2. Katy
Chapter two
Katy
Lolo
is it me or is that eugene bond dude actually rly sexy now hes grown a beard
Amie
HAHAHAHA YES
ROO
Who?
Amie
The middle aged accountant-looking dude who sings that Caught Up song
ROO
oh my god Lo
Lolo
speaking of sexy hunks tho
ur brother is fit af roo
(hot emojis)
Amie
(drooling emojis)
Lolo
u have cam amie leave someone for the rest of us
Amie
I’m in a relationship, I’m not dead. I’ve still got eyes.
(drooling emojis)
ROO
Good lord please stop
Keep your slutty vaginas away from my brother
Lolo
(hot emojis)
I stuff my phone back into my pocket with a quiet chuckle. Barely a day goes by without Paloma thirsting over something or someone. Amie had a one-night-stand on a layover four years ago and got a beautiful little girl and—eventually—the man of her dreams out of it, but my extroverted flirt of a best friend will never say no to looking. And for as much as I envy Ruth’s dedication to feminism as she looks herself in the mirror of a morning and yells fuck the patriarchy… I can’t help but want a more traditional life.
I want to settle down with a husband and babies. And as much as I enjoy thirsting over celebrities whose lives are far removed from my own, it’s increasingly hard for me to join the conversation about someone I actually know. Because that would mean admitting that there’s something going on—even if it’s just a little crush.
They’re not wrong, though. Jay is beautiful, but it’s his haunted eyes that I can’t get out of my mind. The split-second flash of terror as he shot up from the sofa and rushed across the room to the kitchen. The quick rise and fall of his shoulders as he busied himself preparing food. The way he stiffened and his breath hitched when my hand touched his shoulder.
Ruth hasn’t told us much about him, other than that he’s spent most of the last decade in the Middle East. In fact, in the fifteen years we’ve been friends, she’s told us surprisingly little about her brother. She told us when he was injured, of course, and that his injury left him hospitalised for several months and forced his discharge from the army.
Which, I guess, might go some way to explaining why loud noises bother him. And say what you want, but the four of us in a room together—me, Amie, Lo and Ruth—we can be pretty loud. But Jay… he’s not the loud sort. I almost expected him not to stay. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad he did. He intrigues me, if nothing else. And he’s really fucking nice to look at. The way he fills out those jeans is straight out of a cowboy romance. But something about him screamed at me all night. There are demons behind those eyes. Tension rolled off him in waves. Everyone else seemed oblivious to it, but I—ever the empath, as Amie always says—felt it. And it cut me to the core.
I guess that’s why I’m here now, at the library, running my finger along the spines of dusty books, looking for one about how to help veterans when they leave the military. I don’t think anyone has borrowed any of these books for a while. The shelves certainly haven’t been cleaned. There’s a layer of dust several millimetres thick on the metal edge, and my finger feels grimy. I wipe it roughly against my jeans before pulling a book from the stack.
I could sit and read here, but I’d rather just go home. I’ve just finished a run of early shifts at the supermarket and I’m exhausted, desperate for some time away from people . And I have a lot of laundry catch-up to do. I check the book out using the snazzy new self-service machine, tuck it into my bag, and walk home.
Three loads of laundry and one beige plate of chicken tenders and potato wedges later, I swap my jeans and sweater for my favourite pyjamas and flip the switch on my pink bedside lamp. I love this lamp. The bulb is fitted inside a frosted pink lava lamp-style glass structure and it bathes the room in a soft, rosy glow. Between the lamp and the Himalayan salt string lights around my headboard, my bedroom ambience is perfect for curling up with a book, a blanket and a cup of tea.
Except, tonight’s reading is decidedly less cosy than my usual steamy novels.
I crack open the book, using my finger to trace down the contents page until I find the chapter that sounds most like what I’m looking for. How to support your veteran when they return home.
Not that he’s my veteran. Nothing about him is mine.
But something about him—in Pacifica, and again last night at Ruth’s place—told me to hang on to him. Something told me he needs me, and that maybe I could need him, too. In spite of the things he’s seen, somewhere underneath the guarded persona and quiet bravado, there’s a man with very human emotions, skeletons in his closet that are threatening to spill out through every pore. And they’re reaching out to me. So I ignore the peril of the best friend’s brother trope, flip to page thirty-six, and start to read.
Katy
Kitkats, toothpaste, dandruff shampoo and gin on special offer this week ladies. Any takers?
Lolo
ill take the gin pls K
ROO
Go on then, I’ll take some kitkats
Amie
I’ll have some kitkats too please! Maisy nicked the last one and I’m desperate.
Lolo
oh pls can i have some toothy p too pls
ROO
Toothy P…
Katy
Got it. Fairy GodSister will deliver it all asap.
Work is never especially exciting. I don’t hate my job, which is probably a good thing. I guess I’m lucky. But I don’t love it, either. I never exactly planned to be a store supervisor in a supermarket, but it happened, and it keeps my bills paid with some change leftover to feed my reading habit, so I’ve never really bothered to look elsewhere.
On this particular Tuesday, nearly a week after my trip to the library, I find myself in the tiny box room we call an office, fanning myself with a laminated sheet of paper, trying to figure out staff deployment for the next week. I have team members who aren’t trained on tills, team members who have medical conditions that prevent them from lifting boxes and stocking shelves, team members who don’t have the correct level of training for various other roles, and not a single useful combination of any of the above on any given day. I frisbee the laminated paper to the back of the desk and lean back in the chair.
I’d rather be at home under a blanket with a cup of tea, reading a saucy romance novel. Maybe one with cowboys. Maybe that one I keep hearing about, where the cowboy hates her at first but then he ties her up in the stables and—
Anyway.
One of the young cashiers pokes his head around the office door and summons me to the shop floor. The schedule will have to wait. Maybe I’ll leave it for the night shift supervisor to deal with. Or, considering he’s the world’s most useless fuckweasel, maybe I’ll just woman up and do it myself.
A few hours later, before I leave the store for the evening, I fill a basket with some food and a new book I’ve been eyeing up before heading to the checkout. The night shift supervisor is at the till, and I load the conveyer belt with my groceries and book. He scans them through, lips lifting into a smirk as he handles the book.
“You actually read this kind of thing? Smut?”
“You don’t?”
“Isn’t it just like… porn?”
“Richard,” I rest my elbows on the top of the till screen and lean in with a sugary smile. “Richard, Richard, Richard. Are you telling me you’ve never looked at porn before? I understand you not reading books because—well, you probably can’t. But porn? Surely you sit there with your hand at night.”
His smirk drops and his face takes on an expression of thunder as he slams my final few items through and flings them carelessly towards the bagging area. I load them back into my tote bag with a cheery smile and offer him a finger wave as I step away. I’m not usually quite so mean or confrontational, but after cleaning up that man’s messes a few too many times, I just can’t help myself anymore. I’m outside at the bus stop when a lady joins me, arms laden with several shopping bags.
“Don’t listen to that arsehole in there.” She nudges my shoulder. “He’s always a miserable prick. Everyone needs some smut.”
I grin, and stick out my hand to wave down the approaching bus as its headlights illuminate the soft drizzle in the air.
The following night, I find myself at another of Ruth’s dinner parties. She’s really going all-in on making sure her brother doesn’t sit alone and stew; this is the second time she’s invited us all over in less than a week. Not that I’m complaining. It’s nice to have my best friends in the same place, even if it’s just for a couple of hours.
After Amie and Cam reunited again last September, and all of the drama that went along with it, Paloma booked her busiest winter season since opening her photography studio. Ruth has been working from her employer’s New York offices a lot recently, too, and all of it has left me feeling a little—well, a little lonely, honestly. I’m just working shifts at the supermarket, shuffling between work and home, and I feel like I’ve barely spent any real time with my friends recently. So, as much as I’m a homebody, and as much as I’d quite happily curl up and spend the evening reading about dirty-talking cowboys, I’m going to take advantage of Ruth’s hospitality and her willingness to cook for me.
I pad across the flat from the kitchen to the enormous floor-to-ceiling windows, looking out over the Thames. I stare at my reflection in the dark glass for a moment, before whirling around to face—
“Jay, hi!”
“Hi, Katy.” He greets me with a curious smile. “You okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, I—” I what ? He steps closer and his cologne fills my senses, something fresh and spicy and sexy, and it floods me with warmth. “I’m good. How are you?”
I’m so flustered around this man. He’s beautiful: a tall, dark, handsome God of a man, but it’s not like I’ve never seen an attractive man before. For example, Cam is, objectively speaking, very good-looking, but both my brain and my mouth function normally around him.
“Yeah, good, thanks. I, uh, I like your hair like that. Very 90s.”
I reach up and touch the ends of my hair a little self-consciously. I’ve fashioned two braids from my temples leading into two small pigtails formed from the front sections of my hair. It’s very Baby Spice, particularly with my fresh highlights making my blonde hair even lighter.
“Thanks,” I say, a shrug pulling at my shoulders. God, brain, he’s hot, and you’re horny. We get it. Pull yourself together. “I didn’t realise you’d be here tonight.”
“Yeah, parents have gone away, and Roofus took pity on me,” he says with a wry laugh.
“Almost like she doesn’t trust you to feed yourself,” I laugh.
“Yeah.” His lips curve into a sardonic smile. “I was just about to say the same. I don’t think she realises I’m capable of cooking and feeding myself, but I’m not complaining if she wants to cook for me.”
“Roofus,” I say with a smirk. “Remind me to take the piss later.”
“Oh, she’ll love it,” he laughs. “Wait ‘til I’ve gone home, though.”
Ruth’s intercom buzzes insistently, and a moment later, Paloma’s squeal announces her presence before she walks into the room. Amie follows with Cam in tow, and I smile. The gang is all together. It feels good to have all of my favourite people in the same place.
Ruth has set up a taco station on her breakfast bar with everything you could ever want in a tortilla shell, and more. No one ever leaves Roo’s flat hungry. I fix myself a plate and plop down onto the end of the sofa beside Amie, whose eyes are fixed on Cam and Jay, deep in conversation at Ruth’s breakfast bar. Roo and Paloma are on the other side of the sectional sofa, heads bent over Paloma’s phone.
“The boys seem to be getting along.”
“Yeah, they’ve bonded,” Amie murmurs, never taking her eyes off them. “It’s nice.”
“Yeah… I think it’ll be good. For both of them.”
“He’s staying, you know.” Amie finally turns to me, glassy-eyed and smiling softly. “He’s not moving to Boston. He’s moving here.”
My eyes widen.
“Wha—but—”
“Yeah. He’s just gonna commute from London.”
“To Boston?”
“Yeah. He’ll be there for two weeks, and here for two. It’s long, but…”
“But it means he’ll be here . He’s so crazy for you, Amie, a blind fool can see that. He’s moving across an entire ocean for you, girl. And Maisy… he looks at that little girl like the whole world spins around her.”
I smile, thinking of my three-year-old goddaughter and her wide-eyed, toothy grin—the bright green eyes that match her dad’s, and the grin that matches my best friend’s. The grin that turned a previously confirmed bachelor pilot into a lovesick fool of a man, and a girl-dad extraordinaire. He fell in love with his daughter the moment he met her; it didn’t even matter that he’d missed out on three years of her life. He’s more than making up for it now. Their love, the way it transcends the physical barriers between them, the way it crosses oceans, is a thing of envy.
“I know,” she whispers. “And I—I’m so in love with him, Katy.” Her hazel eyes bore into mine, pleading. “I love him so much.”
“I know, love,” I whisper back. Our hands find each other, fingers tangling together. “You’ve got him.”
“I just don’t want this to be too much.”
I wrap my arms around my best friend and rest my head on her shoulder. Her chestnut curls mix with my blonde waves, and I smile. The mix of colours looks the same way it’s looked since we were eleven years old. Our hair has always reflected us. Dark and light. A perfect balance.
“Love, I don’t think anything could be too much for that man. He’s moving across the world. He’d move to Saturn for you and Maisy, and he wouldn’t ask for a thing in return. He loves you. And you love him.”
“I love him,” she agrees, a slow smile lifting the corners of her mouth. “I love him so much.”
After we’ve all stuffed ourselves and returned for seconds, my belly is about to burst and I’m ready to go home and lie down in a dark room for a few hours. I make my rounds to say goodbye, finally catching up with Jay just before I retrieve my coat and head out to my car.
“Hey, give me your number, let’s try that beer place,” I say, holding out my phone. He hesitates for a moment, but then he takes it and taps at the screen. When he hands it back, I use the number he just saved to call him, and he waves his phone at me.
“Gotcha,” he says with a tight smile. “Just text me.”
Two nights later, I’m wrapped in a towel after a long, candlelit bubble bath. I stretch out a leg on the edge of my bed, about to begin massaging lotion into every inch of my skin, when my phone buzzes on the bedside table. It’s a marketing message from the new brewery, announcing some special offers in their bistro. I smooth the lotion over my legs, then settle against the pillows.
Katy
Hi Jay, it’s Katy. Wanna do that lunch?
Jay
Sure. When?
Katy
Sunday? Working in the morning but finish @ 12. Does 12:15 work?
Jay
Sure. See u then.