Always You and Me

Chapter Thirty Six

I scrubbed off the bright red lipstick. It looked too try-hard, and far too much like date make-up. As had the previous two colours I’d applied. It shouldn’t have been this hard to get ready for a casual dinner between two people who’d agreed they were just old friends. Except there was a whole unspoken agenda that I suspected we’d be getting into this evening.

Perhaps I should have taken notes from Raegan today, because her interrogation technique had made the Spanish Inquisitors look like they hadn’t really been trying very hard.

‘So, I’m assuming the two of you slept together when you got yourself stranded in the forest back in February?’ It was a bold opening bombshell, and she’d dropped it when Josh probably hadn’t even driven off the industrial estate yet.

I set down the sandwich I’d been about to bite into, my appetite suddenly gone.

‘Of course we didn’t. And how did you get to that after observing us together for all of two whole minutes?’

Raegan shrugged as though she too was amazed at her powers of observation. ‘It’s a skill. Like a superpower.’

‘You couldn’t just leap tall buildings like everyone else?’ I muttered.

She smiled but said nothing, clearly waiting for more.

‘Well, for what it’s worth, your spidey sense needs retuning. Josh and I are just good friends.’

‘If you say so,’ Raegan said, lulling me into a false sense of security in thinking the subject had been dropped. ‘But to be quite honest, Lily, anyone could have picked up on the pheromones the two of you were giving out. You could have cut the sexual tension with a knife.’ She picked up one we used for smoothing icing and made a slicing motion.

I wasn’t even sure why I’d felt the need to lie to her, but it probably had a lot to do with my IUI plans, which I’d yet to share with anyone but my parents. Somehow it felt all kinds of wrong to be talking about Josh in one breath and trying to have Adam’s baby in the next.

Now, beneath the unforgiving halogen lights of the bathroom, I studied my finished make-up critically. My lids were shaded in a soft smoky grey, making my eyes look much bigger than usual. Unfortunately, the same could be said of my lips, which were plumply swollen after being vigorously wiped clean so many times. I slicked some clear gloss on my new pout and hoped it would go down by the time I got to the gastro pub where we’d arranged to meet.

The outfit I’d chosen was left out on my bed, while piled high on the bedroom chair was practically everything else in my wardrobe, which I’d tried on and discarded. I glanced at the clock and bit my lip worriedly, knowing my indecisiveness had made me late. The problem was that virtually everything I’d pulled from its hanger came with an inbuilt memory of Adam. Normally I loved the way even my clothes had a provenance that traced back to him, because it made it feel like he was still walking invisibly beside me. But tonight there would be enough to contend with, without inviting even more memories to join us.

The black jeans and short-sleeved black lace top I’d finally decided on were both new; purchases made since Adam had gone. The thought brought me to a halt as I realised that one day my entire wardrobe would be that way too. He would never have seen me in any of it; never have had to keep a straight face when I asked the classic question about the size of my bum in a new garment. It was a sad thought, and I did my best to shrug it off as I hurried to the kitchen to pour out a bowl of kibble for Fletcher.

‘I’m sorry, old friend, but I’m flying solo tonight,’ I told my disgruntled dog, who looked unimpressed when I put on my jacket without reaching for his lead. To make it up to him I left him listening to Adam’s favourite country music playlist on Spotify.

The pub was only a ten-minute drive away, but I still summoned an Uber. This morning’s negative pregnancy test meant it was now safe to drink, and it definitely felt like the kind of night when I might need one.

Josh was already seated at our table when I entered the pub. I saw him despite the crowds at the bar and the full-to-capacity dining area. It was as though there was an invisible pull that snagged me whenever he was within range. Perhaps he felt it too, because without being hailed he swivelled in his seat as I stood in the doorway to the restaurant. He shot a smile across the width of the room that lost none of its potency over the distance.

He was on his feet and holding out the vacant chair for me by the time I’d weaved through the tables to reach him. He dropped a totally friend-appropriate kiss on my cheek. I breathed in the scent of his aftershave and the applewood aroma of his shampoo. He smelled like the forest where he lived.

I suspected Josh was far better than me at playing things cool. Or so I thought . . . until I noticed he’d nicked himself twice while shaving. I took comfort in those tiny cuts, and wondered if his hands had been shaking as much as mine were right now. Although the idea of Josh being anything other than totally in control was hard to imagine.

He volunteered to fill our water glasses from the jug on the table, which was just as well. Had the task been mine, the place would be awash with Evian and ice cubes. It was hard to dismiss the feeling that tonight could possibly be a turning point for us. I just had no idea in which direction.

A waiter arrived to take our drinks order, and I caught Josh’s amused grin when I asked for a cherry cola. It affected me in an area smiles rarely reached. The drink was pure nostalgia, transporting me back to a time when things hadn’t been this complicated, and being Josh’s friend had felt as easy as breathing.

‘You’re looking better than you did earlier,’ I said, to fill a silence I was afraid might stretch. He glanced down at his black shirt and jeans – clothes so similar to mine it was as though we’d done that weird matching-outfit thing some couples do. Except you’re not a couple , a voice in my head reminded me.

‘What I mean is, that you don’t look so tired.’

‘I grabbed a couple of hours’ sleep this afternoon at the Airbnb,’ he said.

I wasn’t quick enough to plug the next gap, and an unexpected awkwardness descended like a mist between us. It was as though we were trying to reach each other from opposite sides of a minefield, where one wrong step could blow everything up.

‘Why are we here, Josh?’ I asked, jumping straight into dangerous waters.

‘I could say because you chose this restaurant , but I’ve got a feeling that answer would probably earn me a kick under the table.’

That pulled out a smile. I cleared my throat nervously as though I was about to address an auditorium, instead of the person I’d known for practically my entire life.

‘I thought we’d left things in a sensible place back in the forest,’ I said, directing my comments to the cutlery on the table, because it was easier than looking into his eyes. ‘I’m pretty sure we agreed that for now there wasn’t going to be a next chapter in this story for us.’

‘I guess I flipped to the end of the book and didn’t like the way it finished,’ he said, taking my literary allusion and running with it. ‘I thought there might be an epilogue that we hadn’t properly considered.’

It was the worst moment to be interrupted, but bad timing had always been a thing with us. We both jumped when a chirpy young voice asked if we were ready to order. Blindly I jabbed a finger at a couple of items on the menu which could have been two desserts and a side order of fries for all I knew. Josh chose almost as speedily. I think we were both keen to pick up the threads of our conversation before it totally unravelled.

Alone once again, he reached for his glass of soda and took a sip before continuing. He had the look of a man who really wished it contained a shot of something stronger. ‘When we said goodbye at the cabin back in February . . .’ he began, his voice low, ‘it felt like we were breaking up. But the thing is, Lily, it couldn’t really be a break-up, because we’ve never actually been in a relationship.’

‘We’ve had a relationship for the past twenty years or so, Josh.’

‘That was a friendship, not a relationship,’ he corrected softly. He drew his chair a little closer to mine. It was only a matter of inches, but it felt like he was bridging a canyon.

‘I’ve started to think people shouldn’t break up without being together first.’

‘I assume you don’t mean in the biblical sense, because I think we’ve already ticked that box.’

It was good to lighten the mood and see him smile.

‘That wasn’t what was on my mind.’

In a way his answer disappointed me. Had he found it easy to dismiss our one night together, or did it haunt his memories . . . like it still did mine? He drew in a deep breath, and it was only then that I realised this was a speech he’d practised before tonight. For some reason I found the idea of him rehearsing it, perhaps reciting it in front of his bathroom mirror, incredibly endearing.

‘I don’t want to put any pressure on you, Lily. And perhaps you’ve already moved on – and if you have, I’m happy for you, I really am.’ He bit his lip, and I truly didn’t think I’d ever seen him look so nervous. ‘But I’m having a really hard time consigning this thing to a box labelled “It never would have worked out anyway”, and I wondered if maybe – just maybe – you were feeling the same way.’

I wasn’t sure how to answer that, and never got the chance to, as a group of waiters bearing a birthday cake with enough candles to set off every smoke detector in the restaurant approached the table beside ours. They led the room in a rousing chorus of ‘Happy Birthday’, which I joined in with, despite having no clue who was actually celebrating. Josh kept silent, and I could feel his eyes on my mouth as I sang, making me worry that my lips still looked ridiculously pouty.

By the time the candles had been blown out there was a decidedly jovial mood in the room. And I welcomed it. Part of me wanted to simply enjoy this evening on a superficial level, but it was impossible to ignore the conversation we ought to be having. And it was getting harder to silence the voice in my head – the one that wanted to ask Josh straight out why he’d refused to tell me what had happened between him and Adam all those years ago.

Josh wasn’t responsible for Adam’s questionable actions, but as my friend he should have told me what had gone down. He should have had my back. I’d trusted them, and in different ways they’d both let me down.

Someone on the birthday party table produced a box of party poppers, and through a colourful rainbow of streamers I saw the waitress heading our way with two steaming plates of food. I was so busy trying to see what I’d ordered, I almost missed Josh’s next words.

‘But before we say anything else, Lily, I owe you an apology.’

I steeled my features to stay in neutral as I lifted my head and met his worried gaze. He swallowed hard before speaking, and my eyes were drawn to his throat, which appeared to be working overtime.

‘I understand Claire came to see you the other week. She had no business doing that.’ His words catapulted me straight into a conversation I wasn’t sure I was ready to have in the middle of a noisy restaurant.

‘Oh. I wasn’t sure if you knew about that.’

Josh looked about as guilty as someone who had done nothing wrong could possibly look.

‘She accidentally let slip that she’d been to see you.’

‘Did she tell you what she said?’

He nodded, caught the expression on my face and then frowned, suddenly hesitant. The landmines were there, right beneath his feet.

‘She said she’d warned you not to . . . mess me around.’ He gave a half smile, and I was horribly afraid it might be the last one that would pass his lips for a while. ‘Except – you know Claire – she put it more colourfully than that. Anyway, you have my word that it won’t happen again.’

I could have left it there; should have left it there. But I didn’t.

‘Well, you can only let the cat out of the bag once, can’t you? It’s kind of a done deal after that.’

He looked confused. ‘What cat? What bag?’

I knew then, with stomach-lurching certainty, that he didn’t know what had happened during Claire’s visit. I cast an eye around, almost in apology to our fellow diners. I had a feeling this was all about to go very badly.

Josh leant across the table and snared my hand in his. ‘What are you talking about, Lily?’

Over his shoulder I could see the waitress had almost reached us. I caught her eye and shook my head, telegraphing a ‘not now’ plea. Either this happened a lot, or she could sense the tension that was swirling around our table like a twister. She turned on her heel and returned to the kitchen with our food.

‘Lily, tell me.’ There was an extra beat between each word, as though he needed to keep them on a tight rein.

I wriggled my fingers free from his. I needed my hands for work, and I don’t think he realised just how hard he’d been gripping them.

‘She told me, Josh. She told me everything about your conversation with Adam.’

Almost on cue, the party at the adjacent table broke out into peals of laughter. At least someone was having fun tonight, I thought sadly, watching our evening slowly disintegrate in the way I’d feared it might.

Josh looked across at the noisy revellers and then back to me.

‘Do you want to get out of here?’

I nodded.

He swept up my jacket from a chair and dropped a handful of twenty-pound notes on to the table.

An evening breeze ruffled my hair as we left the pub. I shivered, but it wasn’t from the cold.

‘Josh, I . . .’ My voice faded away. I had no idea what to say or ask.

‘Did you drive here tonight?’ His pragmatic question threw me for a moment. I shook my head. ‘Then let’s take my car and find somewhere quiet to talk,’ he suggested, already guiding me by the elbow through the busy parking area.

I settled into the passenger seat, breathing in the unmistakable aroma of ‘new car’.

‘Yours?

Josh turned on the ignition. ‘No, it’s a hire. Mine’s in the repair shop with Cameron – one of the guys you met in Scotland. Once I’d made up my mind to come, I didn’t want to wait. If you spend too long thinking about things, that’s when bad decisions get made.’

I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what any of those previous decisions had been.

We journeyed in silence for several miles before Josh once again took his eyes from the highway.

‘I need to know where we’re going, Lily.’

Ignoring the very obvious double meaning to that statement, I twisted in the passenger seat and peered out of the window, trying to drop myself like a pin on a map.

‘If you keep driving, there’s a turn-off a couple of miles up ahead that leads to a small boating lake. It’s got a decent-size car park that looks out over the water. It should be empty at this time of night.’

‘Perfect,’ Josh said, his attention returning to the road.

I hadn’t been to the lake in years, and when I thought of it at all, my memories were all of Adam and me on summertime dog walks, or picnics on the grass, watching small children gleefully chasing the ducks and geese, and imagining ourselves as those laughing parents one day, playing with our kids and pushing a pram. Perhaps, in hindsight, this wasn’t the best location to have chosen.

Josh parked directly in front of the lake, filling the windscreen with a view of water which glistened like jewels beneath the moonlight. I turned to face him and all at once the car seemed to shrink, making it suddenly feel way too small and intimate for two grown adults.

‘Shall we take a walk?’ he asked.

The night was cooler now, but he didn’t reach for the jacket that was lying across the back seat. I recognised it as the one he’d worn in Scotland, and it came with its own flashback memory. I could see him shrugging out of it in a silent wood and slipping it around my shoulders on our middle-of-the-night walk back from the treehouse to his cabin. How long had my perfume lingered on the fabric? Had it faded away like the memory of that night seemed to have done?

We walked in silence towards the lake, drawn there by the glittering pull of moonlight on water. The ground was uneven, and my summer sandals weren’t exactly suitable for off-roading. Josh reached for my hand when he saw me wobble. I should have pulled it free as soon as we were on level ground, but I never did.

The moon was high in a star-scattered sky. It fell like a spotlight illuminating us like actors on a stage. I didn’t need its milky white beam to see that Josh was angry. The emotion had turned his face into a miniature Mount Rushmore, all rigid planes and sharp edges.

‘You look annoyed.’

‘That’s probably because I am.’

He turned to me, and his eyes softened. ‘Not with you. I’m angry – no, scratch that – I’m furious with Claire. She should never have told you about me and Adam.’

‘No, Josh,’ I said quietly. ‘That was your job.’

He flinched but didn’t deny it. ‘Now you sound angry.’ I dodged that one with an eloquent shrug.

‘I should probably never have said anything to Claire in the first place.’

‘Why did you?’ It was a question that had been bugging me since his sister had turned up at my door.

Josh sighed. ‘I guess at the time I needed to talk it through with someone who I knew would be one hundred per cent on my side.’

‘Oh well, you picked the right girl then.’

‘I wasn’t in a great place, Lily, after it all went down.’ I felt a pang of guilt for the old pain I could never heal. ‘And Claire listened and gave me advice.’

‘The fact that I’m still alive must mean you didn’t take it.’

Josh’s sudden laugh startled a small, swooping barn owl. We came to a stop and watched the bird’s passage through the night sky. It felt almost magical.

‘She’s not as bad as you think, you know. Her heart’s in the right place.’

It was news to me that Claire even had one, but I knew better than to say that to him. She was the closest thing Josh had to a blood relative, and I admired her fierce loyalty. The last thing I’d ever want was to damage their relationship, not when his own biological family had treated him so terribly.

‘She never forgave me for moving to Scotland though, and she never stopped blaming you for that.’

Adam’s lie was like a never-ending explosion that was still sending out shockwaves.

‘But what about you, Lily? Are you still angry with me?’

I could have lied, but this felt like a night where only the truth should be spoken. ‘I’m more disappointed than angry.’

Josh gave a small smile. ‘You’re going to make a great mum one day. You’re already fluent in the language. Any time I screwed up as a teenager, Gordon and Janette would never say they were angry – even though they had every right to be. They’d always say they were disappointed .’

Josh’s comment about me being a mum had unwittingly opened a door. Here was my opportunity to tell him about my plans to have Adam’s baby. And yet, when my lips parted, I couldn’t find the words. Not a single one. This wasn’t the right time.

‘If it’s any consolation,’ I said instead, ‘I’m nowhere near as angry with you as I am with Adam. I’d give anything to ask him what the hell he thought he was doing. I want to yell at him for not trusting me or trusting our relationship enough with the truth. But more than anything, I want to know why he thought the only way of keeping me was to lie to you.’

I hadn’t realised my words had made me cry until Josh delved into his pocket and produced a tissue. I took it and then held out my hand for another. It was already there waiting for me.

‘And this is exactly why I never wanted you to find out about my conversation with Adam,’ Josh said quietly. ‘I never wanted to be the person to knock him off the pedestal you had him on. I never wanted to be the one to make you question him, or his actions. Because when all’s said and done, he was the right man for you . . . At least, he was back then.’

The end of that sentence hung in the air above us like a cloud.

‘But why that particular lie? He could have said anything, made up any excuse to get you to leave.’

Josh gave a small laugh that held absolutely no humour.

‘Do you really need to ask that, Lily?’

We were standing beside the footpath that led to a nature trail, the lake glistening like a pool of diamonds behind us.

‘I really do,’ I said, turning to face him.

Josh’s face was hard to read in the shadows.

‘He said what he did because I believe Adam realised the only thing that would ever make me walk away was knowing you were having his baby.’