Chapter 29 #2
‘You’re all different,’ she said, tugging on my hair, which I’d not had cut now for almost a year.
‘You mean an exhausted, frumpy wreck? It’s how mums of tiny babies look.’
‘No.’ She narrowed one eye. ‘It’s not your appearance as such. Although those new curves are rocking that sweater.’
It was her old sweater. All my jumpers were.
‘You seem… self-assured. That hunchy slump in your shoulders has gone. Your chin is higher. Like, you’ve stopped feeling embarrassed about taking up space on planet Earth.’
‘Hunchy slump? I thought we weren’t making digs or criticising each other today.’
‘I thought we were acting as if the past twelve months never happened. If you’d grown yourself some swagger last Christmas, I’d have mentioned it.’ Her face clouded over. ‘Sorry. I know we aren’t talking about then, either.’
We weren’t, and for most of the day, we didn’t.
But the three of us did talk about everything else.
ShayKi’s new Antarctic-themed collection, how the manager who took on my role never had a pen on her, and always turned up irritatingly early.
What Shay’s nieces and nephews were getting up to, her grandma’s hip replacement.
We discussed films and TV shows that we knew the other two would have loved – or loathed.
We ranted about politics and gossiped about celebrities, some of whom we’d met and even had dinner with.
I gave the briefest of updates about my family, and then told them a sanitised version of the past few months.
They didn’t need to know how badly I’d crashed and burned, spending my pregnancy wallowing in despair.
They did get to hear about how I was currently rising from the ashes, making friends and costumes and generally doing okay.
‘Tell me about the man,’ Shay ordered as we feasted on beef and roast potatoes that evening. There were also masses of Yorkshire puddings, obviously, because we were Sheffield born and bred, alongside festive trimmings courtesy of M that was one reason he’d told me.
‘You know, if you two want kids, you really need to stop faffing about,’ I said when Kieran had nipped out to grab their overnight bags from the car.
‘Who said I want kids?’ Shay drawled back, lolling on the opposite end of the sofa to me, her feet in my lap.
‘You did, many times. What’s new is that you haven’t denied that all those previous denials were denying the truth.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ She couldn’t have sounded more half-hearted if she’d tried. Quarter-hearted, maybe?
I sat up. ‘I’m talking about accepting that he’s completely in love with you.’
She pursed her lips, picking at a stray thread on the throw Beckett had bought.
Beckett – why hadn’t he messaged me yet?
‘There’s been times when I’ve wondered whether he might be. I mean, the string of terrible girlfriends is a classic giveaway. And I know he’s not in love with you. No offence.’
‘Yuck. None taken.’ I leaned over and took hold of her hand. ‘He’s your person, isn’t he?’
Shay spoke slowly, as if working it out as she went.
‘I honestly never thought so. Or at least, I knew he was my person, but dismissed the feelings as nothing more than friendship. You know how much it aggravated me when people assumed we were together, or should be together. Why can’t a boy and girl simply be close, without needing to make it romantic?
I didn’t want to kiss Kieran. I wanted to hang out with him.
Every day, more than anyone else. And then, the business, and working, and the odd time there was a flash of maybe attraction or our gaze lingered a few seconds too long…
it was easy to push to one side, and pretend it was a silly moment. ’
‘You always hated his girlfriends. That’s the other half of the secretly-in-love-with-my-best-friend cliché.’
‘You hated his girlfriends!’
‘I knew he was with them for the wrong reasons, so they wouldn’t last. I wasn’t jealous like you were.’
‘Of course I was jealous, he was choosing to hang out with boring, fluffy women he had nothing in common with instead of me. The difference was, I had no desire to paw him all the time, unlike the girlfriends.’
‘You’ve been talking in the past tense. What changed?’
Shay sighed, dropping her back against the sofa.
‘After you left, he was so upset about Leo – and you, of course – then he started dating this woman, Eva, and she wasn’t like the others.
I actually liked her. She wouldn’t put up with crap, so he stopped being crappy.
It was the stupidest thing. We went out to a burger place, the three of us, and when the waiter asked if we wanted any sauces, he asked for mayo like he always does, and blue cheese for her, without even asking.
Then he turned to me, as if waiting for me to say what I wanted. ’
‘Barbecue.’
‘Well, obviously. The whole meal was full of these tiny, natural interactions between them, like he knew this woman, and she knew him. He noticed her. He cared about what she wanted. It made me so scared I actually threw up after the taxi dropped me home and they carried on back to his place together. It was as if whenever he topped up her water glass or she helped herself to a spoonful of his fudge cake, my eyes opened a little wider. I didn’t feel ill because I had to share my friend, or even because he might be starting to care for someone more than me.
It was like a horror show unfolding, and I was realising that all the irritating comments and jokes about us were right.
I am totally in love with this man. Of course, like all emotionally stunted dopes, I only realised when it was too late. ’
‘Why didn’t you tell him? Even if you didn’t want to cause trouble with Eva, he’s not still with her, is he?’
She shrugged. ‘Why does anyone hide how they feel about their lifelong best friend? After seeing him with Eva, I properly doubted whether he felt the same, in which case me saying something would ruin everything. It might ruin everything, even if he does. What if he is just a commitment-phobe who can’t handle a serious relationship?
Eva was great, and still only lasted four months.
We go at least one day a week not being able to stand each other.
What if, once we got together, it ended up being every day? ’
‘He’s handled a serious relationship with you since primary school. He told me this evening that being in love with you is killing him.’
‘What’s killing him?’ Kieran asked, appearing in the doorway with a bag in each hand. ‘And who’s him?’
‘You,’ I said, pointedly, before getting up to pull him over to the sofa. ‘I’m going to check on Bob and make us all a Baileys hot chocolate while you two finally talk about how you’re in love with each other, and what you’re going to do about it.’
I gave them a good twenty minutes, and when I got back I still had to cough several times and lob a reindeer cushion at them before they noticed me and stopped snogging.
I crawled into bed another hour or so later, my voice hoarse from all the singing, talking and laughing. I’d shown Shay and Kieran the spare bedroom and left them making up for lost time.
I sent Beckett one message.
Mary
All okay?
After our kiss, I’d been expecting a trickle of funny, sweet, flirty messages throughout the day, although perhaps the missed calls indicated that Beckett wanted to talk to me in person rather than send a WhatsApp.
When Bob woke me up the next morning, the day of the NLCCCCC, I still hadn’t got a reply.