Chapter Thirty-Three
I throw my arms around her, a gesture made a bit awkward by the basketball-sized belly in between us. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
“I’m nine months pregnant; where the fuck else would I be?” She pushes me to arm’s length and examines me like something rotten she’s found in the back of the fridge. “So you’ve clearly had a bit of a mare. Put the kettle on while I go find you something to wear.”
Even this close to her due date, Amina is smaller than me. Luckily for my comfort—and unluckily for my pride—I’m about the same size as her husband, so for the second time in twelve hours, I gratefully slip into men’s clothing—this time, a pair of Faizan’s scrubs.
Amina pours us both a mug of tea and sits across from me at the kitchen table, her dark brown eyes cutting through all the bullshit I was about to spin her. “So things came to a head with Ramsay, and not in a good way?”
“Indeed.”
“Which poses somewhat of a problem, given that you’re currently living with him.”
“Quite.”
“All right then. First of all, you’ll stay here.
As you know, the spare bedroom has been turned into a containment zone for the parasite, but you can kip on the sofa as long as you like, or go back to Mum and Dad’s.
” I open my mouth to thank her, but she raises a hand to cut me off.
“Secondly, we need to recover your stuff. I assume there’s no training today so he’s at home, hopefully nursing the worst hangover in the history of the world? ”
“It would be hard for his to beat mine. But yeah, no training today.”
“Okay. We’re going over there right now.”
My face blanches at the thought of seeing him, and my morning cheeseburgers threaten to repeat on me.
“Don’t be thick, Abby, you’re not going into the flat. You just need to be in the car in case the doorman gives me shit. I’ll take care of everything.”
“But you’re pregnant,” I say, which I hope is an efficient way of conveying everything I’m feeling: I’m sorry for making you do this, you’re the best friend ever, I can’t believe you’re this awesome when you’re so close to popping, please do this but also you don’t have to, et cetera et cetera.
Amina rolls her eyes. “I don’t think running around shoving things in a bag and screaming a few obscenities at Lachlan Ramsay is going to cause any damage. If anything, I can only hope my waters break on some extravagantly expensive rug.”
Two cups of strong tea later, we’re in Amina’s tiny car, zooming out of the Manchester suburbs and toward Liverpool.
The long drive gives me an opportunity to fill her in on everything that happened.
She high-fives me when I tell her about my brief, drunken hookup with Kieran, but her mood quickly shifts as I rush through the Lachlan stuff.
I manage to do it without crying, but only because Amina’s constant commentary of curse words keeps the mood hilariously angry.
She is the Picasso of swearing, stringing together combinations that shouldn’t make sense but are actually dazzling in their savagery.
“Absolute fucking muppet,” “lanky streak of piss,” and “reheated bag of bin juice” make strong showings, but my favorite has to be “fuck-knuckling turbo melt.” She deploys this in response to the pièce de résistance of Lachlan asking me to end his marriage.
I don’t even know what it means, but I know it’s bang-on: He is a fuck-knuckling turbo melt.
People talk a lot about the five stages of grief like some universal truth, but I now know they’re wrong.
I’ve not felt Denial or Bargaining or anything; for me, the stages have been more like Self-Recrimination, Ugly-Crying, Vomiting, Horniness, and Crippling Hangover.
I guess the only one of the classic five that resonates when I think of that fuck-knuckling turbo melt is Anger.
I can and will think about my own mistakes later, pulling them apart and examining them with my own masochistic microscope, but right now, absorbing the tirade of fury streaming out of Amina, I realize I’m just fucking livid.
After the approximate number of “fucks” in a Scorsese movie, Amina pulls up to Lachlan’s building.
The street is quieter than usual, the city’s denizens bedbound, cursing last night’s decisions.
The large, glass-walled lobby is empty, but once we’re in the building, my eyes never leave the lift doors.
I’m not sure what I’d do if Lachlan came out of them right now. Drop dead, probably.
Security Joe must see the panic in my eyes as I explain that I’m sending Amina up to the flat without me, because he doesn’t ask any questions, just nods and calls the lift.
Safely re-ensconced in Amina’s car, I stew over all the things that could be happening up there.
Is Lachlan explaining what happened, trying to justify it to my friend?
Are they comparing the fine print of various Scottish legal documents?
Or is he sitting in the bath feeling sorry for himself?
Twenty minutes pass, then twenty more. Just when I’m about to brave the journey up to the penthouse myself, the doors open and I see Amina emerge, pulling two large suitcases behind her.
With Joe’s help, we wedge them into her hatchback.
“So?” I ask as Amina pulls away from the curb. “Did he say anything?”
She bites her lip and flashes me a sidelong glance. “He wasn’t there.”
I know I shouldn’t care about Lachlan Ramsay’s whereabouts anymore, but I can’t help the jolt of fear that rattles through me. Where could he be? He was so drunk last night—what if something happened? Should we call all the hospitals, just to be sure?
“No, we should not call all the hospitals, just to be sure,” Amina says, and I don’t know if I voiced my concerns out loud or if she just knows me that well. “I’m sure he just scarpered. He must own a second home somewhere.”
“Yeah, in Spain, with his wife.”
Amina says nothing, just grips the steering wheel tighter and floors it away from the building.