Chapter 20
GINNY
Ginny banged on the door of Stevie’s home like the chief of a SWAT team that was about to storm the building.
It was in the west end of the city, a garden flat just off Glasgow’s busy Great Western Road, and it had taken her well over half an hour to get here in a taxi, through traffic that was building up towards rush hour.
Not to mention the fact that the driver had refused to put on the AC, so she was perspiring in a manner that had her hot, bothered and saying prayers for strength to the patron saint of antiperspirant.
She banged on the door again. No answer. She plonked down on the stone steps, leaned against the black iron railings that led down from street level and texted Stevie.
Hey, doll, I’m outside your flat. Please let me in.
Send.
Nothing.
Damn.
Yet Ollie had definitely mentioned that Stevie said she was going home, so either that wasn’t true or she was inside and refusing to answer.
But Ginny hadn’t sweated out the majority of the water in her body to come all this way and get no answer.
Not when it was Stevie and not when something had to be wrong for her to have blown up her relationship with Ollie today of all days.
Sure, Stevie wanted no part of the limelight – and no, that wasn’t something Ginny could understand, given that she’d been demanding people watch her re-enactment of the ‘big mistake’ scene in Pretty Woman since she was eight – but they were also madly loved up in a way that no amount of acting skills could pull off.
They might even be more devoted than she was to Caden…
especially right now, after he was late for her audition today.
He’d sent her a grovelling text just a few minutes ago, with another half-hearted apology, repeated that it had been the fault of the entire taxi service serving Glasgow and told her he’d make it up to her later.
The wink emoji at the end had suggested what would be involved in making it up to her, and Ginny had been so irritated that she had chosen not to respond.
Before her feelings about that could re-escalate any further, she typed another text to Stevie, deciding not to call because she only had five per cent battery left on her phone and she was going to need that later to summon a taxi back to the Academy and to call Caden on the way to moan at him for being a dick earlier.
And no, she hadn’t expected either of those things to be on her to-do list today.
She also had to keep the phone alive in case the director called her to offer her the job or to deliver a killer rejection.
She still had no idea which way it would go, so she decided to concentrate on her text to Stevie.
I’ll just sit on the step until you answer…
Send.
She waited for thirty seconds. No reply.
Please don’t worry about me…
Send.
If I get heatstroke and dehydration, I’ll have a couple of hours to get to hospital before it becomes life-threatening…
Send.
And hopefully one of your neighbours will spot me and call for help before it’s too late.
Send.
The door opened behind her and before she even turned around, she knew who it was.
‘In the name of God, you should take up emotional blackmail as a full-time occupation.’
‘It might come to that if I don’t get a decent gig soon,’ Ginny replied, standing up, turning around and…
Oh. It was Stevie. But it wasn’t gorgeous, vibrant, carefree, woman-in-control Stevie.
This was a different version altogether.
She was still wearing her hospital scrubs – a pale blue tunic with darker navy trousers – and her blonde hair was pulled back into a bun at the nape of her neck.
That was all perfectly normal, but it was her face that made Ginny’s heart sink.
This was pale, tired, drawn, definitely been crying Stevie.
‘Oh, hon, I don’t know what’s wrong, but if you tell me who upset you, I’ll hunt them down.’
Ginny wrapped her arms around her friend and held her for a moment.
‘You’d better come in before the neighbours start speculating and wondering why I’m hugging people on the doorstep.’
‘I’ll tell them it’s a sympathy hug because you look like crap. I’m shallow that way,’ Ginny said, feeling a twinge of relief that her natural habit of using terrible humour in bad situations had given Stevie’s lips just a hint of a smile.
However, as Stevie headed into the open-plan cosy living room and cream wood kitchen, Ginny saw that she was walking as if she had the weight of the world on her shoulders.
More confirmation that whatever had happened was clearly not good.
Ginny knew she had many skills – she could name Bernstein hits in four notes and there wasn’t a line from a romcom that she couldn’t deliver with pitch-perfect emotional weight – but handling tense situations was definitely not in her wheelhouse.
‘Okay, I can’t stand it,’ she blurted, as she reached one of the benches at the dark maple kitchen table. ‘Has someone died? Only, I need notice to be strong and stoic for you, otherwise I’ll be crap and just fall apart.’
Stevie had detoured to the back wall of the kitchen, where she flicked on the kettle, then took two mugs from one of the cupboards and popped a teabag in each of them. ‘No one has died.’
‘Okay. Pretty much anything else I can handle.’ Ginny exhaled, relieved.
She knew Stevie had no family – her father had never been in her life, and her mum had passed away the previous year, but with Stevie’s job at the hospital, she often saw horrific things.
Although, Ginny couldn’t imagine that anything at work would have influenced her decision to end her relationship with Ollie.
Stevie leaned against the worktop as she waited for the kettle to boil. ‘Did Ollie ask you to come?’
‘Not exactly. He told me about the call and then I bolted here under my own steam. He was really torn up, Stevie.’
Ginny watched Stevie’s eyes well up when she heard that. Bugger. She hadn’t come here to upset her. Panic mode set in.
‘Oh no. Oh no. Please don’t cry. I’m clearly making a terrible job of trying to make sure you’re okay. This is why I’m not a therapist.’
Stevie used the heel of her hand to wipe away her tears, and Ginny jumped up to wrap her arms around her for the second time.
‘I’m sorry. Look, I only came to check on you. And at the end of the day, I’m a girl’s girl, so I’m always going to take your side. It’s just… well, I know how you feel about him, so something really awful must have happened for you to do this.’
Ginny took a step back, so they were eye to eye.
‘Oh bollocks, that’s it. Did he do something terrible?
No way. I’ll kill him. Moira will kill him.
Or maybe you just think he did something bad, but he didn’t really.
You know, loads of celebrities have mad stalkers that make claims about them.
You can’t believe rumours.’ Ginny was aware she was conducting this conversation completely on her own – worse, she was actually arguing with herself.
Stevie put her hands up. ‘No, he didn’t do anything, Ginny, I promise.’
Relief. He was one of her favourite people and she didn’t want to have to kill him with her thumbs for being a tosser to her friend. Plus, she wouldn’t last a minute in jail. She was far too high maintenance and she couldn’t miss an episode of Bridgerton.
‘Is that the problem, though – that he hasn’t done anything?
Did he miss something important? Does he not do enough to make you feel appreciated?
Sorry, that’s probably pure projection, because Caden hasn’t booked a table in a restaurant for us in five years.
And don’t even get me started on the sandwich maker he bought me for Christmas last year. ’
Ginny sat back down, to give Stevie space as she poured the boiling water into the mugs. She stirred them, then brought them over to the table.
‘No, it’s just… it’s complicated. It’s lots of things.’
‘But is it something that can’t be fixed?’
‘I don’t know.’ Stevie’s eyes were watering again.
‘You know, when I was growing up, it was just me and my mum and she wasn’t great on emotions.
She was so busy worrying about me that it was almost like she couldn’t just be happy.
Couldn’t just enjoy life. Ollie’s world is a big one.
Huge. And you know, I love him, but it’s just so…
loud. He’s pulled in so many different directions.
And maybe I just want a quieter life than that.
I don’t want to be waiting for the next disaster, or the next drama, or the next dodgy AI video that convinces half of social media that he’s snogging the face off Kim Kardashian. ’
‘Yeah, that one did look pretty realistic. I went straight online and ordered a new bodysuit from that shapewear range she does. My arse will never look like that though.’ She reminded herself to focus.
‘Sorry, I know that’s not the point. But look, none of that stuff is Ollie’s fault – it just all comes with the job. ’
‘I get that, but it’s pretty suffocating.
I see how it takes over his life, how there are demands on him constantly, how everything he does is subjected to scrutiny and opinion.
And I just… I just want to keep my life quiet.
Private. And long-distance relationships never work.
I don’t want to be wondering where he’ll be next month.
Or next year. Or the year after. Or feeling insecure because he’s on set for six months with some amazing actress, then doing months of press tours with journalists and publicists and fans adoring him.
That’s the thing about being with him, Gin…
I’m not an insecure person. Or needy. And I’ve never been jealous either.
But Ollie’s life… It makes me all of those things and I hate it. ’
Ginny took a gulp of her tea while she thought about that. Then unwrapped a Kit Kat from the barrel in the middle of the table to buy herself more thinking moments.
‘But maybe that’s how you know this is real.’
‘Well, maybe that’s a kind of “real” that I don’t want to live with.’
Checkmate. And Ginny was really crap at chess.
She tried to rebound from a different direction.
‘Okay… how about this. He’s been away for most of the last six months shooting…
But he’ll be home for a few weeks now, before he has to go away again.
Why not talk to him? See if you can work something out so that you spend more time together.
You love him too much to give up on it. Maybe just take the pressure off.
Give it a year. See how it goes. God, listen to me.
I could get a job on Loose Women with this kind of emotional intelligence. ’
Just when Ginny thought she’d nailed the solution, Stevie went quiet again, and was now staring into her mug, shoulders slumped.
‘That would be a pretty good plan…’ Stevie began, and Ginny had to stop herself from punching the air. Yasss! She was going to get relationship guru added to her CV. It would be more believable than the lies of ‘accomplished horse rider’ and ‘competitive fencer’ that were on there now.
She was so busy silently congratulating herself that it took her a few seconds to realise that Stevie’s head was still slumped and she wasn’t doing a lap of honour of the kitchen. Her heart sank. Bollocks. And she now had an ominous feeling that…
‘Stevie, why do I feel like there’s a “but” coming here?’
Stevie sighed, and it seemed like she exhaled every ounce of oxygen from her body, before she raised her head and Ginny saw the tears pooled in her eyes.
‘Because there is. I don’t have a year to work it out, Ginny. I need to make decisions, and I need to do it now…’
‘Okay, give it six months then. Or a month.’ Ginny could hear herself clutching at straws, but she felt too invested to pull back now.
Stevie shook her head, and Ginny had never seen her look so crestfallen.
‘I can’t give it any time at all… Because about two hours ago I found out that I’m pregnant.’