Chapter 18
EIGHTEEN
It was late on Sunday evening when I arrived home, still smelling of the hotel’s sandalwood shower gel and with a stash of complimentary chocolate truffles in my handbag.
I could tell as soon as I pushed the door open that the flat was empty – there was no football playing on the television, no thump of Sam’s trainers as he came to welcome me, not even the ghost of the smell of him in the air.
Only Milton came to greet me, complaining loudly that he was lonely and hungry.
The message I’d sent letting Sam know when I would be back home had gone unread.
I felt the sense of disjointedness and unfamiliarity I was used to after being away – the feeling that somehow I would need to reclaim the space as mine, put my roots down once more before I could settle in properly.
The bed was freshly made with clean sheets, I noticed, dumping my case on it, unzipping it and pulling out an armful of dirty washing.
Had Sam just been keeping up with the chores in my absence, or was there some other reason he’d changed the sheets? I hated myself for thinking it, but I couldn’t help it.
The washing machine was empty – he’d not only washed the bedlinen but dried it and put it away.
Don’t be ridiculous, Georgia, I told myself, shoving my own clothes inside and switching on the machine. You’d have been cross if he hadn’t done housework, and now he has, you’re acting like you found a used condom in the bathroom bin.
All the same, I found myself looking in said bin, only to find it empty apart from a fresh liner.
I stood there in the bathroom for a moment, listening hard to the silence, as if some echo of what had happened in the flat while I was away might remain.
But there was nothing – no memory of laughter or music or scent of red wine, only the sound of Milton crunching happily on his dinner in the kitchen.
‘Come on, Georgia,’ I scolded myself. ‘Snap out of it. You’re home, and soon Sam will be too.’
I finished unpacking, had a shower and went and stood in front of the fridge for a bit.
I was hungry – breakfast had been large and decadent (Jamie had insisted on bacon, eggs, sausages and black pudding, and I had to admit he’d totally nailed the menu selection) but also a long time ago.
But evidently Sam’s preparations for my return hadn’t extended to getting any food in – there was only half a pack of wilted salad leaves, a couple of bendy carrots and some drying-out cheddar.
In the bread bin was the end of a loaf that was growing blue whiskers.
As I was throwing it away, I heard the door open and the tantalising aroma of hot, spicy food reached my nostrils.
‘Hey.’ The flat suddenly felt like home again as Sam crossed the floor, dumped a brown paper carrier bag on the counter and hugged me. ‘I got a takeaway from that new Indian place you like. Sorry I’m late but they don’t deliver so I had to pick it up, and there was a massive queue.’
‘That smells amazing.’ I held him in my arms for a moment. For a second, the world felt normal.
He smelled amazing too – of shampoo and soap and Sam, not of expensive aftershave like Jamie did.
Why are you even comparing them? I wondered. One’s your boyfriend and the other’s just some dude you work with.
‘Enough of that.’ He kissed me and turned back to the food. ‘This’ll be cold if we don’t crack on.’
He pulled out tubs of curry, a box of pakoras, naan bread and salad. My mouth watered as I inhaled the fragrance, and I hastily grabbed cutlery from the drawer.
‘What’ve you been up to?’ I asked as we sat down and started to eat. ‘Anything exciting?’
‘Not much,’ he said around a mouthful of dal and rice. ‘The usual.’
What’s the usual? The usual was what we did on weekends when we were together. Not knowing what he would’ve done while I was away felt unsettling and alien, almost as if he was a stranger and not my boyfriend of four years.
‘You did some washing,’ I said encouragingly.
‘Sure did. And went for a run, and played a bit of Crusader Kings, and did some work on the footage we shot last week. The guys watched the football in the pub last night, but I wasn’t feeling it, so I stayed home.’
‘Did you miss me?’ I fished.
‘Nah, barely noticed you were gone.’ Sam grinned at me. ‘Time flies when you’re playing Crusader Kings.’
I laughed. I knew he wasn’t serious – but at the same time, I didn’t. We’d texted last night, but the exchange had been brief. I’d been tired and a bit drunk, and Sam had said he was already in bed.
At least that was what he’d said. I had no reason to doubt him – or did I?
All at once, leaving him alone for the weekend felt like it had been a high-risk strategy, not just a routine trip away for work with a side-order of making him worry – just a tiny bit – about who I was with and what I was doing.
‘So how was the swanky hotel?’ Sam asked. ‘Did you have fun?’
‘It was amazing,’ I told him. ‘Seriously posh. The food was incredible. And the place – well, maybe you’ll get to see it sometime.’
‘Once we win the lottery,’ Sam joked.
I put down my fork. My phone was next to me on the kitchen counter. The Instagram story Jamie had posted was right there at the top of my feed, waiting. He’d added the final image to it that morning, his fingers flicking expertly over the screen.
‘Done and dusted,’ he’d said. ‘Our clients will be bashing Hadleigh Hall’s doors down when they see this.’
‘Good job,’ I replied, my mind already on the long train journey home.
‘Of course, you know who else might like to see it,’ Jamie said, with a flicker of a smile.
‘You mean Jasper?’
He tutted. ‘Do keep up, Georgia. I mean Sam. If this doesn’t put the frighteners on him, nothing will.’
‘Wait, what? What have you posted?’
Smiling, he handed me his phone – not that he needed to because the content would be right there on mine too, because of course I followed the work account even though Jamie did most of the posts on it.
It was all there. Jamie and me posing by the door of the hotel, flanked by the yew peacocks, his arm around my waist. Me standing next to Jamie while he slotted his key into the door of his bedroom, the Do Not Disturb sign I hadn’t noticed at the time looped over the handle.
Jamie and me cheers-ing with glasses of champagne, all dressed up for dinner.
And, of course, Jamie and me in the spa, clearly as good as naked beneath our fluffy towels.
‘You can’t post these,’ I objected in horror.
‘Too late – I already did,’ he’d said. ‘If I were you, I’d use them.’
Now, I was faced with a choice. Did I show Sam or keep quiet? If I didn’t show him, there was nothing stopping him finding the post on his own – it was right there, out in the public domain. If I did, it would look more innocent rather than less.
And besides, if the niggling worry in my mind that he might not have spent the weekend blamelessly alone was founded on anything but irrational jealousy and paranoia, I’d give Sam reason to have worries of his own.
‘Here, let me show you.’ My decision abruptly made, I handed Sam my phone.
His face as the story played on the screen was expressionless. He watched it right the way through, taking a couple of mouthfuls of food during the boring bits.
Not that there were any boring bits.
‘Looks incredible,’ he said when it had finished. ‘Glad you guys had fun.’
And that was the full extent of his reaction. He didn’t sound glad, though. He sounded cold, almost indifferent. Or like he didn’t feel indifferent but was pretending he did. Which was it? I couldn’t tell, and I obviously couldn’t ask.
We finished eating and cleared up, then I said I was ready for bed, but Sam said he’d do a bit more work before he joined me.
Normally, after one of us had been away, that wouldn’t happen.
Normally, we’d have got into bed at the same time and lain there, holding each other tight, relishing the feeling of being home together.
As I lay alone in the darkness listening to the occasional tap on his laptop keyboard, the warm purring weight of Milton on my calves, I found myself assailed by doubt.
Was trying to make Sam jealous the right thing to do – or was it petty and ultimately self-destructive? Was it him I shouldn’t trust, or was it someone else?
Or perhaps even myself?