Chapter 24
Finn
Megan’s inheritance from her aunt came through, and she’s determined to use it for something sensible and not “smoke or piss it away, like she ordinarily would.” So we’ve spent the last few hours in the Patchway slash Cribbs Causeway area of Bristol traipsing around one car dealership after another.
She wants to buy a vehicle small enough to fit into any parking space in Bath, fast and comfy enough to make the drive home to Kent tolerable, and with an excellent sound system, see previous reason.
Currently, she’s torn between a Suzuki Jimny and a Kia Sportage, and I honestly think Megan and I must have different definitions of small.
I’m here as the token penis, because she doesn’t want the salesmen to fuck her over for being a woman, but otherwise my input isn’t needed. Which is good. I’m glad. In reality, I know jack shit about cars. Megs knows a great deal more than I do, and she’s keen to make sure I don’t forget it.
“You should get one of these,” she says, running her palms lovingly over the bodywork of an enormous black Discovery in the Land Rover showroom.
“Yeah, and I could fit my Impreza in the boot and take it out on day trips,” I reply.
She laughs and says, “I’m being serious. Then when you go on weekend getaways with your Australian loverboy, you can use your car instead of his dad-mobile.”
My freeze response kicks in. Every cell in my body shuts down.
To no one’s surprise, what was meant to be a one time only, get it out of our systems encounter, in fact, turned out not to be.
After the post-shag lice room meet-up, things sort of .
. . spiralled from there. Pi taught me how to douche and stretch with plugs, and well, one thing led to another, and I ended up getting folded in two like a deck chair on my living room rug.
And then once more at his place. And back at mine again, and so on and so forth until Pi began to fight me on who would bottom at our meet-ups.
Megan tilts her head to the side. How much is she aware of?
She laughs. Slaps my arm. “Oh my god, shit yourself? George told me about Christmas. I know you took him with you. You don’t have to hide it.
She said you only offered because he was feeling shitty about his parents, and you were just being a good friend. ”
“We didn’t . . . do anything sexual in Cornwall,” I say, because at least that part is true.
“I know.” But she’s smirking, like she doesn’t believe me.
“We didn’t, I swear.”
Megan takes a deep inhalation and watches me for a few seconds. “I fucked Lucy.”
Again, my freeze response goes into overdrive. “Oh?”
“It happened last month. No . . . February, sorry. I was gonna tell you, but I was . . . trying to figure out the best moment.”
“And the Land Rover showroom, which is phenomenally acoustically blessed, is the best time for that?”
I sense the nearest salesperson prick up their ears.
She laughs again. “I’m only saying, if you needed to confess something to me too . . .” She holds her hands up. “There’ll be no judgement here.”
This could be my get out of jail free card. I could tell her everything and wipe my proverbial slate clean. But . . . it would ruin the relationship Pi’s built with Georgia.
Technically, it’s his own fault anyway, but I can’t cut him like that.
“Nope, nothing to report here,” I say.
Megan sucks her teeth at me. I stand firm and keep my mouth shut. Eventually, she sighs. “Okay. Are you pissed about Lucy?”
“No,” I reply. But the word comes out too quickly. “Why would I be?”
She shrugs. “Still, I think you should get a bigger car.” And then she winks at me, and I know she knows. I can only hope and pray she doesn’t tell Georgia.
“Are you guys hoping to upgrade your family car?” says a besuited salesman, who seems to have popped out of thin air. He’s younger than me and has a very angular, pointy face.
I’m about to say no, but Megan cuts me off. “Are there any women sales assistants around today?”
The guy frowns and looks between the pair of us, but reorganises his features into a smile. “I can make you an appointment on a Saturday, Monday, or Wednesday with Kate if you’d like? What kind of thing are you looking for?”
“I’m not looking, she is,” I say.
“Nah. I’m gonna get a Jimny,” Megan says.
“When did you decide that?” I ask.
The salesman ping-pongs his gaze between us.
“About five seconds ago, but you should totally buy this one. All the cool professional athletes drive Discoveries,” she says. Then adds, “I won’t mention a single thing to Georgia.”
I close my eyes and breathe slowly through my nostrils. Damn it. I turn to the sales guy. “How much?”
“Well . . .” He squirms. “This model starts at sixty, but there are a range of finance—”
“K?! Sixty K?! Sixty thousand pounds?” I’m laughing too much to hear what his answer is. Megan laughs as well, and eventually even the sales assistant gets swept into our mirth. “Pard . . . no. No thank you.”
He waits until Megs and I have calmed down. “There are a variety of finance options available, and we have some excellent secondhand models in our showroom. If you trade in, that could bring the agreement down quite a bit. Depending on what your current car is, it might be as much—”
Megan interrupts. “It’s a twenty twenty-three Impreza.”
“Oh, that’s your Subaru outside?” His eyes light up, and I can practically hear the cha-ching sounding off inside his head.
“No, no. No, no, no. I see where this is going, and no, I don’t need a new car. My car is too pretty to trade in.”
“Let’s take a look at the secondhand ones,” Megan says, but not to me. To the sales guy.
“Certainly,” he says, and the pair hotfoot it out of the showroom.
Okay, what would Pi do? I ask myself. He wouldn’t let himself get tempted by shiny new things. He’d put his foot down and drive away in his sensible, reliable family car. Even though my Impreza has none of those qualities.
Wait, would he want me to buy something more sensible? Oh no. Probably.
By the time we reach the forecourt, Megan has become besties with the sales guy. His name is Lewis. He’s twenty-two, likes Arsenal and snowboarding, and dislikes hot dogs. I don’t trust him.
The first car he shows us is a 2024 Discovery. Black, like the beast in the showroom, but this one has fifteen thousand miles on the clock and is twenty thousand pounds cheaper.
“Loads of leg room,” Lewis says, looking me up and down and then opening the driver’s and passenger’s doors. “And the same in the back. Great, if you two ever have kids.”
“He already has a kid,” Megan says. “Logan. He’s nearly seven?”
“No way, that’s what I want to call my son when I get older,” Lewis says.
I side-eye him, unsure if I should be more offended by the slimy ass-kissing or the fact that he thinks at four years his senior I’m an “older” person.
“Loads of boot space,” he says, opening that too. “Do you have any dogs?”
Megan slaps my arm with the back of her hand, and I know she’s immediately thinking of Trekkie too.
Trekkie. I can just imagine Pi’s face if I rocked up in a car with an exclusive safe zone for his little buddy.
“Not really. But I have a friend with a dog.” Oh god, Eggs, stay strong. Don’t volunteer up such valuable bargaining tools.
“The previous owner had a dog guard installed right here.” Lewis shows us the trunking of the dog cage and where it would be fixed in the boot.
“Gives you a good idea of the size. It’ll fit two medium-sized dogs in very comfortably.
You can open the door right up like this and your dog—I mean, your friend’s dog—can hop straight in and out.
And you’ve still got all this space here for groceries or luggage, or whatever else you have. ”
I will not be swayed by shiny new things. I don’t need a new car. I must put my foot down here and channel my inner Pi.
“Would you like to give it a test drive?”
“Uh . . .” Oh, fuck. “Sure.”