24. No. 25 Surprise someone
twenty-four
August
“So, your girlfriend and your sister are hanging out tonight?” Eli says, handing me a beer over the bar. I nod, he winces. “That can’t be good for you.”
I glare at him, and he laughs like the dick he is.
Actually, I’m pleased Joanie invited Bea over tonight for Chinese food and wine, it’s good for both of them.
The company, not the greasy food and alcohol.
Joanie doesn’t really have friends other than Eli and me, she tends to put people off with a zero tolerance for idiots and her resting bitch face—again, her words, not mine.
I know Bea needs people to be close with.
She has Cas but they’re back in London and she’ll do well to have someone to talk to here too.
She can talk to me, of course, but I know it’s not enough, she needs a friend and I have moved beyond that title, gladly, willingly, and with no regrets.
“Here,” a gruff voice snaps me out of my thoughts with the loud clank of a plate being practically dropped on the bar in front of me.
I turn to give Marge a nervous smile of gratitude for the fish and chips she’s delivered.
Her dark grey, wiry hair is pulled back into a bun but mostly sticking out in a ratty nest, her deep-set wrinkles are gathering at the corners of her eyes where she’s narrowing them at me.
A cigarette hangs from her puckered lips although there doesn’t seem to be any smoke coming from it.
“Hear you’ve got yourself a girl,” she croaks at me.
“Maybe,” I say cautiously.
“Hm,” she grunts looking unimpressed. “About fucking time, you moved on from M—”
“Marge!” Eli barks, coming out from the back and looking at his cook with wide disbelieving eyes. “You cannot smoke in the pub!”
She rolls her dark brown, nearly black, eyes. “It’s not lit, keep your knickers on, princess.”
“Jesus, Marge,” Eli groans, shaking his head. “I should totally fire you.”
She turns her head slowly to pin him with one of her signature stares. Eli and I used to think Marge was a witch. We never knew where she actually lived so we’d tell stories of her living in the woods and only trekking into the village when it needed terrorising.
Under her withering stare, all of Eli’s bulky muscles seem to shrink until he looks nothing more than the scrawny teenager he once was. “Sorry, Marge,” he mumbles.
She grunts disapprovingly and disappears back into the kitchen with a significant limp.
I turn back to my best friend, and we share a moment of camaraderie over surviving a rare interaction with Marge.
But then he reinflates and leans on the bar opposite me, stealing a chip from my plate like he doesn’t have access to them whenever he wants.
“Seriously?” I grumble.
“I’m hungry,” he says like that excuses anything.
“Then go ask Marge to make you dinner.”
“Can you fucking imagine?” he asks with real fear in his eyes. “Anyway, tell me how it’s going with Bea.”
“Why? So you can go to the high council with insider information?”
“Ruth has been pestering me,” he admits with a nod. “But mostly because you’re my friend and I love you and I want to check in with you.”
I grimace slightly at the touchy-feely aspect of it, but I appreciate him all the same. “It’s good,” I say staring at my plate rather than at Eli, hoping the dip of my chin conceals the goofy smile. It does not.
“Oh, you are so gone,” Eli snorts.
“Shut up,” I throw a chip at him and regret it immediately when he catches it and pops it into his mouth with a smug wink.
“I’m happy for you, I like Bea, she’s good for you.”
I nod again, because I can’t disagree. Bea has been good for me, pulling me out of the monotony I’d found myself in, bringing her sunshine smiles into the darkness I’d kept hidden in. “I love her.”
Eli stops pretending he’s doing anything resembling work to stare at me slack jawed and wide eyed. Bea and I exchanged I love yous over a week ago, but I haven’t told anyone yet. “Woah,” my best friend breathes.
“Yeah.” I sigh, digging into the battered fish on my plate.
“That’s a big deal,” Eli says seriously.
“It’s—” I stop before telling him it isn’t a big deal, because we’d both know it’s a lie.
“Are you going to tell her about…?” He trails off knowing my tolerance for real talk is close to its limit, wanting to know the answer without saying words that might tip me over the edge.
No. I don’t want to tell her about things that still make me angry and bring down the mood she so effortlessly lifts.
I don’t want to taint this pretty new thing with ugly memories, and I’m more than happy to leave the past in the past. The stack of angry debt collection letters in my fruit bowl be damned.
“She doesn’t need to know right now,” I say, pushing peas around my plate to keep my hands busy. “It’ll come up when it comes up.”
I can tell he wants to argue but he obviously thinks better of it, letting out a long breath and shaking his head.
He probably wants me to ask him what his clear disappointment is about, but I don’t want to keep this conversation going, so I eat.
Eli goes about his busying around, serving other customers, and effectively ignoring me.
His disappointment is a weight on my chest, made worse when I look down at Darcy, lying at the foot of my barstool, and he’s looking up at me with the same judgment I’m getting from my friend.
“You seen Ross Purcell around at all?” I grumble, trying to change the subject. “He’s not giving you any jip, is he?”
“No.” Eli sighs. “Don’t worry about Ross and don’t worry about me. It’s ancient history.”
I nod once and watch for any sign of a lie on Eli’s face, but he seems relaxed enough and I decide to let it lie.
I only get one text from Bea all night and it’s just a kissing face emoji.
It’s enough for now. Bea has decided to do a grand opening tomorrow, and the village is going to be swarmed with tourists.
I’ve kept my day clear to help Bea if she needs it, which she definitely won’t with Connor by her side, but I have a feeling I’m going to enjoy watching her in her element tomorrow.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I tell Eli as I slide of the stool, Darcy standing and shaking himself awake.
“Yeah,” he says with a tight smile. He’s still disappointed, but he’ll get over it. This isn’t something he can rush me on, and he knows it.
I head home, settling in for the night and playing a quick game with Con online.
He spends the whole time talking into my headset about the grand opening tomorrow rather than his usual brand of nephewly love whereby he roasts my controller skills to smithereens.
I smile the whole time; the kid is still kind of adorable at times.
It’s gone ten when I switch everything off and starts up the stairs for bed, but not halfway up, there’s a knock at my door. I smile to myself, a fizzle of excitement starting in my belly. Bea is probably tipsy and horny, knocking late at night, hoping I’ll take care of her. Which I always will.
I head back down and swing the door open, a quip ready on the tip of my tongue until I see what awaits on the other side.
That bubbling excitement turns to roiling nausea, hope and levity shrouded by impending doom.
For a brief second, while I stare in shocked silence, I think of Eli and how he’d probably give me a big, fat I told you so if he were stood with me right now.
Because it’s not my sunshine waiting for me, it’s a ghost from my recent past. The one who’d turned out the light.