30. Chapter 30
Lucy stretched and sat up in bed. She reached an arm out to her side. The sheets felt cool. Jack must have been gone a while. She put her hand to her lips, remembering the night before. Although she had hardly slept, she wasn’t in the slightest bit tired. She was energised and wide awake.
Jack’s phone was nowhere in sight. Grabbing her mobile, she tapped at the screen—no messages. Her fingers hovered over their last chat, but she didn’t know what to write. Perhaps he had woken up and instantly regretted their night together and had crept out to avoid facing her when she woke up. Maybe he was, right at this moment, sitting somewhere with his head in his hands thinking about how to tell her he felt embarrassed, it was all a mistake. She looked around the room at the clothes flung about the floor and her face flushed as the details of the night came back to her.
Hiding in bed all day wasn’t an option.
‘Hey, where are you?’ she typed.
She stared at the message. She wasn’t his keeper.
She deleted it and started typing again.
‘Morning! I’m up, are you around?’
Then deleted it again.
She paused and then tried again, reaching for something that felt relaxed and casual.
‘Mad night, feeling fragile now. Need food! You around?’
Delete delete delete.
‘Hey.’
She paused, all grasp of the English language deserting her. She stared at the blinking cursor, waiting for input.
Could she just send, ‘Hey?’
She threw the phone across the bed and pulled the sheet over her head. What exactly do you send to a friend you slept with who had then disappeared by the time the morning came?
She reached for the phone again. She was overthinking this—she knew she was.
‘Hey, I’m awake and hungry—you around to grab breakfast?’ and hit send before she could overthink things.
Jack slipped back through the door, just as the message showed as delivered.
It clicked closed quietly behind him.
‘Oh, hi,’ she whispered from the bed.
She smiled and tugged at the sheet to make room for him.
Her voice seemed to startle him, and he looked sheepish, as if he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t.
‘Hi,’ he said back, not quite meeting her eyes. ‘You okay?’
‘Yes, fine,’ Lucy replied. ‘All good.’
She smoothed the sheet back down and arranged her face in what she hoped was a casual expression.
‘I got you a coffee,’ he said, with a half-smile as he made his way round the bed.
She held out her hand to take it from him, but he put it down on the table beside her. Lucy hitched the sheet up and tucked it around her and saw him note the movement.
He perched on the edge of the bed at the bottom, near her feet. They fell silent. Lucy took the coffee and sipped it.
‘Thanks’, she murmured, nodding at the cup.
Jack smiled.
Lucy was acutely aware of her nakedness beneath the sheet and how very clothed Jack was. She couldn’t read him, couldn’t tell if he was deeply regretting their night or was just nervous. She contemplated seductively lowering the sheet but couldn’t face the humiliation if he jumped up, covered his eyes and said, ‘Oh no, Luce, you’ve got the wrong idea! Last night was a mistake. We need to move on.’
So she quietly sipped her coffee and kept the sheet tucked tightly around her.
The silence was so deafening it felt like a third person in the room.
‘Are you okay?’ she asked, unable to bear it any longer.
‘Yep, fine,’ he said, watching her. ‘Did you sleep all right?’
‘Uh, yes,’ she replied, then tried, with a laugh, ‘All four hours of it.’
Jack’s expression didn’t change.
‘Okay, good, well––’
Jack jumped up as if he were on springs and went to the bathroom door.
‘I’ll jump in the shower then.’
And he closed the door before the words were even fully out of his mouth.
Lucy lay in bed, sheet tucked under her armpits, coffee in hand, and stared at the closed door. She heard the shower come on, but Jack didn’t start his usual singing.
Just a few hours ago, she had felt as close to Jack as she’d felt to anyone in her life, as they lay in each other’s arms. Now, there was a stranger in her bathroom.
Her eyes welled up, and she clenched the coffee cup tightly. She suddenly slammed the cup down on the table like she’d discovered it was laced with arsenic and flung back the sheets. The shower was still running as she yanked on her jeans and trainers and threw on a T-shirt. She didn’t want to be there when he came back into the room. Making more awkward conversation, as they tried to ignore all the evidence of what they’d done only hours before—crumpled sheets, condom wrapper, clothes strewn about the room.
Grabbing her phone, she banged her way out of the room. She got halfway down the corridor before tears started to bubble up. Sniveling, snotty tears choked their way out as she tried to smother the sounds. She rounded the corner, panting and wiping at her nose, and barreled straight into the young waiter with train track braces.
Unable to see properly, she went first one way and then the other.
‘Sorry, miss,’ he mumbled.
‘Sorry, sorry,’ Lucy said, shuffling from side to side.
As she danced left, he mirrored her, and they hopped from foot to foot for several moments, locked into their mutual awkwardness. As both were still trying to move forward and get by, despite the sideways hopping, after a moment, they collided. A soft, staggering collision, the waiter holding his hands up, keen not to touch anything he shouldn’t. Lucy, unable to see straight through the streaks of tears, arms flailing, managed to elbow her way free of him and down the corridor.
Ducking her head to hide her face as she passed a demure-looking couple dressed in shades of beige, her phone buzzed in her hand.
‘Where did you go?’ the message read. ‘I think we need to talk.’
Lucy’s hands trembled and her mouth went dry.
‘Breakfast,’ she fired back.
If they were going to have an awkward conversation, they could do it with food.
Lucy followed the smell of fresh coffee to the restaurant, where wedding guests were trickling in for breakfast. Jeans and trainers, and shorts and sandals replaced the fineries of the day before as people sloped their way to tables. Looking slightly delicate, people asked in hushed voices to be seated near the rear of the room, in the cooler darker spots, or in the shade on the terrace. Aunt Paula was there in deep conversation with Nanna, and Lucy spun on her heel and gave them a wide berth. Mark was outside with the kids, who were playing noisily in the garden. Wearing dark glasses and a baseball hat, he sipped slowly from a glass of water.
Lucy secured a table as far away from the other guests as possible and studied the menu to avoid making eye contact with any new arrivals. The breakfast list swam in front of her eyes.
She heard Jack’s voice float across the room and looked up. He had strolled in with Suzy, who looked fresh as a daisy in a soft yellow sundress, her dark hair in a loose plait over one shoulder, a bright smile on her face. She didn’t look the slightest bit hungover or tired. Lucy tried to pat out the creases in her T-shirt and sat up straighter. Jack saw her, and the expression on his face changed. He raised his hand in greeting but didn’t immediately come over. Lucy gave a faint smile in reply, then tried to give the impression of being deeply interested in the list of the ways the hotel could prepare eggs. Peering up from under her eyelashes, she could see Jack and Suzy still chatting. She tried to concentrate on the menu—oh, eggs benedict, how nice. Jack was hugging Suzy now. Lucy bit her lip. Ah, scrambled eggs, yum. Then Suzy was off, wafting out onto the terrace. Lucy watched as the sunlight bounced off her glossy hair as she stepped outside. She could tell without looking that her own hair was more bird’s nest than salon chic.
Lucy couldn’t see Jack. For a moment, she thought he had left the dining room, and she dropped the menu on the table.
‘Hi,’ he said from behind her, as he squeezed her shoulder before sliding into a seat opposite.
Lucy felt a shiver go through her at his touch. He looked less confident than usual, holding onto the menu, his gaze scattered around the room.
‘Have you ordered?’
‘No.’ She thought of him strolling in with Suzy. ‘I was waiting for you,’ she said more tartly than she had meant to.
His eyebrows shot up for a split second, but he didn’t say anything.
‘So…’ he said, and let it hang there.
A question and a statement and a beginning and an end.
‘Yes?’ Lucy said, gripping her menu tightly with both hands like a shield.
‘Sooo,’ he said again. ‘How are you?’
‘I’m fine,’ she said, watching his face. ‘How are you?’
‘Yes, fine,’ he replied. He stared at her, his gaze unflinching.
A cheerful waitress came up, batting cow-like fake lashes at them, puncturing the solemnity with unabashed cheerfulness.
‘Good morning, and how are we today?’ she said in nasal tones. ‘What can I get for yourselves today?’
She smiled, hand poised above a notepad.
Lucy glanced across the table at Jack and caught the flash of irritation when the waitress said ‘yourselves’.
‘Uh, you first,’ he said to Lucy.
‘No, no, after you.’
Jack ordered a full English breakfast, and Lucy, her usually healthy appetite having abandoned her, ordered toast and jam. The waitress gave them both a beaming smile and took their menus and her unwelcome cheerfulness elsewhere.
Lucy straightened the cutlery at her place setting and lined up the salt and pepper.
Heather entered the dining room at a brisk pace. If she was hungover, there was no sign of it as she sought out Mark and the boys on the terrace.
‘So,’ Lucy tried, ‘should we talk about…what happened?’
‘Yes,’ Jack said. ‘I think we should. There’s—’
The waitress returned bearing a coffee pot and milk.
‘Here we go’, she said, beaming at them. ‘Coffee for yourself.’
She started pouring, standing over Lucy as the coffee sputtered from the pot. Lucy stared at the cup, willing it to hurry up and be filled.
‘And now coffee for yourself,’ she said in a sing-song voice and leaned over Jack, the pot burping and spitting out coffee, splashing up the sides of the mug.
Lucy caught Jack’s eye across the table, and they both grinned. A moment of normal.
‘Anything else I can get for yourselves?’ the waitress sing-songed.
‘Nope,’ Lucy said. ‘Thank you.’
Jack kept his mouth shut and just smiled, and the waitress sashayed off.
Lucy let out a long, ragged breath.
‘So you—’ she started.
‘We should—’ Jack began.
They paused.
‘You go’, Lucy said.
Someone had to show their hand in this game of poker. She’d be damned if it would be her.
‘Luce, last night was…’ his face looked pained. He didn’t say it, but she knew the next words must be a mistake.
He played with the edge of the tablecloth and started again. His voice low, he leaned across the table towards her, his eyes locked on hers.
‘Luce, I had an amazing time last night.’
Her heart leapt in her chest, and she was sure he must be able to see it trying to beat its way out of her throat.
‘Me too,’ she managed in a strangled voice that didn’t sound like her own.
His mouth turned up at the corners, but the smile didn’t meet his eyes.
‘And I think you know that’s not the sort of thing I would,’ he cleared his throat, ‘normally do.’
She could feel the but in the air, hanging there like a neon sign flashing between them.
‘Mmhmm,’ she squeezed out.
Here it came. She could feel it crashing into her, taking away all the good words that came before. She wanted to fling the coffee cups to the floor, leap across the table, cover his mouth with her hand and say, ‘Stop! Don’t say anything else. Let’s just stay here. Let’s stay in the part where we both just acknowledge what an amazing night it was.’
Instead, she stayed glued to her seat.
‘But there’s something I’ve been trying to tell you…’
Oh my god,he’s met someone else. I’m the other woman. No wait, it’s Suzy—she’s leaving her husband for him. Or he’s got a serious illness and only days—or hours—to live. Or—
‘… and part of the deal,’ Jack took a breath, ‘is that they want me to move to New York for a year.’
Lucy stared at him, not understanding and realised she had missed something important.
‘Why are you moving to New York?’
‘Like I said,’ Jack repeated in the voice one would use to explain something to a small child, ‘as part of the sale of the company to Casston Media, they want me to move to New York and work with them for a year to ensure a smooth transition.’
There was a ringing in her ears.
‘New York’, Lucy said, in a stupefied tone, as if it were somewhere in Narnia or Middle Earth.
‘Yes,’ Jack said, his eyes dark, his face pale. ‘For a year. The plan is to fly out in a few weeks.’