You're On Your Own, Kid: A 'Best Friend's Brother' Age Gap Contemporary Romance for Summer 2024
Chapter One
Chapter One
I was a stupid little girl when I told George I loved him. Sunburned and fifteen, the straps of my sundress sliding down my shoulders. He had been twenty. He was kind as he turned me down, he was always kind to me. It was the reason I loved him. And afterwards he left me, standing by the pool while the noise of the party continued indoors, turned to stone by the pain of it.
Life is defined as much by the things you avoid as it is by the things you pursue, and my life had been defined by avoiding George, my best friend’s brother, for ten years. Then the wedding invitation was posted through the letterbox, and I couldn’t avoid him anymore.
Adam comes up behind me while I’m staring at the doormat.
‘A summons?’ he jokes, looking over my shoulder.
‘Something like that.’ Before I can pick it up Adam bends like a gymnast and swipes it out of my reach.
‘It’s nice foiling.’ He turns it over and the silver lettering glints in the light from the wide windows of the hallway. ‘Actually, this might be just what I need to talk Jay into putting foiled detail on the hardback.’
He hands it to me and walks back into the kitchen where his husband is cutting up fruit for breakfast. When he’s gone I walk back through the hall, clutching the invitation to my chest, past their kitchen, up their stairway lined with framed photos of their wedding day, past their bedroom in which their honey-coloured cockapoo is sleeping, up a second, smaller set of stairs to my little rented room.
I’d known this day was coming. Ever since Frannie had posted a picture of herself and Theo together on holiday in Japan the year before, under a canopy of cherry blossoms, a ring sparkling on her finger. I had texted her congratulations and she had called me a few hours later, crying down the phone in a way that was so unlike the woman I knew.
‘You’ll be a bridesmaid, won’t you Hydie?’ Frannie had said, her voice thick with sobs, ‘We’re having the wedding in Spain, at the chapel where my parents were married. I want you there with me.’
I had agreed in the moment and, after hanging up the phone, had gone hot with panic. The joy and excitement I felt for my oldest friend evaporated as I realised I would inevitably have to see George at the wedding, after all this time. From the day that he had left me standing by the pool at Frannie”s party I had done everything in my power to avoid him. When Frannie invited me to her house after school, I would make excuses when I knew he was home from university. I feigned sickness when invited to her eighteenth birthday party, booked a holiday that I knew would clash with her graduation, found reasons to avoid all the big celebratory gatherings in her life. And now I was going to miss her wedding.
I sit on my single bed, in the tiny room I rent from Adam and Jay, doing the same mental dance I’ve done for a decade. I feel the overwhelming desire to be with my dearest friend, to celebrate the things in her life that are important, to spend time with her warm, loving family who’ve known me since I was a child. And then I feel the pure liquid terror at the prospect of having to see George again after all these years. It’s a fear so overwhelming that I’ve never been able to get past it.
For a long time, I had coordinated a careful dance to maintain my friendship with Frannie while avoiding her brother. When we no longer saw one another every day at school, we visited one another at university, and in the horrible little flats we each rented as graduates. We’ve been on holidays just the two of us. Our friendship has been a constant in my life. Her strength and warmth have kept me going through difficult times and I don’t know what I would do without her. And still, the fear of seeing George again ignites a deep, animal part of my brain that nothing can overpower. I scan the QR code on the back of the invitation - I RSVP no before I can stop myself. I take a shower once I’ve heard Adam close the door to his home office and Jay’s car start up on the drive, and when I’ve finished drying my hair and dressing I see that I already have two missed calls from Frannie. I take a deep breath and tuck my phone into my jacket pocket, pulling my satchel over my shoulder and heading out to work.
When I get to Meticulous Ink, Graham has already opened the doors. Every other staff member waits until 08:59 to open the shop. Graham flings the glass doors wide as soon as he’s set up the till. He greets me with cheer and a cup of coffee as I step inside, and we say good morning and exchange small talk. Graham is in his seventies, retired from his job as a university lecturer, and began working part-time at Meticulous Ink, before taking over when the previous owner retired.
‘I do it mostly for the discount,’ he’d said to me when I first joined the team, ‘I was spending so much of my money here I figured they could let them pay me for it instead?’
Despite being open early there are no customers, so Graham and I pull boxes out of the back room and begin refilling the shelves. There’s a shipment of buttery, faux leather journals, and we put the prettiest colours, the deep teal and the soft caramel, into the window display. We unbox a delivery of Mother’s Day and Easter greetings cards, stocking them on the spinning displays in handfuls. I feel a burst of guilt as I lift out a set of “Congratulations!” cards decorated with cherry blossoms, seeing Frannie’s engagement photo in my mind’s eye. I haven’t checked my phone since I left the house.
I leave Graham organising packs of slippery composition notebooks and go to refill the pen holders. I love this bit of the store with its rows and rows of pens, all in neat piles of different colours: jewel tones and cheery pastels, glitter gel pens and thick bright felt tips. There is a separate area behind the till for more expensive pens. They sit behind glass and we sell them occasionally to collectors and people shopping for special gifts. Some of them cost more than my monthly wage. I much prefer this section, I like to watch customers running their hands along the pens, pulling them out and making timid scribbles on the tester paper. I love the satisfying clatter of them all shifting and nestling back together when one of their number is chosen to leave, like they’re penguins huddling for warmth.
There are occasional mishaps, little children overcome with the choice who pull them out and fling them on the ground, a woman with a large backpack one day, who turned abruptly to speak to a friend and dislodged the whole unit. But each time they get mixed up I relish picking them up and ordering them all again, reuniting each lost little pen with its family, putting them where they belong.
At around ten the first few customers come in and I spend the morning helping young women looking for journals, mothers finding fuss-free pens for school, and people looking for gifts. I sell several of the new journals just from people walking past the window display.
‘It’s busy today,’ I say to Graham when we finally find a lull in customers just before noon, and take a moment to make coffee and share biscuits from the cupboard, ‘early shopping for Mother’s Day I assume?’
‘And the Easter Holidays,’ he replies. ‘When that comes round my two boys go into restocking mode, trying to get the grandkids all set up for the next term.’
‘It’s been nice.’ I say, ‘Don’t get me wrong I like our team very much, but there’s only so long you can go with one person to talk to every day.’
Meticulous Ink had been struggling for years, as all paper products were. They had loyal customers, and business boomed during Christmas and the back-to-school season, but a shop with a very specific stock, that offered only beautiful and luxurious things, would always struggle in times when people needed to buy stationery like they bought everything else, quickly and at the cheapest price they could. As much as I would have loved the shop to be full of people making extravagant, expensive purchases, I could sympathise.
‘It feels like we had about five minutes between recessions.’ Graham says, as though thinking along the same lines. ‘When people could afford the luxury of independent shops, and treating themselves. A few years ago we weren’t even the only stationers in the area. We had Parson Parson’s a twenty-minute walk away. They were good people. But when money’s tight people will make do with cheaper and worse to protect themselves. Eventually they went under and the couple who ran it moved away.’
‘But Meticulous Ink survived,’ I say, ‘so you must have been doing something right.’ Graham gives a rueful smile as he takes up his empty mug.
‘That we did. We were closer to the station, and the coffee shops.’ He sighs to himself. ‘I’ll take my lunch now. Call me if you need me.’
I feel bad to have brought down the mood of the morning. It had been busy and bright, with the shop full of the smell of early spring air. Meticulous Ink was doing reasonable business, and the figures showed that the shop was in a good position so long as we had a good Christmas this year. But after another quick flurry of customers in the early afternoon, Graham and I spend the rest of the day alone together. I let Graham go early, to the camembert and red wine dinners I know he has with his wife after longer shifts, and take my time cleaning and tidying, getting the shop ready for the next day.
I stop back at the new journals again, running the pads of my fingers over the smooth cover. I consider treating myself to one the colour of peach sorbet, even though I can’t really afford it, when I spot a sliver of something better at the back. I reach into the pile and pull gently and find myself holding a journal in a beautiful dreamy lavender. It’s the exact shade that Frannie loves, the colour of her wedding invitations, a colour she wears all the time. I take it to the till, plucking the cherry blossom “Congratulations!” card from the stand on my way. Just before closing it down, I scan both through for myself. I tuck the receipt showing my staff discount into the till drawer before carrying it into the safe, and help myself to a broad sheet of the complimentary wrapping paper we offer, tucking everything into one of our gold-stamped paper bags.
I absentmindedly check my phone as I’m locking the doors to the shop, and my heart skips as I see a stream of messages from Frannie, punctuated by more missed calls. I wait until I’m on the bus to open them.
*Missed call*
*Missed call*
WHAT
HYDIE
*Missed call*
Answer your phone!
What do you mean no?
[A screenshot of my RSVP response]
HYDIE I WANT YOU TO BE A brIDESMAID
I HAD A WHOLE PRESENTATION BOX
*Missed call*
Hydie please answer my calls :(
I feel nauseous with guilt, but I’ve already said no. I can’t take it back with no explanation. I can’t pass it off as a joke, I would never do that. I consider saying it had been an accident, but then I would have to go to the wedding. I hold the phone in my hands for a few moments, then type.
Hi, I’m so sorry I was at work. We’re so short-staffed and people are on holiday that week. I just don’t think I’m going to be able to make it. I’m so disappointed xxxxxxx
The message takes almost five minutes to write. I agonise over it, trying to categorically rule myself out of attending while causing her as little pain as possible. When I’m back at my flat I make dinner for myself, Adam and Jay. By the time Adam emerges from his home office and Jay comes back through the door with their cockapoo, Millie, I’ve roasted salmon fillets and plated them with asparagus and green beans, cooked in lemony oil, and garlic rice.
Adam and Jay are a busy, always-on couple, who would live on expensive dinners out and hastily chopped crudités if they didn’t have me around, so we made an agreement after my first few weeks of living with them. They keep the fridge stocked with fresh food, and I cook dinner for the three of us whenever I’m in. I’m always in. We talk briefly about our days, Adam’s progress designing the new jackets for a series of popular fantasy romance novels, Jay and Millie’s day in the office of the publishing house he works for. Adam takes an opportunity to again try to persuade Jay that silver foil belongs on the hardback cover of the latest release they’re working on together.
‘You see?’ He turns the tines of his fork in the light, ‘You see how nice that is? Don’t you want the book to sparkle like this on the bookshop tables? How could anyone resist?’
‘If you’re willing to foot the cost of it you can have as much silver foil as you like.’ Jay says, unmoved. ‘It’s all very well you wanting something shiny and lovely, but if we sink money into cover effects and this doesn’t sell we’ve burned a hole in the budget for nothing.’
‘Surely the risk makes it exciting?’ Adam begins cheekily, but shuts his mouth quickly, when Jay gives him the withering look that he often makes when they’re working on the same book. A look that signals that a creative vision has clashed with some figures on a spreadsheet. Adam casts around quickly for something else to say and his eyes land on me.
‘What was that lovely card that arrived this morning?’ he asks. ‘It looked like an invitation. Somewhere nice?’
‘It was an invitation to Francesca’s wedding.’ I say, ‘But I can’t go.’
Both men look appalled.
‘She’s your best friend, how can you not go?’
‘I’m not free on that date,’ I say, ‘I have to work.’
‘That’s what annual leave is for.’
‘That’s what fake sick days are for.’
I look down at my dinner. It’s a pitiful excuse, but I can’t tell them the real reason. I’ve never told anyone.
‘I”ll see if I can get the time off.’ I say quietly.
‘It was a beautiful invitation,’ Adam muses, ‘very Francesca, all that purple. And the foiling, this lovely delicate silver. Of course Jay probably would have wanted it to be matte and boring.’ He adds the last sentence quietly.
The couple offer to tidy up but I wave them away. They play badminton with another couple from Jay’s office every other week, and I know they hate being late. Once they’ve left I put on some music for myself. I clear the plates and clean their kitchen, Millie keeping a careful watch from the doorway, ready to rescue any dropped flakes of salmon. Though I only rent a room from Adam and Jay, I often find I have the house to myself. Adam and Jay are out most nights of the week, going to hot yoga and boozy book clubs, and get up at six thirty on sunny Saturday mornings to drive down for a day at the beach with Millie. I usually stay at home and empty their dishwasher.
I should find their bickering over foiled covers and working hours and housework irritating, but I don’t. I miss it when they’re gone, when there is nobody talking at all.
When I’m done, I feed Millie and go back to my room. I carefully package the journal and write the card, addressing the parcel to Francesca Flores. It won’t make things right, I know, but I hope that the gesture will soothe some of the bad feelings. I’d done similar for other events I’d avoided. At Frannie’s eighteenth birthday, I brought her present over the next day, and the irritation she’d felt at me melted away as she unwrapped her beautiful new jewellery box, which had cost me almost all the money I had earned from my Saturday job. I had smoothed over my absence from her celebratory drinks after a big promotion by calling the venue ahead of time and putting a bottle of sparkling rosé behind the bar for her.
The next day I take the gift to the post office on my lunchbreak, before sitting on a park bench with my packed sandwiches. Frannie hadn’t responded to my message the previous day, and I look at her Instagram, where she occasionally posts cryptic captions when she’s upset. There’s nothing from the last few days. Her most recent photo is from a week ago. She’s sat in an airy restaurant with big windows and white walls, with a glass of white wine in one hand. The other hand is tucking her long black hair behind her ears. Her dark eyes are bright and smiling, the diamond in her engagement ring singing against the light tawny brown of her skin.