what about current bad habits?” Stella asked.
“Honestly, he’s not got the greatest track record with women,” Joshua said. “But other than that, he’s a pretty decent guy.”
“What does his track record with women look like?” Stella asked.
“Women just aren’t my focus,” I replied before anyone else could add something I couldn’t row back from. “So I can be a bit thoughtless.”
“Have you ever had a serious relationship?” she asked.
“Serious?” Dexter asked with a chortle.
“I work too much,” I mumbled.
“Like I keep telling you, mate, you won’t have to consciously try to make an effort when you find the right woman. But until then, a fake relationship sounds like a good idea. Make sure you keep him on his toes,” Dexter said.
“So this is some kind of immersion weekend before you go to the wedding?” Joshua asked. “I guess you had to squeeze it in before you go to New York next week.”
Fuck, I’d completely forgotten I was headed stateside next week. Stella wasn’t going to be happy.
“You’re going to New York?” she asked. “For how long?”
“The trip is ten days in all. I’m spending a few days in Chicago, but I don’t go until Thursday.”
“Can you cancel? We have prep to do. I won’t make a total fool out of myself in front of all my friends.”
I’d been winning with Stella before my trip had been mentioned. She’d relaxed and I’d begun to enjoy her company. I already recognized the beginning of a spiral into meltdown territory.
“I can’t cancel. These meetings have been arranged for months.
But it will be fine. I feel like you know me better than my own mother at this point.
” The meeting in Chicago was about the possibility of converting an old hotel into luxury flats.
It could turn out to be very lucrative. And I was looking forward to diversifying and spreading my wings a little.
Stella set her drink on the table and sat back, looking as though dark clouds had gathered above her.
Her mouth was downturned, and her eyebrows pulled together.
“I’m serious, Beck, Karen will stop at nothing to embarrass me.
And I don’t think I could handle it. I’ve had enough humiliation to last me a lifetime. Being at the wedding is bad enough.”
“Humiliation? What do you mean?”
Her eyes filled with tears, which was the last thing I was expecting.
Despite her claim that she and Karen were friends, it didn’t seem that way at all.
But why would going to the wedding be so awful?
I didn’t want to ask and risk upsetting her even more.
“You could come with me to America?” I suggested.
“Don’t be crazy. I can’t follow you to New York. Apart from anything else, I don’t have enough holiday left. Especially since I have to take a week for the wedding.”
“So, hand your notice in. You’re not going to be able to do that job and do all the design on my building anyway.
” What was I doing? I shouldn’t be encouraging her to give up her job.
It would be better for me if she realized herself that she couldn’t do the two things and ended up pulling out of my project.
“I’ll figure it out.” She tapped her finger on the bottom of her wine glass. She didn’t sound too convincing. “In the meantime, you need to cancel your trip.”
“That’s not going to happen. I’ll be at the end of the phone. We can even FaceTime. But I’m not cancelling. End of story.”
“Oh, did I mention how stubborn Beck is?” Joshua asked.
“Piss off,” I replied. “You wouldn’t cancel in my position either.
And there’s no need to. If we were having a relationship, we would talk a lot by phone, so that’s what we’ll do.
I’ll call you five times a day if necessary.
” Truthfully, going to the US when Stella was so jittery wasn’t ideal, but I’d have to make good on my word and call her a lot—ask her questions, answer hers. It would be fine.
“I guess, like you said, I can wait and see how confident I’m feeling and tell them I’m sick if I don’t think we’re ready.”
“We’re going to be ready. I promise you.” One thing Stella would learn about me was that I didn’t make promises I didn’t keep.