8. Bobby
BOBBY
Bobby had been expecting his phone to explode with messages when he turned it on, but there was nothing from his fiancé, best friend, or anyone else who had been at the stag do.
He wasn’t sure how to feel about that. Bobby didn’t like confrontation outside of supporting his clients, but for nobody to contact him at all .
. . it was hard for that not to hurt. Now he wasn’t sure what he was going to do.
When he’d gotten back to London, Gabriel had prearranged a cab for himself, so they said their goodbyes and he left.
Bobby had taken so much comfort from Gabriel’s support, and he couldn’t thank him enough.
No words could articulate what it had meant to him.
He wouldn’t have wanted to spend the last two days with anyone else, and Gabriel gave the best hugs.
They were more comforting than the ones he got from Ryan.
Bobby was on the Heathrow Express, unsure whether he should go home.
Alex wasn’t due back until tomorrow, so at least he had a night to himself before he had to face her.
They needed to talk, and he didn’t have anywhere else to go.
It’s not like he could stay with his brothers, as they both lived with flatmates, and his parents were in Devon.
Not exactly commuting distance to the office.
Dillon wasn’t an option either, for obvious reasons, and he also shared a flat with others.
In fact, all his friends were in rented flat shares.
The only exception was Gabriel, but then he was a guy who had his shit together.
Bobby was on good money, but the intention had been to buy a place together with Alex after the wedding.
Alex rented her place, and Bobby wasn’t even on the lease.
Once he arrived at London Paddington, he jumped onto the Bakerloo line to get home.
It took him another forty minutes before he was finally lugging his case up the stairs to the flat.
They were on the top floor of an old Victorian house, which had three floors, each converted into a flat.
He put his key in the lock, and it wouldn’t go in.
What the fuck?
He checked he had the right key. There were only two – one for the main front door, which had worked, and the other for their flat.
He tried again, but with no luck. What the fuck was happening?
Having nothing else to do, he knocked on the door, and his jaw dropped when it opened and Alex was standing there.
Before he could say anything, she slapped him hard across the face.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded.
“What the fuck, Alex? I live here.”
“Not anymore. I’ve packed all your stuff.”
His face stung like a bitch. “Why are you angry with me? You’re the one who’s been cheating.”
She slapped him again.
“Fuck! Why do you keep hitting me? Can I come inside, and we can talk about this?”
She huffed and stormed back into the flat.
He followed, with some apprehension, wheeling his suitcase with him.
She hadn’t been lying. There were boxes packed up against the wall, and he could see his stuff in them.
It looked as though he was moving out. God knows what he was going to do, but he could worry about that later. They needed to talk first.
“Why are you back early?” he asked.
“I could ask the same of you,” she snapped.
Alex could get stroppy, and it could be like being in a relationship with a petulant teenager, but she was also loving.
That wasn’t the side he was seeing today.
In fact, he couldn’t remember the last time she’d been like that.
She’d been distant for months, and he’d put it down to the stress of the wedding. Now he knew better.
“I came back a day early because I didn’t want to be on the plane with all the others.”
“Did my brother come back with you?”
“Of course he did. He’d arranged the seat upgrades, and he didn’t know anyone else other than me. Why would he stay with a bunch of strangers?”
“And how long have you been fucking my brother?”
He stared at her, dumbfounded. What was she talking about?
“You’re not denying it, I see.”
“Yes, I am,” he said, finding his voice. “What the fuck, Alex? There’s nothing going on between me and your brother.”
“Why did you invite him to your stag do, then?”
“To get to know my future brother-in-law better. That’s what you wanted. You told me you wanted us to be friends.”
“I should have known better. I mean, the signs were there. It’s clearly in your blood, given your brothers are into men.”
“Woah. Don’t bring my family into this. Nothing is going on between me and Gabriel. We’re just friends, and speaking of which, are we forgetting that you’re the one who’s been fucking my best friend for months behind my back?”
She flew at him, slapping him again. He held her off without using too much strength. He didn’t want to hurt her, but he wasn’t just going to stand there and let her hit him.
“Alex! There is nothing going on between me and your brother.”
He wanted to add that he was straight, but it didn’t feel right saying that.
Gabriel was a handsome man and would make someone very happy someday.
If Bobby were that way inclined, he would definitely be interested.
He could appreciate a guy’s attractiveness without wanting to fuck him.
The point here wasn’t about his sexuality.
He would never cheat on his fiancé, and especially not with another family member.
It wasn’t like what she’d done with his best friend.
“I know you slept in Gabriel’s room at the hotel,” she said, crying.
He looked at her and knew she was faking it.
She did this a lot, but he’d said nothing about it because it was usually cute and he loved her.
The moment he’d learnt about Dillon, his love for her had died.
Perhaps it hadn’t been as strong as he thought.
He still cared about her, but now he was seeing sides of her that had always been there, and he’d been too besotted to see them as what they were: red flags.
“Yes, I stayed in his room, but that was just so the others wouldn’t hassle me. There is nothing going on.”
“I know those rooms only have one bed.”
“Two people can share a bed without having sex. Look at us for the past few months.”
“Don’t turn this around on me after what you’ve done.”
Bobby would not be able to have a sensible conversation with her today.
She had it in her head that something was going on with him and Gabriel, when she had been cheating on him for months.
If she was this mad at Bobby just sharing a room with her brother, imagine what she’d say if she knew about the “wedding” they’d had.
Thank fuck it wasn’t legally binding, or that would be a disaster.
“Why don’t we talk tomorrow when we’ve got clearer heads?” he suggested.
“You need to take all your stuff now. I don’t want you to come back here.”
“And where am I supposed to go? My brothers all have flatmates. I can’t turn up with boxes of stuff.”
“Why don’t you take it to my brother’s place? He’s got loads of space.”
He wasn’t going over all that again. It was clear he needed to get his stuff out of here now. How he was going to do that was a mystery, but Bobby had always been a resourceful guy. He would come up with something.
Bobby flopped down on the bed. He was dead on his feet after the last few hours.
A benefit of living in London was that you could rent a van at short notice, but it had cost a fortune.
He’d been worried Alex wouldn’t let him back into the flat if he left to pick the van up, so he’d paid a premium for it to be brought to him.
Whilst he was waiting, he’d moved all his stuff downstairs.
Once he’d had the last of his boxes out, she’d slammed the door in his face, saying she was keeping the ring as it was the least he could do.
He wasn’t in the mood to argue with her, and it wasn’t like he wanted the ring back.
His brothers would call him an idiot, but today wasn’t the time to let them know everything.
Once he had the van, he rented a storage facility in North London, which was the only place that had space on a Sunday.
He then had to offload all his stuff, taking a few bits to get him through the next couple of days.
Bobby booked a chain hotel for the next three nights to give him some breathing space.
The van place wasn’t open again until the morning, so that was tomorrow’s problem.
The hotel had parking. Once he was in the room, he couldn’t be arsed to unpack, or shower, or do anything other than strip the clothes off he’d been wearing for a ten-hour flight and then another few hours lugging boxes around.
He hadn’t eaten since the plane, but he just couldn’t be arsed to go out and get anything.
The hotel didn’t have a restaurant either.
It was just somewhere to rest his head, and that’s what he intended to do.
He could deal with all the other shit tomorrow.
He wasn’t due back at work until Wednesday, so that gave him a couple of days to sort his life out.
Dillon: We need to talk
Not the best message for Bobby to wake up to, but he was right.
He had been hoping to delay that conversation, though.
What was he supposed to say? “Good luck with my ex-fiancé. I hope we can still be friends.” There was no chance that was happening.
Since it had all happened, he’d wondered why he’d stayed friends with Dillon at all.
Was it a sense of duty from their university days?
They’d had some great times, but it was like Dillon and the others thought they were still teenagers, even though they were in their thirties.