Chapter 2 #2
We were a couple. We were settled. It would surely only be a matter of time before we took the next step – marriage, or a baby, or one then the other.
I wasn’t sure which order I wanted them in, or even – if I was completely honest with myself – if I wanted them at all, but I was sure that if I wanted them with anyone, it would be with Sam.
But there was one other thing I was equally sure of, and that was that if Sam and Ava had stayed together, he’d already be a husband, a father or both.
It wasn’t that I thought he didn’t love me; I knew he did.
It was just that he’d loved Ava first. Because their relationship had had that head start, they’d inevitably have been further along its path than he and I were.
Stupid though it was, I couldn’t help feeling insecure about that – as if, somehow, by being Sam’s second really serious girlfriend, I was also second best.
I’d asked him, once, what had gone wrong between them.
It was quite early on in our relationship, when were still at the stage of wanting to find out everything there was to find out about each other, and no detail was too dull.
It was summer and we’d gone to the park with a bottle of Pimm’s and a blanket, and we were lounging on the grass, his head in my lap.
‘Sam?’ I asked, running my fingers through his hair.
‘What?’ he murmured sleepily, his eyes flickering but not opening.
‘What happened with you and Ava?’
Now his eyes did open, as suddenly as curtains being yanked apart to reveal blue sky. ‘Why are you asking?’
‘I’m just curious. You two were so close, and then when I got back from abroad, you’d split up. It must’ve been hard.’
‘Yeah.’ His voice gave nothing away. ‘It was hard.’
‘So what… I mean, you don’t have to tell me. It’s none of my business.’
‘No,’ he said, ‘it’s not.’
I felt stung – rebuked, like I’d asked something offensive. ‘Okay. Sorry.’
He sat up, threaded his legs outside of mine and pulled me close. ‘No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that to come out like it did. The thing is, I don’t really know.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Just that. One minute, things were fine, then a few days later she started being all weird and cold with me, but she wouldn’t tell me what was wrong, and a month or so later she dumped me. The end.’
And that was it. There was nothing more he could tell me.
Still, I couldn’t shake the knowledge that she was his One That Got Away and – even after all the years, the flat, the holidays and all the rest of it – I was the one he’d settled for.
And so a part of me – a jealous, insecure, cowardly part I didn’t like one bit – felt a sneaky bit of pleasure when Sam seemed to be jealous of my work friendship with Jamie.
Now, though, it seemed like that part of me wasn’t just spiteful and petty, but also wrong.
‘I’m not jealous,’ Sam said. ‘Don’t be daft. I’m just worried for you. That’s… I dunno. Unethical, isn’t it?’
It was. It definitely, one hundred per cent, certainly was.
‘Maybe it is, just a bit. But it’s a restaurant reservation! It’s not like he stole food aid meant for famine-stricken villages in Yemen and sold it on the black market.’
‘It’s not. But just because it’s less wrong doesn’t mean it’s not wrong.’
The problem with dating a really good guy, I realised, was that he was exactly what it said on the tin. The unease I’d felt when Jamie had triumphantly revealed his solution to my Cormac Kennedy problem intensified a notch. If Sam thought something was wrong, then it probably was.
‘Okay, you’re right,’ I said. ‘It’s not great.
But it’s done now. Cormac’ll be getting stuck into his spider crab omelette as we speak, and there’s nothing I can do about it.
Unless he didn’t turn up, in which case the people who originally booked the spot will have got it, and then there’s no harm done. ’
‘I’m not saying there’s anything you can do about it now.’ Sam’s face had the set, stubborn look it got when he thought he was winning an argument. ‘I’m thinking, what if this happens again? What if Jamie needs you to do something for him that’s equally unethical? What will you do then?’
I forced a laugh. ‘Sam, you’re overthinking this, like, massively. What’s he going to do? Ask me to smuggle cocaine in my vagina? Of course he’s not. And even if he did, of course I’d say no.’
Sam’s face relaxed, and he reached out to take my hand. ‘Just as well. Because I’m rather fond of your vagina, as it happens.’
Our eyes met, and I felt the tingle of electricity I’d felt the first time he’d touched me, long before I’d met Jamie, had sleepless nights over bookings at fancy restaurants, or had any reason to worry about whatever had or hadn’t happened between Sam and Ava.
‘Shall we get another drink, then go for tacos?’ I asked.
‘Or we could just go home and order pizza… later,’ Sam suggested.
‘Milton will be hungry.’
Milton was our rescue cat, who we’d adopted the previous year.
He was polydactyl, with a congenital limb difference that gave him an extra toe on his front feet so he looked like he was wearing mittens on his black paws.
When we brought him home, I’d felt a surge of complete, unconditional love that had blown me away.
I didn’t love him more than I loved Sam, but loving him had made me love Sam more, which I hadn’t thought would be possible.
‘We wouldn’t want to keep him waiting, would we?’ Sam agreed.
‘You know what, you’re right.’ I turned his hand over, caressing the palm with a fingertip. ‘Let’s go home.’