Kitabı oku: «In Case You Missed It»

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Two Months Later …

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading …

About the Author

Also by Lindsey Kelk

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

The only difference between a fresh start and ‘oh my god, my life is a complete failure’ is a good attitude and the right Instagram caption.

Which was why I had my ‘so happy to be moving home’ social media declaration drafted and ready to post, even before the wheels of the plane had touched British soil. It wasn’t a lie but it wasn’t exactly the truth either, which I figured was OK, since that described roughly ninety-seven percent of the internet anyway.

Taking a deep breath, I pushed my wayward curls into some sort of recognizable shape, rapped three times on my parents’ back door and let myself into the house.

‘Knock, knock,’ I called, heaving my bags inside. ‘It’s only me.’

‘Look lively, Gwen, sounds like burglars.’ I could hear my dad slapping his thighs all the way from the other side of the house.

‘Yes, put your hands in the air and step away from the baked goods,’ I ordered as I bounced into the living room all jazz hands and forced smiles. I dropped my backpack on the floor and searched the room for snacks. ‘Seriously, I’m not joking, where are the Fondant Fancies? I’m so hungry I could eat a horse.’

‘Plenty of cultures eat horses,’ Mum said, gathering me up in a trademark Gwen-Reynolds-hug, swinging me from side to side and making sweet, unintelligible noises. ‘Probably better for you than a Fondant Fancy.’

Dad, the more stoic of my parents, opted for a pat on the shoulder and a curt nod before he disappeared into the kitchen to emote. He wasn’t the touchy-feely type. At my graduation, while everyone else was sobbing and crying, my dad shook my hand and slapped me on the back so hard, my mortar-board went flying.

‘How was the flight? Did you have any trouble at the airport? Did you get all your bags?’ Mum asked as she settled on the settee and I took up residence in my favourite armchair. It was as though I’d never been away.

‘Hers and half the plane’s by the looks of things,’ Dad called from the other room. ‘Have you brought all of Washington back with you, Rosalind?’

‘Not all of them,’ I shouted back. ‘Only the good ones.’

‘Not many then,’ he replied, muttering something about ‘the bloody state of politics’ to himself as I heard him turn on the tap.

I smiled and let myself relax for the first time in I couldn’t quite remember how long. The living room looked almost exactly the same as it had when I left, same magnolia walls, same bookcase groaning with books, same painting of a peacock my parents bought on their honeymoon and refused to admit was hideous. It was all so reassuring, however questionable the aesthetic. I hadn’t been back for a visit in more than eighteen months and it was a little over three years since I’d left London for my fabulous new job, producer at a radio station in Washington, DC. Somehow it felt like I’d been away much, much longer than that, and like I’d never been away at all, both at the same time. I wondered if everyone’s family living room had the same time-warp effect on them.

‘So,’ Mum said quietly, tucking her smooth, straight hair behind her ears. I got my hair and my height from my dad but the rest of me, the freckles, the brown eyes, strong nose, wide mouth, were pure Gwen Reynolds. ‘You’re home. Is everything all right?’

I pressed my lips into a thin, straight line. So much for relaxing.

‘Everything is fine,’ I replied as confidently as I could. ‘I told you on the phone.’

‘You did and I’m not going to go on about it,’ she said with an agreeable smile. ‘But if there’s anything you want to talk about, you know I’m here …’

‘Here we are, here we are,’ Dad walked back in with a heavily laden tray, matching china teacups for them, the novelty Care Bear mug I’d been drinking from since I was six for me. ‘I got one of those fast-boil kettles, worth its weight in gold. Less than a minute, even if you get the water out the fridge.’

Mum reached across the tray for her cup and gave me a knowing look. She wouldn’t say anything else in front of Dad, deep and meaningfuls weren’t his cup of tea.

They both looked a little bit older, I realized, noticing a few more lines around Mum’s eyes, a bit more grey in Dad’s close-cut curls. It was the kind of thing you didn’t notice when you saw someone every day but when it had been a while, you couldn’t help but see it.

‘Present time!’ I said, setting down my mug and clapping my hands. I wrestled a very full duty-free bag out of my backpack. ‘Perfume for Mum, bottle of whisky for Dad …’

I handed out the tax-free bounty and beamed. ‘The man said that was his favourite whisky, I hope you like it.’

‘And who are all those Toblerones for?’ Dad asked, eyes on my backpack. I quietly pushed it around the side of my chair before he realized the Toblerones had already been eaten. It had been a long flight.

‘Can’t believe Jo’s left home,’ I said, changing the subject as I took in all the other details that spelled out home: the velvet drapes, the net curtains, Mum’s late-nineties collection of Swarovski crystal bears. ‘She says she’s enjoying it?’

‘Having the time of her life.’ Dad lifted his eyebrows over the rim of his teacup as Mum spritzed herself with her new perfume and immediately sneezed. ‘According to the one text message she has deigned to send me.’

No one would ever actually call my sister an accident (except me) but even if she wasn’t planned, my parents couldn’t have cooked up a better child if they’d tried. And they had tried (again, me). Jo was beautiful. A perfect baby with silky, straight hair, a button nose and the biggest blue eyes you’d ever seen, which was why, when I passed all my exams at sixteen and jokingly told everyone I was the brains of the family and baby Jo was the beauty, I didn’t mind so much that they agreed with me. It stung a bit more when she grew up and turned out to be an actual genius as well as shockingly beautiful. Where was the fairness in that?

‘One in, one out,’ Dad said as he passed me the biscuit tin. ‘Just when I thought we’d finally got the house to ourselves.’

‘Obviously, we discussed the timing,’ I joked. ‘Didn’t want to leave the two of you here on your own to go mental.’

He fixed me with a look that suggested he got the joke, he just didn’t think it was funny.

‘I didn’t think we’d see you back so soon, everything seemed to be going so well. Thought you’d stay over there a bit longer,’ he added, his voice lilting up and down as he avoided asking his real question.

Why had I come home?

‘It was the right time to leave,’ I said airily, breaking a ginger nut in half and dipping it in my tea.

Dad passed me a napkin. ‘And move back in with us?’

I chewed my biscuit thoughtfully. Anyone would think he didn’t want his unemployed thirty-two-year-old daughter moving back in unexpectedly, fourteen years after she’d left home.

‘I won’t be here long,’ I told them, wiggling my left big toe into the cuff of my right sock and prising it off. Ahh, sweet relief. ‘As soon as I get a job, I’ll be out of the way.’

‘Any bites on the work front?’ Dad asked.

‘Lots of possibilities.’ I busied myself by balling up my socks so he wouldn’t see my face. My dad could always tell when I was lying. ‘I’ll be out of your way in a couple of weeks.’

‘There’s absolutely no rush,’ Mum insisted before sliding her hand around the back of Dad’s neck and giving it a rub. ‘We’re just happy you’re home, aren’t we, Alan? I never liked you being that far away anyway.’

I silently registered their PDA. This was new.

‘You know, I might go and put my head down for an hour,’ I said, stifling a fake yawn. Perhaps I was hallucinating from exhaustion. ‘Before it gets too late for a nap. Got to beat the jetlag, you know?’

Mum and Dad caught each other’s eye, furtive glance meeting furtive glance. I put down my mug and straightened in my seat. Something was up.

‘Is everything all right?’ I asked.

‘It’s more than all right,’ Dad said. A big, bright smile spread across his face and I watched in horror as he placed his hand on my mother’s thigh. Her actual, upper thigh. And then he squeezed.

‘I could definitely use some shut-eye.’ I stood swiftly, scooping up my socks and getting an unfortunate whiff of myself as I stood. Some shut-eye and a shower. ‘Didn’t really get a lot of sleep on the plane.’

And if my dad’s hand didn’t stop creeping up my mum’s leg, I might never sleep again.

‘Before you go anywhere,’ Dad took Mum’s teacup and placed it back on the tray. ‘We’ve got a surprise for you.’

‘I think you’re going to like it,’ she added, a happy pink flush in her cheeks.

It was exactly what they’d said when they told me Mum was pregnant with Jo. If she hadn’t been very vocal about going through the menopause several years ago, I would have been quite concerned.

‘Come on, this way.’ Dad stood up and beckoned me through to the conservatory. I followed as he opened the French doors and made his way down to the bottom of the garden.

‘Shoes on,’ Mum ordered as I made to follow in my bare feet. ‘It rained earlier and the grass is wet. I don’t want you catching your death on your first day home.’

‘It’s a thousand degrees out there now,’ I muttered but I did as I was told, going back to the kitchen for my trainers before following them outside. Ducking low under the washing line, I met them both at the bottom of the garden.

‘What do you think?’ Dad asked, gesturing to a new shed with an out-of-character flourish.

I looked at the shed. Mum looked at the shed. Dad looked at the shed.

‘It’s a shed,’ I stated.

‘It’s not a shed,’ Dad said with a stern look. He produced a shiny silver key from his pocket and waved it in front of my face. ‘Go on, open her up.’

Tired as I was, I took the key and offered them a wan smile in an attempt to show willing before I blocked up their Jacuzzi jets with half a bottle of Mum’s Badedas. There was an upside to your dad running a company that installs bathrooms and that upside was the massive soaking tub in their en suite that I’d been dreaming about for the duration of my overbooked, overnight flight, stuck in the middle seat of the middle row for eight very long hours.

I pushed open the flimsy door.

It was not a shed.

It was every item from my childhood bedroom, taken out of the house and painstakingly reconstructed in a damp, prefabricated structure at the bottom of my parents’ garden. Double bed, wardrobe, chest of drawers, Postman Pat beanbag and all.

‘I – I don’t get it,’ I stammered, looking back into the garden where my parents beamed back at me. How had they got my enormous knotted pine bedframe into this tiny space? ‘Why is all my stuff in here?’

‘You know your dad loves a project,’ Mum said, gazing up at my father with an expression I’d only ever seen in our house that time we all watched Memoirs of a Geisha. It was an uncomfortable evening and I didn’t care to be reminded of it. ‘He built this all by himself!’

‘Peter Mapplethorpe helped a bit,’ Dad corrected reluctantly.

‘Are they repeating Grand Designs again or something?’ I asked. I lingered in the doorway, key still in hand, so confused.

‘Yes but that’s not the point,’ Dad replied, gently but decisively shoving me inside. ‘What do you think?’

What did I think?

All my books were there on my bookcase, from Enid Blytons to my Sweet Valley Highs, via a few well-worn Virginia Andrews and a copy of Judy Blume’s Forever that had a spine so cracked only I could tell which book it was without looking at the cover. All my CDs were stacked up next to my boombox and a legion of cuddly toys stared at me from the top of the wardrobe. Even my beloved terracotta oil diffuser from the Body Shop was in there. I wrinkled my nose at the tiny bottle of Fuzzy Peach oil that stood sentry beside it. It was practically rancid at the time, God only knew what it would smell like now.

The whole thing was altogether too much for my jetlagged brain to handle, like I’d walked out of the garden and into 1997. Wait, was that what had happened? I wondered. What if this wasn’t some sort of bizarre art installation, ‘Child’s Bedroom in a Shed’, but actually a time machine Dad had built at the bottom of the garden? He did spend an awful lot of time by himself and he was very handy.

‘If you go through that door, there’s a bathroom,’ he explained, sliding past me and the pine wardrobe that matched my bed in both design and gargantuan proportions. ‘It’s small but perfectly formed, just like your mother.’

My mother tittered appreciatively. I did not.

‘It’s a compostable toilet,’ he went on from behind the concertina door. ‘Good for the environment. And the water from the shower goes into the garden! Waters the tomatoes. It’s genius. Come and have a look.’

‘It’s really impressive, Dad,’ I said, fighting back a yawn as I clambered over my bed to peer into the bathroom out of politeness, immediately finding myself wedged in between the bed and the chest of drawers. Shuffling free, I whacked my hip on the oversized round knobs I’d fought for in the middle of DFS so many moons ago. ‘So, what’s the plan, you’re renting it out? Doing Airbnb?’

‘Oh.’ Dad emerged from the bathroom with a slightly crestfallen look on his face. ‘No.’

‘You know we’re very excited to have you home,’ Mum said as Dad and I shuffled awkwardly back and forth until he clambered on my bed and shuffled over on his hands and knees. ‘And we know it might take a little while for you to get back up on your feet—’

‘I’m not off my feet,’ I replied quickly. ‘This is just a fork in my road that will lead me on an unforeseen pathway to fulfilment.’

My flight had been delayed for so long, I’d caved and bought one of those inspirational books everyone raves about on Instagram from the airport bookshop. Starting Over: A Woman’s Guide to Getting It Right the Second Time Around. It turned out to have more to do with getting over a divorce than anything else but, still, there were some very catchy sound bites in there. It really was dangerous to leave unattended humans in an airport for more than five hours at a time – another half an hour and I’d have been chatting with the nice-looking lady giving away biscuits and trying to talk to people about Scientology.

‘I know my coming home was a bit of a surprise and I know not having another job waiting for me isn’t exactly ideal but I’m so absolutely, one hundred percent fine.’

‘Well, that sounds very nice but, regardless, we thought while you were here, it would be nice for you to have your privacy.’ Dad coughed to clear his throat before looking to my mother for help. Mum looked at Dad and Dad looked at me and I looked back at both of them.

‘If all my furniture is in here, then what’s in my room?’ I wondered out loud, too tired to get it.

‘The thing is, Rosalind, you’re not a child any more,’ Dad said firmly as the pieces of a puzzle I hadn’t been prepared for began to fall into place. ‘And while we’re happy to have you home for as long as you need to be here, I think we would all appreciate a bit more space and a bit more distance and, well …’

Oh.

Oh no.

They hadn’t put my bedroom in a shed.

The shed was my bedroom.

‘You want me to live in here?’ I asked, hoping they would laugh and bring me back inside with a clap on the back. Good joke, everybody laughs.

But no.

Dad slapped his hands together, breaking the tension with a thunderclap.

‘I’ll get your bags, will I?’ he said brightly. ‘I think they’ll fit under the bed, otherwise you’ll have to bring them in once you’ve emptied them and I’ll put in the loft until you leave. Not that there’s a rush for you to leave.’

‘Everything works except the WiFi,’ Mum said proudly as I adjusted to the reality of my situation. The reality of living in a shed. ‘And the reception on the telly comes in and out but that’ll all be fine once we’ve worked out the WiFi. There’s a man coming next week.’

‘Great,’ I replied, steadying myself on my bedframe. ‘No rush.’

After all, who needed television or the internet, especially when they were unemployed and looking for a new job?

‘Thing is, we turned your room into an office so your dad can work from home a couple of days a week,’ Mum said, fussing with the curtains, straightening the nets. She might have her daughter living in a shed but she was not a savage. ‘And you said you wouldn’t be back for long and it’s so nice having him around more.’

‘And Jo’s room?’

‘Jo only left a month ago!’ She turned to stare at me, positively aghast. ‘We couldn’t very well upend her room when her bed was still warm, could we?’

‘I suppose not,’ I replied, definitely not thinking about how they moved Jo into my room the same day I left for uni because she needed a bigger room. When she was four.

‘Exactly.’ Mum cleared her throat. ‘But I have put all her furniture in one corner and I’m using it as a yoga studio. I’m really getting there with my downward dog.’

What I wouldn’t have given to see my sister’s face at that moment.

‘If you cook anything, be careful,’ she went on, picking things up then putting them down. My Pikachu piggy bank, an unopened bottle of bath pearls from Christmas 2004, a framed photo of Justin Timberlake that Sumi had given me for my birthday in the first year of uni that Mum had given pride of place, clearly mistaking JT for an actual friend. ‘We took the batteries out of the smoke alarm because it kept going off every ten minutes and we could hear it up in the house. Very distracting.’

No WiFi, no TV and no smoke alarm. I could see it now: exhausted from being forced to read an actual book, I would fall asleep with a Pop-Tart in the toaster, the toaster would set on fire, I’d die of smoke inhalation and no one on Instagram would ever even know.

‘Right, I need to get back into the kitchen and put the chicken in the oven for dinner. Unless you’d like to have us over to your place?’ Mum asked with a theatrical wink.

‘Perhaps I should try not to set it on fire the first night,’ I joked weakly as Dad returned with my bags.

Or maybe I should, I thought, eyeing the toaster across the room.

Closing the door behind the horny pod people who had replaced my parents, I cast an eye over my domain – all three hundred square feet of it – before dropping down on my bed. The uncertain, ancient frame complained at my weight but the protest wasn’t loud enough to get me back up on my feet.

‘You have so much to be grateful for,’ I told myself, staring up at the ceiling. ‘You have your health, your parents, your friends and a highly flammable roof over your head. It’s more than a lot of people have. It’s not as nice as what you had before but it’ll be OK. You’ll get a job, you’ll get a flat, you’ll burn that poster of Tom Cruise and you’ll be fine. Everything will be fine.’

The more times I said it, the closer it felt to being true.

A smile found its way onto my face. I’d have loved this place when I was a teenager, I thought. A bolthole at the bottom of the garden, all to myself? Maybe it was actually amazing and I was just too tired to realize. The smile disappeared as a single drop of water fell from the roof and landed right in the middle of my forehead. I rolled over onto my side and watched as it began to rain, a summer storm tap, tap, tapping on the corrugated roof of my new home.

‘It’s all going to be fine,’ I said again, more determined this time.

I only hoped I was right. I hadn’t always been that reliable in the past.

CHAPTER TWO

One of the most wonderful things about London was, no matter how much it changed, at its heart, it always stayed the same. They could open as many coffee shops and co-working spaces and Brewdog after Brewdog after Brewdog but the bones of the city stood strong, happy to slip on a new skin from time to time but always knowing its true self, underneath it all. As I emerged from the tube station at London Bridge, I took a deep, familiar breath of murky city air and smiled. I’d missed home so much.

After university, I’d lived nearby with my best friend, Sumi, and our friend, Lucy, the three of us crammed into a tiny two-bedroomed terraced affair with no functioning kitchen to speak of, a living room that doubled as Sumi’s bedroom and a bathroom that didn’t have a bath. Since we only had a fridge-freezer in the hallway and nowhere to sit that wasn’t someone’s bed, we met at The Lexington Arms almost every evening after work to eat and drink and catch each other up on every last little thing that had happened during our day. It was a wonderful, crappy old pub round the corner, beloved by us for its fish finger sandwiches, cheap white wine and the landlord’s willingness to let us upstairs when he had a band on without paying for a ticket. Sumi was in law school, Lucy was training at beauty college and I was making tea for whichever local radio station or desperate DJ would have me. It sounded hideous but they were happy times, really, they were the happiest.

As I waited for the green man, I gazed across the cobbled street at Borough Market. It was all together too cool for us back then but Sumi insisted I meet her here tonight. It was closer to her office, she said. This new bar she’d started going to was far nicer than The Lex, she said. A complete and utter betrayal, I said. And there had been no word on whether or not they served fish finger sandwiches.

Dodging the tourists with their giant backpacks and the locals with their bulging shopping bags, I walked around in circles, searching for the bar but only succeeding in getting lost in a sea of artisan food stalls.

‘You can’t afford fancy cheese,’ I reminded myself as I stared longingly at a wheel of brie in the window of the cheesemonger’s. Besides, who needed a baked camembert and a fresh-from-the-oven baguette when they could buy a Dairylea Dunker from Tesco Metro on the way home? Christ, I groaned inwardly, it had been a long time since I’d had been this broke. I had to find a job sooner rather than later.

Eventually, I spotted it, nestled between a boulangerie and a cheese shop, a tiny sign stencilled on a huge plate-glass window in antique gold lettering. Good Luck Bar was about as far away from The Lex as it was possible to be, figuratively speaking. Instead of a dark, dank, old man’s boozer, this place was one of those café-pub hybrids with too many mirrors and not enough dry-roast peanuts. One side of the room was taken up by oversized sofas in the perfect shade of pink for faux lounging while you took a thousand Instagram photos. The other side was filled with communal tables and a dulled metal bar that ran halfway down the room, lined with tall barstools and Edison lights hanging down overhead. It looked like a steampunk hairdressers, if a giant strawberry yoghurt had exploded inside. Not that it mattered what I thought, the place was absolutely packed, the sofas were swarmed and the communal tables full of people nursing an almost empty coffee cup while they abused the free WiFi.

With no other options, I hopped up onto an empty stool, resting my bag on the bar. A woman appeared on the other side and gave me a big smile. Her hair was woven into a long, elaborate braid you couldn’t help but respect and a heavy leather work apron covered her white shirt and blue jeans.

‘What can I get you?’ she asked.

‘A white wine please?’ I replied with a quick glance at the happy hour menu. ‘A large white wine?’

I might not be able to afford expensive cheese but there was always room on my credit card for a drink.

‘One of those days?’ The bartender pushed an enormous glass of Sauvignon Blanc towards me.

‘Something like that,’ I agreed, tucking my own long hair behind my ears and taking a grateful sip. I liked her already.

The day had been a challenge. Between my jetlag and a pair of randy rutting foxes that had seemingly chosen the back of my shed as their love nest I’d barely slept a wink. Which meant I didn’t cope very well when my dad apologetically explained he’d moved all my clothes from the washer to the dryer without asking me and accidentally shrunk more than half of them. And that was before I’d got to the freezing-cold water in the shed shower or the utter horror of the compostable toilet. My parents might be happy to have me home but home did not seem happy to have me.

‘Oh my god, it’s you, it’s you, you’re really back!’

Without warning, a black leather tote bag, filled to overflowing, thumped down beside me at the bar with a short South Asian woman attached.

‘I am so happy to see you,’ I told her, squeezing my friend so tightly she squealed in protest.

‘I’m happy to see you too,’ Sumi replied, delight all over her face. She’d always hated being short and lived in four-inch heels but she loved that she was, in her own words, ‘a thicc bitch’, all confident curves and zero-fucks attitude. Her hair was long and dark and her face was a masterpiece, glowing skin, huge eyes and a mouth that always seemed to be smiling.

‘I’m gagging for a drink,’ she said, waving to the bartender and pointing at my glass before giving her a thumbs up. The woman threw her a wink and went to work. ‘So, tell me everything. How does it feel to be back?’

‘Weird,’ I admitted as we fell right back into our rhythm. I hadn’t physically laid eyes on Sumi since she came out to visit a year ago but one way or another, we’d spoken every single day without fail. We didn’t miss a beat. ‘I’m happy though, I’ve missed everything about home so much.’

‘You picked the right three years to be gone,’ she replied. ‘I’d have gone with you if I could have. How’s the flat-hunt going?’

‘Can’t get a flat without a job,’ I pointed out. ‘I’m totally broke. If I’d known I’d be leaving so suddenly, I’d have tried to save more.’

I shuddered at the thought of winter in the shed.

Sumi took in the news with her trademark sympathy. ‘You’ll work it out,’ she said, patting me aggressively on the back. Sumi was a corporate lawyer who would never be out of work as long as companies continued to do dastardly things to each other – which basically meant she’d be loaded forever. ‘Everyone will be champing at the bit to give you a job. Your CV must look amazing, who else in London has three years’ experience at American Public Radio? You’re a rockstar, babe.’

‘Yeah,’ I agreed weakly. ‘That’s me.’

She lifted her head slightly to examine me, an expression I knew only too well.

‘You still haven’t really explained what happened. Did you quit? Was it layoffs?’

‘I was ready to come home,’ I said, also ready to draw a line under the conversation. ‘It’s a long, boring story, not worth the waste of breath.’

She gave me a sideways glance as her wine arrived. Sumi, ever the lawyer, knew when a case was closed.

‘Your mum and dad must be thrilled to have you home?’

‘They’re making me live in a shed.’

Sumi’s eyes lit up. ‘I have many follow-up questions.’

‘You may not ask them,’ I replied. ‘But you can help me set up my new phone if you like.’

I pulled a sexy black slab out of my bag and modelled it with my best game show hostess hand movements while my friend contributed the appropriate ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’. Even though I couldn’t really afford it, I had to have a phone. I’d had a work one in DC and the moment I’d handed it back in, it was like having my arm cut off. The ancient handset I’d been using in the interim was so slow, it would have been easier to send my friends telegrams than it was to text.

‘My phone is so old you practically have to put twenty pence in the back to make a call,’ Sumi muttered, admiring my new technology. ‘But I can’t face learning how to use a new one. I’ve gone full Luddite.’

‘Oh, I’ve got no idea how to use it but look how pretty it is.’ I gazed lovingly into the glossy screen and blinked with delight as it unlocked itself, opening up the home screen. ‘Look at that! I didn’t even have to press anything.’

‘Facial recognition,’ she said darkly. ‘Another reason not to upgrade, I don’t need the Russians saving my face to some mad database.’

‘Why the Russians?’ I asked, peering at the virgin, unscratched screen. So beautiful.

‘It’s always the Russians,’ Sumi said, a knowing look on her face. ‘The Russians or Mark Zuckerberg. Or both. In fact, do we even know he’s not Russian?’

‘Yes, Sumi,’ I replied, holding my phone at a safe distance and studying it carefully. ‘We do.’

My sister, Jo, could pick up any item of technology and, within three seconds, she’d have a gluten-free, vegan pizza on its way, her favourite music playing through an unseen speaker and five potential dates lined up for the weekend, all while checking her blood pressure and livestreaming footage from the Mars Rover. I had to work a little bit harder. The woman in the shop had set up the basics but I was going to have to figure out the rest for myself. For the last three years, I’d had to listen to all my albums on shuffle because I was too embarrassed to ask anyone how to turn it off.

Sumi took a deep swig of her wine and sighed with pleasure. ‘Have you downloaded the apps yet?’

‘Give me a break. I’ve had the phone for half an hour, this is the first time I’ve looked at it since I left the shop,’ I replied, sighing at her impatience before casting my eyes towards the floor in shame. ‘I downloaded Tinder.’

She pulled a bowl of snack mix down the bar and began popping peanuts into her mouth as her eyebrows wiggled up and down suggestively. Free snacks on the bar were definitely a plus point for this place.

‘Don’t get excited,’ I warned. ‘I downloaded it, that’s all, I didn’t activate my profile. I think I should probably find a job before I start looking for a shag.’

‘Absolutely, one hundred percent agreed, you’ll hear no arguments from me,’ Sumi said right before she grabbed my phone, held it up in front of my surprised face, swiped, tapped and, five seconds later, my Tinder profile was reactivated.

‘You’re a monster,’ I told her as she sat beside me, swiping through my options. Dozens of different faces gazed up at us, a smorgasbord of available men just waiting to be tapped. ‘You know I’ve never had any luck on the apps, no one does, it’s totally pointless. Besides, I’m not ready.’

‘I met Jemima on an app, Lucy met Creepy Dave on an app,’ Sumi reminded me, as though invoking Creepy Dave might help her argument. ‘Look at your pictures, they’re amazing! You look fit and nice and not like a complete arsehole. That’s Tinder gold.’

‘Thanks.’ I cringed at a clearly staged photo of me with my mouth open laughing at absolutely nothing. ‘Fat lot of good they’ve done me so far.’

‘No bites?’

‘The last date I went on arrived thirty minutes late, dripping in sweat, wearing his running gear and, because that wasn’t bad enough, his knob kept falling out of his shorts.’

‘If his knob was big enough to fall out of his shorts, you might have been a bit more understanding,’ Sumi, a lesbian who had literally never even touched a penis, suggested.

I reached across her to nix a photo of a white man proudly displaying his dreadlocks. Immediate red flag.

‘And if his mum hadn’t been waiting for him outside the bar, I might have been.’

‘Maybe his mum was an Uber driver who needed some practice?’

‘Maybe he was the next Norman Bates?’

Sumi frowned at London’s love offerings. Man with a baby tiger, man skydiving, man on top of a mountain. Man on top of a mountain holding a baby tiger immediately after skydiving.

‘I know you’re going to tell me you’re too busy to be in a relationship right now but I do think a good shag would sort you right out,’ she said, causing the man sitting to my right to choke on his gin and tonic. ‘It’s good to clear out the cobwebs, you know?’

‘I’m not against the idea of being a relationship,’ I told her, politely pretending not to notice as my seat neighbour sopped up his drink with several napkins. ‘I’m against the idea of dating. I don’t have the time or energy to waste drinking overpriced cocktails with people I never want to see again.’

‘Oh, of course,’ Sumi agreed innocently. ‘Because you’re so busy living in your parents’ shed not working?’

‘Put that down as my headline,’ I told her, catching my own eye in the mirror behind the bar. I looked tired. ‘I do want to find someone, eventually. No one wants to be the weird single friend that shows up to family parties in last night’s eyeliner and scares the children, but it’s too much right now.’

‘But a good first date is the best.’ Her eyes sparkled as she gazed into a memory. ‘All the laughing and talking and finding reasons to touch each other, wondering who’s going to make the first move, wondering if they’ll ask you out again, wondering when they’re going to text …’

Sumi’s first dates sounded as though they’d been a lot more fun than any of mine. ‘That sounds great,’ I said, giving her a look. ‘But Frasier isn’t going to rewatch itself, is it?’

Her smile softened into something more understanding. ‘I think you need to get back on the horse. I think you might have forgotten how much fun horses can be, if you give them a chance.’

‘All the horses I ever rode were destined for the glue factory,’ I reminded her.

‘To new horses,’ she said, tapping her glass against mine. ‘Sexy, clever horses with their own teeth, financial stability and a home that isn’t a shed.’

‘What about a stable?’ I suggested.

‘Only if it’s Jesus,’ she replied.

Laughing, I tucked my hair behind my ears and shook my head. I had missed her so much.

‘Before I forget,’ Sumi said, tapping a long, black acrylic fingernail on the screen of my phone. ‘You need to send me your new number before I accidentally call some random American in the middle of the night.’

‘I need to send everyone my number,’ I told her, rubbing peanut dust on the leg of my only pair of jeans. ‘They updated my contacts from the cloud so I’ve got everyone’s details but no one has mine. Is there an app for that or have I got to text everyone I ever met?’

‘You sweet precious baby,’ Sumi said with a fake swoon. ‘There’s an app for everything, even I know that.’ Her nail rattled across my screen and, in just a few taps, a little green icon appeared on my phone. ‘This is what we use for group texts at work. End-to-end encryption, no one can hack it.’

It was fair to say Sumi was more than averagely engaged with conspiracy theories.

‘Hit that, connect it to your contacts and open up a group message. Then you can text your number to whomever your heart desires.’

‘How did I manage three whole years without you?’ I asked, marvelling at the wonders of modern technology.

‘It is a question I ask myself every day.’

Editing radio shows was easy, iPhones were a whole different story. This was why I didn’t dare download TikTok. Fear of the unknown.

I stared at the screen, trying to come up with just the right message. How was I supposed to say ‘Hi, I’m back in London, please don’t ask me any questions about my surprise return that was one hundred percent my choice and also I live in a shed now’ without sounding completely pathetic?

‘You’re sending people your new number, you don’t have to write an essay,’ Sumi climbed down from her stool, peering over my shoulder to see my fingertip poised over a blank screen. ‘I’m going for a wee, see if you can finish it before I get back.’

‘Good to know, enjoy it,’ I told her as she click-clacked off through the bar in her stilettos.

Hi, it’s Ros Reynolds, I typed out before I could overthink it. Overthinking was one of my greatest talents. Given the chance, I could talk myself out of literally anything in under five minutes. Instead, I took another glug of the wine while I tried to imagine what I would say if I were writing it for someone else.

Hi, it’s Ros Reynolds. This is my new number, I just moved back to London! Let’s catch up soon.

One exclamation mark, no emojis. Short, sweet, to the point and, most importantly, not pathetic. It was a winner. I tapped the little arrow in the corner and saw a small white box pop up.

Group Text wants to access contacts? I hit ‘Allow’.

Choose recipients or select all?

‘Can I get you another drink?’

I looked up to see the woman behind the bar smiling at my empty glass.

‘Could I get a water?’ I asked, my head suddenly swimming with the realization that I’d absolutely chugged an entire glass of wine on an empty stomach. Not the perfect start to a Monday night. Or was it?

Rubbing my tired eyes, I looked back at the screen. Choose recipients? I started scrolling and clicking, scrolling and clicking, scrolling and clicking. It got very boring, very fast.

Yawning, I flicked my thumb upwards, sending the screen whirring all the way back to the top of the page. I clicked on Select All.

And then I pressed send.

CHAPTER THREE

‘Someone’s popular,’ Sumi said on the return from her mission to the loo. On the bar, my phone flashed with unread message after unread message.

‘Turns out a lot of people are bored and on their phones on a Monday night,’ I replied as the ‘welcome home’, ‘let’s get a drink’ and ‘who is this?’ texts flooded in. ‘I don’t even know why I have half these people in my contacts, I never text anyone apart from you, Adrian, Lucy and my sister.’

‘I am honoured,’ she drained her wine glass. ‘Shall we have another drink?’

‘Oh, go on,’ I said, pushing my water away. ‘Which way are the loos?’

‘Downstairs, all the way to the end,’ Sumi replied, already lost in her own phone. ‘Ladies on the left.’

I set off on my mission, checking my latest text as I went. Domino’s Pizza. At last, someone who was truly excited to have me back in the country.

The ladies’ loos were massive, all rose gold fixtures and well-lit mirrors, perfect if your primary reason for being there was taking excellent selfies but if you needed a wee you were bang out of luck. The room was huge but some genius had only installed two toilets, both of which were occupied as I waddled up and down in front of the sinks.

‘Two bloody toilets, what is the bloody point?’ I muttered under my breath, sounding more like my dad by the second.

There was only one thing for it and I was far too close to having an accident to be picky. Besides, we were living in a post-gender world and I was a dying-for-a-wee girl. I scooted out of the women’s toilets with my knees clamped together and cautiously opened the neighbouring door.

‘Is anyone in here?’ I called, poking my head into the gents.

No one was.

Ecstatic, I flung myself into one of the stalls, relieved to see it was spotless. Not as nice as the ladies but at least they had individual toilets with floor-to-ceiling wooden doors and each stall piped in both air freshener and music – both of which, I assumed, would be a bonus in the men’s toilets.

The idea of drinking a glass of water with every alcoholic drink was all well and good but unless you happened to be wearing an adult nappy, it really was a supreme test of bladder control. I pulled my phone out of my pocket to see the screen light up with yet more returned messages. Robot numbers, failed connections and the odd and deeply unflattering, ‘new phone, who dis?’ Nestled in the middle of the mess was one text that screamed with capital letters.

Hi Ros!!! Long time no see but perfect timing??? CALL ME! ASAP!!!!

According to my contacts list, it was from Dan. But who was Dan? And why were they so intent on using every punctuation mark in their phone? Then it dawned on me. Could it be? I leaned back against the white porcelain tank, pressed call and waited for my phone to connect.

‘Ros bloody Reynolds, is it really you?’

‘It is,’ I replied happily. ‘Hello, Danielle.’

‘I can’t believe you’re back,’ she shrieked. ‘This is amazing. Perfect timing, meant to be.’

Danielle and I started out as interns at the same radio station on the same day. We were first-day-of-school friends, joined at the hip and so excited. We took our tea breaks together, went for lunch at the same time, inhaled two-for-a-fiver cocktails at the Wetherspoons across the road, starry-eyed and rosy-cheeked and still so optimistic about our first forays into the job market. At least, we were for the first three months, then we realized we really didn’t have anything in common other than the place we went to work every day. Slowly, we stopped hanging out so much – fewer lunches, far less tea and eventually, zero cocktails – until Danielle left for another job and that was that. She faded into a shadowy existence as nothing more than a Facebook friend and a number in my phone I’d forgotten I even had.

‘I would love to have a proper chat but I’m on a plane and we’re about to take off,’ Danielle interrupted without pausing for breath. ‘We should have a real catch-up when I’m back but I have the most incredible opportunity of all time, I’d be doing it myself but I’m out of town for the next few weeks. PodPad needs a producer basically yesterday and I know you’d be insane at it. Is there any chance, the slightest possible hint of a chance, I might be able to tempt you to come and work for me?’

‘PodPad?’ I repeated. ‘You’re at PodPad?’

‘Babes, I’m running PodPad,’ she laughed. ‘The programming at least.’

I knew PodPad. I turned down a job at PodPad to take the job in DC.

‘That’s amazing,’ I told her, the sound of a politely irritated flight attendant asking her to end her call crackling through my phone’s speaker. ‘I’m so pleased for you.’

‘It’s pretty wonderful,’ she agreed. ‘So, producer job. Are you interested?’

‘Um, I’d love to hear more about it,’ I replied, trying very hard not to sound as desperate as I felt. What if she wanted to know why I’d left? What if she wanted a reference?

‘You’re incredible, this is the most incredible thing that has ever happened,’ she cheered down the phone. Danielle, I remembered, was prone to hyperbole. ‘Can you come in tomorrow?’

‘Yes, absolutely,’ I confirmed, pushing negative thoughts away. ‘Let me know when and where and I’m there.’

I thought back to a chapter of Starting Over I’d read at three a.m. while the foxes behind my shed rogered each other senseless. This is what happened when you stayed positive. Take your time, stop running. Stand still and the clouds will clear, allow life to show you the way.

‘I’m texting you the address, be there at ten tomorrow morning and I’ll love you forever,’ Danielle threatened. ‘I’m so pleased you texted me, Ros. I was just about to offer the job to a complete wanker and you’ve saved my life. Meant to be or what?’

‘Miss, please put away your phone or—’

Three short sharp beeps in my ear declared the call over.

I was officially the first person on the face of the earth who had accidentally sent someone a text message and it had gone right. I made a mental note to buy a lottery ticket on the way home. It had to be my lucky day.

Flushing the loo, I slipped my phone into my back pocket so I could look myself in the eye and pretend I wasn’t the kind of person who reads their phone on the toilet (even though everyone did it, there were many reports on the matter). Pushing against the heavy toilet door with all my weight, I groaned, hoping the added vocalization might somehow make me stronger but it didn’t budge.

‘What do they do in here that they need hermetically sealed cubicles?’ I asked, not really wanting an answer to the question, before hurling myself at the door one more time. It stuck for a second then creaked open, sending me stumbling out into the toilets and—

‘JESUS FUCKING CHRIST.’

I immediately locked eyes with a man using a urinal.

‘OH MY GOD,’ I screamed, covering my face with my hands before remembering I still needed to wash them. Thrusting my arms out in front of me, I closed my eyes instead, stumbling around the gents like a blind zombie.

‘What are you doing?’ the man shouted. ‘Get out!’

‘I’m going, I’m going,’ I promised, still holding out my arms and fumbling my way forward. It seemed foolish to keep my eyes closed now, especially since I’d seen everything, but I had been raised to be polite. And not to use the men’s toilets, but still.

‘Shit,’ he grunted as he zipped up his fly. ‘You made me piss on my shoes.’

I winced, opening my eyes just a crack to find the sink. Sure, I might read my phone on the toilet but I always, always washed my hands.

‘No, really, take your time,’ I heard the man say over the sound of many, many paper towels being dispensed. I purposefully pumped the soap dispenser.

I opened my eyes a crack and saw him rubbing at a dark stain.

‘I’m going to wash my hands,’ I said primly, rinsing my hands. ‘I’m not a monster.’

He looked up but his dark hair was covering most of his face. ‘Says the woman using the men’s toilets.’

‘How dare you assume to know my gender identity,’ I mumbled as I grabbed my own paper towels.

‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, even if he didn’t sound as though he was. ‘What are your preferred pronouns?’

‘Prefer not to say.’ I clocked the furious set of his jaw before I made a beeline for the door. Dark hair, dark eyes, murderous expression. Got it. ‘Sorry about your shoes.’

Running back up the stairs, I grabbed the fresh glass of wine that was waiting for me and downed half of it in one gulp. Sumi’s eyes opened wide.

‘What happened to you?’ she asked. ‘Did a rat climb out the toilet or something?’

‘Let’s say yes,’ I replied, taking a breath and then going back for the rest of the glass. ‘I’m starving. Why don’t we go and get some food? Or go to The Lex?’

‘Ros, I told you, no one goes there any more. They got a new landlord and it’s basically a crack den,’ Sumi pulled a face. ‘It was always basically a crack den, we were just too poor to care before. If you’re hungry, they’ve got really good food here. Adrian loves the burger, have that.’

‘I really want to go somewhere else,’ I said, looking over my shoulder. ‘I know you like it here but this place is so pretentious and totally overpriced. Let’s go and get a pizza or something.’

Sumi set down her glass with concern. ‘What on earth’s wrong? Did something happen to you downstairs?’

‘Nothing happened to her,’ a voice answered from behind the bar. ‘And we’ve got pizza. But it might be too overpriced and pretentious for you.’

And there he was. The man from the gents, strapping a leather work apron over his white shirt and his damp blue jeans.

‘John!’ Sumi leaned over the bar to press kisses on either side of his annoyed face. ‘What are you doing here on a Monday?’

Of course, they were friends. Of course they were.

‘Mostly being attacked in the men’s toilets,’ he replied, never once taking his dark eyes off me.

‘I didn’t attack you, it was an accident,’ I muttered. I attempted to hide my face behind my masses of hair, utterly mortified. ‘It’s not my fault you pissed on your shoes.’

‘Is that what I can smell?’ Sumi sniffed the air and made a face.

‘Could be the pizza,’ I suggested.

Sumi looked from me to John and back to me, a confused smile on her face. As much as I loved my friend, she did like to stir up shit and there was clearly shit here to stir.

‘So, it seems like you’ve already met but we’ll do introductions anyway. John, this is my best friend, Ros, the one who was in America. Ros, this is John McMahon, the greatest bartender in all of London.’

‘Nice to meet you,’ I mumbled, holding out my hand. He stared at it but did not move. ‘What? You know it’s clean.’

‘Nice to see you, Sumi,’ John said with a nod. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I’m needed in the kitchen.’

Leaving my hand hanging over the bar, he turned and disappeared down a staircase I hadn’t noticed before, hidden behind an enormous wine rack.

‘Well,’ Sumi turned back to me and took a long sip of wine. ‘Someone made an impression.’

‘Not the one I would have chosen,’ I replied curtly. ‘So, you were saying something about a burger?’

‘Drink your drink,’ she ordered. ‘I’m buying and you’re not working, let’s get pissed.’

‘Actually, I might have a job after all.’ I gave her a happy grin, accompanied by my best jazz hands. ‘Do you remember Danielle who I used to work with?’

Sumi frowned. ‘Was she the very, very keen one?’

‘Was and still is,’ I nodded. ‘She got my new number text and she reckons she might have a job for me. How mad is that?’

Sumi’s face began to scrunch in on itself until her nose was the only discernible feature left. ‘Were you weeing or were you down there texting everyone you’ve ever worked with? On a public toilet? In London?’

‘No,’ I said quickly. ‘I was reading texts on the toilet and making one very quick phone call. Perfectly acceptable according to millennial social etiquette. I only sent that one text.’

She suddenly stared at me with very wide eyes.

‘Ros, did you send that text to every number in your contacts?’

I nodded.

‘And you thought that was a good idea?’

I nodded.

‘Have you got any idea of the number of dick pics you’re going to get in the next twenty-four hours?’

I considered it for a moment then decided I definitely did not want dick pics. Yes, I was going through a dry spell but still. Unbidden dicks were not nice to look at. Even bidden dicks failed to make the prettiest of pictures. There was a reason there was no ‘hall of knobs’ at the Louvre.

‘No one in my contacts would send a woman dick pics,’ I stated. ‘I’m sure of it.’

I was not sure of it.

‘So it is written, so shall it be,’ Sumi declared. ‘Thou sendeth a group text to unknownst numbers and ye shall receiveth pics of dicks. Even I get dick pics and talk about a waste of time.’

I grabbed my glass of wine and took a deep sip. ‘You’re so lucky to be a lesbian.’

‘And don’t I know it,’ she agreed.

By ten o’clock, I was safely tucked up in bed with Starting Over, slightly buzzed, learning how to tap into my limitless ass-kicking optimism and waiting for my phone to stop vibrating. The shed was feeling more and more like a Twilight Zone version of home – from the Forever Friends jewellery box to the Groovy Chick pillowcase – but it was all just a little bit off. To make matters even more confusing, just as I got into bed, Mum popped in to put all my dryer-shrunk clothes away in my drawers and, at some point in the day, Dad had been by to hook up an ancient VHS to the useless television. I now had the thrilling choice of watching any number of mid-nineties Disney films, six episodes from season two of Sex in the City, or a live rendition of Les Misérables Mum had taped off BBC about twenty years ago and, for some reason, protected with her life. I’d never had it so good.

As the words in my book began to blur together, I gave up on reading, sliding the book down the slender gap between the bed and the wall and checking my morning alarm for at least the fifteenth time.

‘See?’ I told the ceiling of the shed as I wedged my phone underneath my pillow. ‘I am not a failed loser who is going to die alone, I am loved by my friends and family and an in-demand professional who is open to love and new experiences and also drinking wine on Mondays.’

I hiccupped and smiled happily, hugging my pillow tightly as I closed my eyes and went straight to sleep.

CHAPTER FOUR

Ten o’clock the following morning, I sat, patiently waiting in the waiting room, wearing a pair of trousers left over from the turn of the millennium that the internet assured me were due to come back into fashion any second now and my mother’s second-best shirt. There had been no time to shop for a better interview outfit and since Dad had destroyed all my nicest things, I was forced to be a trendsetter.

PodPad, according to the research I’d done on my way into town, was no longer the tiny startup I’d rejected three years ago but a terribly cool company that made terribly cool podcasts about terribly cool things, like paleo diets and radical politics and serial killers. People loved podcasts about serial killers. Probably a societal red flag, I thought, reading through the list on their website: Murderville, The Killer Nextdoor. Murdered to Death. Probably something we ought to be more worried about, as if we didn’t have enough to be worried about already.

A tall, gangly, red-haired man, who looked like he’d shaved for the very first time that morning, stuck his head out the door. He glanced at me once, frowned and desperately searched the otherwise empty room for someone who was not me.

‘Ros?’ he asked, eventually giving up his pointless quest.

‘Hi.’ I stood and held out my hand. He took in my trousers, shiny shoes and freshly ironed shirt before taking my hand, shaking it and turning away with an audible sigh.

Off to a brilliant start.

‘This way,’ he said, leading me out of the waiting room and into a very different environment. I looked back through the door and blinked; it was like walking into hipster Narnia. Gone were the bare walls and hard plastic chairs, and in their place was a farm full of happy-looking people clicking away at computers, sitting on bold, colourful sofas, lounging next to gorgeous floor-to-ceiling windows that let in all the light. They even had the requisite ping pong table that seemed to be a contractual obligation in modern media offices. It meant this was a Cool Company and I had always wanted to work for a Cool Company. They probably had a fridge full of beers that you could have whenever you fancied and someone who came in on Tuesdays to make tacos.

‘Danielle says hi,’ the man said, his hands gripping his upper arms, squeezing an assortment of colourful but seemingly unconnected tattoos. I saw Mickey Mouse in his Sorcerer’s Apprentice outfit; a Pepsi logo; an Indian-looking symbol I was sure I recognized from a yoga class; and a face that was perhaps supposed to be Kurt Cobain’s but, under the tension of the man’s grip, looked more like Postman Pat’s. ‘She’s in the New York office for the next couple of months so I’m looking after content while she’s away. She said you’ve just come back from the States, yeah?’

‘Yes,’ I confirmed, desperate not to sound as nervous as I felt. ‘Just got ba—’

‘And you were working for APR, yeah?’ he interrupted. ‘Cool, cool. My favourite radio station. Not that I really listen to radio.’

‘Thanks, it was a really good pla—’

‘You were a producer? That’s choice.’

Apparently he was going to interview himself on my behalf.

‘Dream job, right there,’ he said, stopping suddenly and perching his very tiny arse on the edge of a desk. ‘Why did you leave?’

I looked around the office, with its bright colours and happy, busy people, and I wanted to be part of it so badly.

‘It was time for a change,’ I said. No need to go into specifics unless specifics were asked for. ‘I learned a lot there but I’m ready for the next challenge.’

He considered my answer as I squeezed the strap of my handbag tighter and tighter and tighter. Was he really going to interview me in the middle of the office, in front of everyone? I cast my eyes around the room and saw everyone pretending they weren’t watching.

‘I’ll cut to the chase,’ the man said, staring hard into my eyes. My hand rose to swipe at any stray mascara that might have migrated where it was not wanted. ‘We need a producer ASAP. Someone who can think fast and work hard. Danielle says that’s you. Is that you, Ros?’

‘I think so?’ I said hesitantly, taken aback by his sudden intensity.

‘We don’t do “I think so” here,’ he said, eyes burning directly into mine. ‘We do passion.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ I said, coughing to cover an awkward attack of the lols that threatened to burble up and out of my mouth. ‘I just realized I didn’t catch your name.’

‘That’s because I didn’t tell you my name,’ he replied, re-crossing his arms over his T-shirt and covering up a slogan that was either very funny or very rude, depending on how you felt about vegans. ‘What’s your deal? Who is Ros? What does she want?’

I’d been working in radio for ten years and no one had ever asked me what my deal was. They’d asked me about my experience, they’d discussed my qualifications and, once, a breakfast presenter had asked for my bra size but you really couldn’t get away with things like that any more, thank god.

‘You want to know about my deal?’ I repeated, hoping I hadn’t heard him properly.

‘What’s your deal?’ he said again, karate-chopping his own hand to emphasize each word. ‘Why do you want to work at PodPad?’

‘Because I’m truly passionate about sharing the truth with people and I believe radi— I mean, podcasting, is the greatest medium we have to communicate the stories that matter to the people who need to hear them,’ I said carefully. It was a never-fail interview line but he just carried on staring at me, not speaking or moving.

‘Why do you want to work at PodPad?’ I asked, starting to get annoyed. ‘And seriously, what is your name?’

‘We’ll get to names if I decide to offer you a position,’ he said, completely ignoring my first question with the hint of a smirk on his face.

For the first time in my life, I longed for an awkward, stilted interview across an MDF desk conducted in an HR dungeon by someone called Brenda. I had taken my Brendas for granted and I was regretting it. You always knew where you were with a Brenda. Was I wasting my time? Why would a company like PodPad want to hire me anyway?

‘I’m here because I need a job,’ I said plainly. It was cards on the table time. ‘I’m thirty-two, I’m living in a shed in my parents’ back garden, no one is hiring in radio between here and the Outer Hebrides and, if I don’t get a job soon, I’m going to have to retrain as either an optician or an international assassin.’

The redhead’s smirk grew into a fully fledged grin.

‘Why an optician?’

‘Seems like a good job,’ I said with a shrug. ‘Decent hours, good money. I’ve spent a lot of time sitting in little dark rooms so that seems like transferrable skill. Oh, and some opticians work in Boots and I love Boots.’

‘And international assassin?’

I chewed on the inside of my cheek.

‘I like to travel?’

‘But you’d have to kill people.’

‘Every job’s got its downside,’ I reasoned.

We stood face to face in the bright, busy office for slightly too long a moment and stared at each other in silence until the redhead stuck out his fist. For a split second, I thought it was going to punch me and instinctively shirked away. And then I realized he wanted me to fist-bump him and I died inside.

‘I’m Ted,’ he said as I reluctantly tapped my knuckles against his. ‘Welcome to the team.’

CHAPTER FIVE

‘To our working girl! Wait, no, that sounds terrible.’

Adrian raised a glass of sparkling wine while Lucy and Sumi cheered loudly enough to attract the attention of everyone in the bar who wasn’t wearing AirPods. Which, to be fair, wasn’t that many people.

‘If I hadn’t got this job, it would have been a very real possibility,’ I replied as we clinked our glasses together. ‘Not sure I’d have made a lot of money though.’

As soon as I’d messaged my friends to let them know the PodPad interview was a success, they insisted we all get together for a celebratory dinner that evening, just like old times. The only downside was, they also insisted we meet at Good Luck Bar, despite my protestations. The food was amazing, Lucy said. It was the most convenient place for everyone, Sumi insisted. And John always took a chunk off the bill, Adrian added. And so, there we were, installed in a baby-pink velvet booth that made me feel as though we were sitting on a particularly comfortable blancmange, but it was worth it to have the three of them together at such short notice. I hadn’t seen them all together in one place since the last time I’d been back for Christmas, almost two years ago and that was far too long to go without your best friends.

‘Tell us about the show you’re producing,’ Lucy said, full of encouragement as usual as she topped up my water.

‘I don’t actually know much about it,’ I admitted. ‘They were all so busy today they didn’t really tell me anything. I’ve got my induction tomorrow. When you work for a network like that, you could be doing a million different things, it’s so exciting.’

‘I can’t believe you found such an amazing job so quickly,’ Adrian said with a congratulatory punch in the arm. Adrian and I had known each other since we were babies. His parents had lived next door to mine until his granddad died when we were fifteen and they moved into his fancy pile of bricks twenty minutes down the road. ‘What happened with the old one, anyway?’

‘Oh, it’s just …’ I opened my mouth, looking for the words. They were my best friends, I could tell them, surely?

‘She missed us so much she had to come home,’ Sumi interjected loudly. ‘And now she’s on to bigger and better things.’

I threw her a grateful look and agreed with a nod.

‘I’m very happy for you, although I was hoping you’d slack off for a while and hang out with me,’ Adrian said, throwing his arm around my shoulders. ‘I hardly ever see these two, always too busy for me.’

‘Some of us have to work for a living,’ I replied, needling him gently. ‘Some of us don’t have houses bought for us by our parents.’

‘You kind of do,’ Sumi reasoned with a grin.

‘Show me the photos again,’ insisted Lucy, her lovely face shining. ‘I can’t believe your dad built it for you, it’s so sweet. Like a grown-up Wendy house.’

‘Do you think the Lost Boys made her a compostable toilet?’ Sumi asked sweetly.

‘Where’s the waitress?’ I asked, keen to change the subject even as Sumi rustled around in my handbag, searching for my phone. ‘I’m starving to death over here. A working woman has to eat.’

‘Got to order at the bar,’ Adrian replied as Sumi and Lucy pored over pictures of my shed. ‘Is that a framed photo of Justin Timberlake?’

‘Is that a Groovy Chick duvet cover?’ Lucy asked. ‘Oh my god, what a flashback.’

‘I’ll go,’ I offered, shuffling out of the booth, taking a menu with me. ‘Be right back.’

Pitching up at the bar, I earned a welcoming smile from the same waitress I’d met the night before.

‘You’re Sumi’s friend,’ she stated, reaching an amiable hand across the bar. ‘I’m Camille.’

‘Ros.’ I navigated my arm through the taps to return her firm handshake. ‘Hello again.’

‘I’ll let John know you’re here before you order,’ she asked, pointing at the menu in my hand. ‘Chef’s trying out some specials I know he’ll want you all to try. You lot are our official guinea pigs.’

I glanced behind her into the kitchens and saw tall, dark and angry from the night before, deep in conversation with an equally tall, very pretty blonde. ‘Don’t worry,’ I insisted, politely trying to avoid another confrontation. ‘Looks like he’s busy.’

‘With her?’ Camille turned up her tiny nose with ready indiscretion. ‘She won’t be staying long. Fingers crossed.’

‘Girlfriend?’ I asked. They were talking intently but they definitely didn’t give off a colleague vibe.

‘The wife.’ She made little air quotes with her fingers and, from the look on her face, it seemed as though there wasn’t much love lost between them. I couldn’t help but be curious.

‘Does she work here?’

‘Hmm,’ she confirmed, looking over at the two of them as the blonde laughed at something we couldn’t hear. I inched my bag up my shoulder and watched as she picked a fleck of dust from his shoulder. ‘When she feels like it.’

I kept one eye on John and his wife from a safe distance. What if he’d told her how I walked in on him in the bathroom? I was too British to live with that shame. And how was it that they were both so tall? Did they meet on a dating app for giants? Shouldn’t they both be with shorter people to try and share those genes around? Their kitchen had to be amazing, they could both reach all the cupboards. What a gift. Before I realized I was staring, John looked up and caught my eye. I switched my gaze to the menu, boring holes into the heavy paper and reading our selections out to Camille.

‘I’ll have it all out as soon as,’ she said as she tapped it all into the iPad in front of her. ‘Nice to meet you properly, Ros.’

‘Nice to meet you too,’ I said, catching her boss’s eye again and wishing I could say the same for him.

‘Remember when our idea of a dream meal was a fish finger sandwich and an entire box of potato waffles?’ I said loudly, once I was safely back at the table. ‘Oh, to be twenty-two again.’

‘You couldn’t pay me to go back to my twenties,’ Adrian declared. ‘Not for every fish finger on the face of the earth. Too many fuck-ups, too many lessons learned the hard way.’

‘Nor me, I’m so glad life is easier now,’ Sumi agreed, even though she’d taken four Nurofen Plus since she’d arrived and had dark circles under her eyes that would have had Nosferatu asking if she was feeling OK. ‘I couldn’t go through it again. All those hours studying? No one taking you seriously? The five years it took to convince my grandmother I was gay? No thank you.’

‘You work every hour god sends, you constantly complain about the other partners taking the piss out of you and your gran still thinks you’re just waiting for the right man,’ I reminded her. ‘Lucy? Back me up.’

‘I did love my twenties,’ she agreed, running her palm over her belly in soothing circles. ‘But, you know.’

I did know. We all knew. Lucy was the most pregnant pregnant woman that had ever existed.

‘If you had to relive one year over again, which one would you choose?’ I asked. They all muttered and shrugged. ‘I would be twenty-eight in a heartbeat,’ I said, answering my own question. ‘All of us living together, loving my job, not having to worry whether or not Friends is problematic …’

‘Cough, straight white privilege, cough,’ Sumi spluttered. Lucy immediately reached out to rub her back as though she really had a cough and I smothered a smile with my hand.

‘Not to mention that’s when you met Pa—’ Adrian began before he squealed and grabbed himself under the table. Someone had clearly given him a swift kick. ‘Ow, what was that for?’

‘We don’t. Mention. Him,’ said Sumi, shooting a warning look in Adrian’s direction.

‘Oh, come on,’ I said with a light laugh even as I felt myself flush. ‘It’s fine. It’s the past. I’m not going to start sobbing if someone says his name.’

‘Really?’ Lucy asked, one eye on me and my steak knife.

‘It’s been years,’ I laid it on as thick as I could. ‘Do I wonder what might have happened if I hadn’t taken the job in America? Yes. Was he the love of my life? Probably. Is this a conversation I want to have right now or ever? No.’

They all gazed back at me, the same doubtful expression on three different faces.

‘I am completely and utterly over Patrick Parker,’ I declared. ‘I am fine.’

‘Good, I’m glad to hear it,’ Sumi replied. ‘He led you up and down the garden path so many times it was ready for repaving.’

‘He was always all right with me,’ Adrian said. ‘I liked him.’

‘You mean you were totally in love with him because he got you tickets to the FA Cup Final,’ I corrected. Adrian didn’t argue.

‘I remember the first time we met him,’ Lucy said, pressing her hand on top of mine. ‘You brought him to that Christmas party and I thought, oh gosh, what a stone-cold fox. But I still think you did the right thing by leaving. You’d have regretted it if you hadn’t.’

‘You definitely did the right thing,’ Sumi agreed. ‘Imagine if you’d turned down an amazing job in America for a man.’

‘Imagine,’ I agreed, as if I didn’t imagine it all the time.

‘Everyone has a Patrick,’ Adrian reasoned. ‘Someone you’ll always wonder about, imagine what might have been. You’re contractually obliged as a human. He’s the one that got away.’

‘More like a bullet dodged,’ Sumi muttered into her drink. ‘I never saw the appeal myself.’

‘He was very clever,’ Lucy answered on my behalf. ‘And he was a writer, that’s very alluring.’

‘And he was incredibly sexy,’ Adrian added as we all gave him a look. ‘What? A straight man can’t say when another straight man is fit as? I’m secure in my masculinity, Patrick was a sexy man.’

‘It wasn’t just a physical thing,’ I said, twisting a strand of hair between my fingers. ‘His writing was beautiful and he was passionate and confident and—’

‘He was horny and arrogant and up his own arse,’ Sumi corrected. ‘But then that’s always been your type.’

‘Patrick isn’t why I’d go back to being twenty-eight, anyway,’ I said, not wanting to argue about it. She wasn’t necessarily wrong, I did have a type and that type was terrible. ‘Twenty-eight is the perfect age. People stop treating you like you’re too young to be taken seriously but you’re not too old either, there’s still so much potential to do things. Or undo things.’

‘Like terrible romantic decisions,’ Adrian suggested brightly. ‘And liver damage.’

‘It wasn’t terrible with Patrick,’ I said, my voice cracking just a little. ‘Until the end.’

‘Doesn’t matter, does it? It’s the past,’ Sumi held up her hands to wrap up that conversation. ‘You can’t go back, even if you wanted to.’

‘Who would want to? We’re all killing it,’ Adrian replied. Me and the girls exchanged a look. All of us? ‘Well bloody done on getting a new job so soon.’

‘I knew she’d find something right away, she’s brilliant,’ Sumi said proudly before she leaned across the table to smile at my oldest friend. ‘But what about you, Adrian, had any more thoughts about getting one of those job-type jobs like the rest of us?’

‘Lucy hasn’t got a job!’ he protested.

‘I’m on maternity leave,’ she exclaimed, clutching her belly to protect it from his accusations. ‘You try giving people a facial when you’ve got a belly bigger than Santa’s and you have to go for a wee every fifteen minutes.’

‘Good try, Adrian,’ I said with a smile. ‘When was the last time you had a job?’

‘I work!’ he insisted. ‘I drove for Uber last year, remember?’

A shiver ran down my spine as I imagined Adrian pulling up as my Uber driver. He was the worst driver on the face of the Earth. It would be like getting into a taxi driven by Mr Bean after he’d taken a Glastonbury’s worth of Molly.

‘And I’m working on my screenplay again.’

We all groaned as one.

‘My baby is going to be doing its GCSEs before you get that thing finished,’ Lucy predicted. ‘If not its degree.’

‘As if your kid is getting into university,’ he replied with a snippy grin.

Lucy shrugged and carried on stroking her stomach. Lucy never rose to anything. Lucy was an actual saint.

I listened as they bickered back and forth, laughing and poking and prodding at each other, just like they always did. Lucy beamed as she cradled her belly and, for a moment, I felt a glow of familiar, old happiness. A tug back to a time I thought had gone by. Starting Over, much like Sumi, said you should never go back, that your old life was the past and the past was over, but I wasn’t so sure. My old life was sitting right around this table and it looked pretty good to me.

‘Before I forget, Mum and Dad are having a wedding anniversary thing on Saturday night,’ Adrian said, inhaling deeply on a Marlboro Gold outside the bar as soon as Lucy and Sumi were out of sight. There was every chance he was the last person I knew who still smoked actual cigarettes. ‘Will you come? They’ve been asking after you.’

‘Are Lucy and Sumi coming?’ I asked.

He shook his head. ‘Lucy has a Creepy Dave thing and Sumi has a Jemima thing. She’s off to Madrid to build a cathedral or something so they’re going to visit for the weekend.’

Sumi’s girlfriend was an architect, which meant she was very clever, very rich and an endless source of exciting minibreaks. I was sure there were many wonderful things about being in a relationship but having a lifetime-long reason to get out of doing things you really didn’t want to do had to be right up there with the best of them.

‘Come on, Ros, it’ll be a laugh,’ Adrian said with a wheedling whine.

‘No offence to your parents but it absolutely will not,’ I said, rummaging around in my bag for chewing gum. The hake crepe that Lucy had demanded had left a very unpleasant aftertaste in my mouth, which wasn’t too surprising since it had tasted very unpleasant. Fish finger sandwiches were definitely better. ‘Surely you’d rather take someone who might actually have sex with you afterwards?’

‘Yes, of course I would,’ he replied without so much as blinking. ‘But I’ve turned over a new leaf. I’m the new Adrian, I don’t do that any more.’

‘Why?’ I asked, suspicious.

‘Because I’m only interested in forming a deep and meaningful relationship with someone I care about,’ he said, pouting. ‘I’m a reformed character, Ros, I haven’t had a shag in ages.’

I gave him a questioning look.

‘Fine, it’s been a slow summer and I haven’t had any offers,’ he admitted. ‘But please come, it’s their ruby wedding anniversary, it’s a big deal. There’s going to be an ungodly amount of food and drink and you know you want to.’

I really didn’t want to but I couldn’t say no. It wasn’t as if I had anything else to do and Adrian would cross hot coals for me if I asked.

‘Ros?’ he wheedled. He took one last draw on his cigarette, stamping it out as a black Prius with a glowing Uber badge pulled up beside us. I let out a very heavy sigh and nodded. ‘Fantastic,’ he said as he opened the car door and hopped inside. ‘Come any time after seven, can’t wait. See you Saturday.’

Without the money for a taxi, I wandered back down the street towards the tube station. It had been so good to see my friends but I couldn’t help but feel a little empty as I took myself off home instead of linking arms with the others and laughing all the way back to our shared house. The late-night milk runs, doing our makeup in each other’s rooms, snuggling up together on the sofa to watch a film. I couldn’t think of a time that I’d been happier. Now they had new homes to go to, new partners to snuggle up with. But not me.

Just like everyone else who happened to be walking alone down a busy city street at ten o’clock on a Tuesday night, I automatically slid my hand into my pocket and pulled out my phone. I was still getting replies to my texts: my great-aunt who hadn’t realized I’d been away, my university friend Alison who wanted to know if I’d accepted Jesus as my Lord and Saviour since the last time she’d seen me (at our ten-year reunion with me hugging one of the student union toilets after a regrettable pint of snakebite and black). I wondered what new messages might have arrived since I’d last checked.

And then I saw it.

My heart pounded, my stomach lurched and I started to sweat, a horrible conviction that I was about to see the hake pancake again washing over me. I stuttered out of the flow of people on the street and leaned against a cold stone wall, staring at my phone, quite sure I was seeing things, quite sure it would disappear. But it didn’t. It stayed right where it was, shining up at me and willing me to open it.

I held my breath.

I opened the message.

Two words.

Hello, stranger

The text was from Patrick.

CHAPTER SIX

Everyone has a Patrick.

Adrian’s words echoed in my ears all the way home to my shed. Was it true? Did everyone have someone who made them feel this way? Light-headed and loose-limbed and like they might have forgotten their own name? Because if they did, someone should have warned me before things got as bad as they did. No matter how many songs I heard or books I read or films I watched, no one had ever quite managed to put into words how I’d felt about Patrick Parker. The whole time we were together, I melted at the thought of him even as I seized up with fear that I would somehow breathe the wrong way and ruin it all. He made the sun shine, the moon glow, I had a secret smile that was just for him and there was nothing I wouldn’t have done if he’d asked. He took my breath from the moment we met and I didn’t get it back for nine whole months.

And then it was over.

I turned the music up in my earphones as I rounded the corner of my parents’ road, trying to drown out the memories.

Sumi once told me everything in life was an equation, that everything had a value and could all be worked out with maths. With relationships, you took the length of time you were together, added how desperately in love you were, then multiplied it by the degree of pain of the ending to find out how badly it would affect you. There were other variables: the amount of time you’d been crushing on someone before you got together (add ten), how good the sex had been (multiply by a hundred), unforgiving habits or unappealing fetishes (subtract accordingly) and, eventually, divide by the amount of time since the end of the relationship. That was how long it would take you to get over someone.

It was a straightforward solution for Sumi; her friend was the happiest she’d ever been and then, in a matter of moments, became the most heartbroken human alive, meaning there was only one conclusion: my ex was evil. But for me, it was more complicated. I needed more than just maths to figure out Patrick and me. Maybe one of those fancy calculators they’d made us buy in Year Eight but literally never showed us how to use. Was this what the ‘sine’ button was for?

All that was left now was a bittersweet aching, tender at the heart but warm around the edges. It was the kind of pain that felt good to press on from time to time. When I looked at my phone I was anxious and excited and sad and scared but also, there was no point lying to myself, incredibly turned on.

Instead of walking down the driveway directly to my shed, I pulled out the key to my parents’ front door and skipped up the steps. There were no lights on inside, my parents were probably asleep already, but I’d left all my old diaries in the loft when I went away and I needed them. The written word was more reliable than memories.

The house was quiet, except for the ticking of the hallway clock and the occasional clack of the boiler in the understairs cupboard. It didn’t matter that it was July, a day did not go by when my mother did not have the heating on. What if the queen was driving past, her car broke down and she wanted a bath and we didn’t have any hot water? It just wouldn’t do. What would the neighbours think?

I was rifling through the post in the hall when I heard a sound coming from the living room.

‘Bugger me, that’s cold.’

Clearly my dad, clearly complaining. Even though all I wanted to do was get my diaries and retreat to my shed with my memories and the enormous bar of chocolate I’d bought at the train station, I couldn’t imagine a version of events where I didn’t get an almighty bollocking for not coming in to say hello before I started creeping around in the loft.

‘Only me,’ I called, as breezy as I could manage, pushing open the living room door. ‘I’m going to pop into the loft and – oh my God.’

My parents were sitting at the dinner table, or, to be more specific, my mum was sitting at the dinner table, a pair of chopsticks in her hand, and my dad was on top of it, his eyes wide open, mouth clamped shut and his naked body covered in sushi.

‘Hello, love,’ Mum said calmly, standing to reveal she was wearing nothing other than a full-length apron featuring a blacksmith’s body on the front, which I remembered Jo bringing back from a school trip to Ironbridge. She leaned across the table and puffed out a candle burning awfully close to a sensitive part of my father’s anatomy, which thankfully had been covered with a napkin.

‘We thought you’d already gone to bed,’ she said, her face fixed in a tense smile.

‘And I thought you’d put the chain on the door,’ Dad muttered through a clenched jaw, not moving so much as a muscle.

Horrified, I was stuck to the spot. Why did this keep happening to me? Why couldn’t I have walked in on something civil, like some nice armed robbers, instead?

‘Are you hungry?’ Mum asked, smiling at me with manic eyes.

‘I don’t think I’ll ever be hungry again,’ I replied. ‘I mean, no. I’m fine, thank you. This is all fine.’

‘You said you’re going into the loft?’

I nodded, holding onto the door handle as though it were the only thing keeping me upright.

‘Be careful with the ladder,’ Mum cautioned lightly as a salmon roll slid slowly off Dad’s chest and fell onto the carpet. ‘Your dad oiled it when we put Jo’s stuff up there and it sometimes comes down a bit fast.’

‘OK, thanks, good to know,’ I said, walking backwards out of the living room and closing the door firmly behind me. ‘Perhaps it’ll hit me in the head and I’ll get amnesia and forget everything I just saw.’

When I got upstairs, I looked at my hand and saw I was still shaking. Did I need to start wearing a bell around my neck? What was wrong with people? I took a deep breath and tried to concentrate on the task at hand rather than the tuna rolls that had been covering my dad’s nipples.

‘Get the diaries,’ I mumbled to myself, using the torch on my phone to light up at least four lifetimes’ worth of cardboard boxes. ‘Get the diaries, go back to the shed, bleach your eyes and go to sleep.’

Ignoring the boxes marked ‘Books’, ‘Ornaments’ and ‘Kitchen stuff’ in my block lettering, I reached for a smaller box labelled ‘Ros’s Shit’. It was nice of my sister to help me pack up, I thought, frowning at her looping handwriting. Holding it tightly under one arm, I made my way carefully back down the ladder.

‘Night Mum, night Dad,’ I shouted as I dashed past the living room and into the kitchen, making a beeline for the back door.

‘Christ almighty, Gwen,’ I heard my dad screech. ‘Careful with the bloody wasabi.’

Once I was showered, scoured and tucked up in bed, I opened up the box. It wasn’t just my diaries I’d kept, there were all manner of mementos, including one special shoebox dedicated to all things Ros and Patrick. A beer mat from the bar we went to on our first date, an Indian takeaway menu he’d scrawled his number on, the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign I’d nicked from the hotel when we’d gone on a minibreak to Dublin.

Dublin …

I turned the flimsy cardboard sign over in my fingers, remembering the thrill of first-time hotel sex, tearing each other’s clothes off as soon as we walked in the room, not even making it to the bed. But there was also the terrible afternoon we’d spent traipsing around the city in the rain, looking for the house from Dubliners, only to discover it had been knocked down years before. He’d been so annoyed, I’d tried to assuage him with a trip to a whisky distillery and given myself my worst hangover of the decade, which only annoyed him further. It was impossible to vomit subtly in a hotel bathroom. But those parts were easy to forget when I remembered the first day, spinning through the streets hand in hand, eyes only for each other, laughing and breathing and feeling so free. And did I mention the hotel sex? I would never be the same woman again.

This diary still felt new compared to some of the others in the box, the ones covered in stickers and scribbles, postcards of bands stuck to the front, whose songs I could barely remember now, but had meant everything to me once upon a time. The creamy pages were thick and lush between my fingers – total stationery porn – and my illegible handwriting looped and sloped all over the place, ballooning off the lines on some pages, slanted with the speed of my script on others. The first few entries were full to bursting, words running into each other as I documented my every thought and feeling, from meeting Patrick at some ridiculous party I’d been dragged to by my parents, to the first date, the first touch, the first kiss, the first everything else. It was all written down, the things I couldn’t say out loud, not even to Sumi or Lucy. It felt alien to me now: had I ever felt this strongly about anything? I certainly hadn’t felt even a fraction of this since we broke up. My love bled through the page with blistering vulnerability and it was almost too painful to read. Cool, composed, sophisticated, intellectual, passionate, gorgeous, bold, brave, adventurous Patrick was mine and I was ecstatic.

And then the anxiety crept in. The concerns, the worrying, the second-guessing. He cancelled a date, was he over me? He forgot we made plans, did he not care? Was I ever even good enough for him? It was a side of myself I didn’t care to be reminded of.

By the time we got to the end of the nine months, twenty-two days and fourteen hours, my writing didn’t flow quite so freely and I’d eased up considerably on the adjectives. Just the facts, ma’am. I told him about the job offer in DC, he said I should take it, he wanted to go travelling anyway. A clean break is always for the best. No hard feelings, let’s stay in touch, yeah? And then nothing. I’d left this diary behind and given up keeping one altogether. The only record of my time in America was in photo form, tiny digital squares of memories saved on my laptop and not nearly as affecting.

A handful of photographs fell into my lap, blurry, overexposed candids, a million miles away from the pictures we took on our phones. Every photograph I took now was ruthlessly cropped, filtered and edited, and anything less than deeply flattering was immediately discarded into the digital wasteland. These were different. I leafed through them, smiling. It wasn’t that long ago but we all looked so much younger, sharper angles but softer edges. We took disposable cameras everywhere that summer, me, Sumi and Lucy, determined to break free of our phones, an ahead-of-the-curve digital detox. It lasted exactly one month until Sumi balked at the price of film development and I ran the camera we’d taken to Lucy’s hen do through the wash.

There was a rush in these photos you couldn’t get in phone pics, I realized, tracing the curve of my arm in another photo: it was slung carelessly around Patrick’s neck, my head thrown back, him holding a hand out towards the camera to wave the photographer away but still laughing. So much genuine emotion packed into one frame that I suddenly had to wonder if our ancestors had been right all along. Did the flash steal your soul? Did we give a piece of ourselves away with every selfie?

There was one photo in particular, curled at the edges and sticky on the back from a time it had taken pride of place on my wall, one photo that hit me right in the heart. It was me and Patrick at Lucy’s wedding. Lucy had given it to me, rather than keeping it for the album, it felt too personal, too intimate, to share with strangers. The sun was behind us, a bright white light sharply lining our features, and we were holding hands, eyes on each other, as though we were the only two people on earth. Our faces were inches apart, either pre- or post-kiss, I couldn’t recall, but we looked so happy. So, so happy. And three weeks after it was taken, we broke up.

Slipping the photos back in the diary, I threw it as far as I could. About four feet. The shed really wasn’t very big. I pulled the sheets up to my chin and let out a loud huff. Probably not the best idea right before bed, I thought as I threw my hot and bothered body around, my legs tangling themselves up in the bed clothes as I went.

Grunting, I reached for my phone and opened my messages.

There it was, bold as brass, clear as day.

Hello stranger.

I placed the phone back on the nightstand and draped one arm over my face, covering my eyes. Maybe if I lay there long enough, stayed still enough, I would forget about the text and fall asleep.

I lasted ten seconds.

With a loud sigh, I reached for my phone again.

Hello stranger.

It was going to be a long night.

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘Tell me you didn’t text him back.’

‘I did not text him back.’

It was the truth. I had not replied to Patrick’s text. I’d slept for what felt like fifteen minutes, taken two cold showers, listened to the foxes living and loving in my parents’ back garden, eaten half a tub of Nutella straight out the jar, read several chapters of Starting Over, chosen my least-worst New Job outfit from my limited wardrobe and hunted for my ex up and down the internet to no avail but I had not replied to Patrick’s text.

Striding down the street, on my way to my first morning at work, I lifted my chin to feel the sun on my face.

‘I didn’t text him,’ I said. ‘But I really want to.’

A short, exasperated sigh whistled down the line.

‘I know you do,’ Sumi said kindly after collecting herself. ‘But you can’t, Ros. Honestly, I don’t know why you even still have his number in your phone.’

‘I didn’t have his number in my phone, it was in the cloud!’ I protested. ‘When the girl in the shop downloaded all my information to the new one, she used a back-up from the cloud. She said it would be quicker than doing a phone-to-phone transfer.’

‘You never save anything to the cloud!’ Sumi admonished me. ‘You don’t really want all your personal information flying around out there in cyberspace, do you?’

I shrugged. If it meant I didn’t have to remember my passwords or credit card numbers when I wanted to order a pizza, I was happy to be part of the problem.

‘Please don’t text him, Ros,’ she pleaded. ‘It’s such a bad idea.’

‘Is it?’ I wondered out loud. ‘Because I was thinking about it last night and I think closure might be a good idea.’

‘I’ll give you closure, we’ll role-play.’ She cleared her throat and deepened her voice. ‘Hello, Ros, I’m Patrick. I think I’m really clever because I’ve read a lot of books and written one or two but I’ve actually got the emotional maturity of a shoe and not a very nice one.’

I shook my head and smiled as I walked past a coffee shop, remembering the coffees and pastries he’d brought back to his flat the first morning after the first night before.

‘Do you think he misses me?’ I asked. ‘Do you think that’s why he sent the text?’

‘I don’t know what he’s thinking,’ Sumi admitted. ‘But I do know he broke your heart and I’m not down for you to give him a chance to do it again.’

‘Probably just being nice,’ I reasoned. ‘Replying out of politeness. I did send him the first text, after all.’

Sumi burst out laughing. ‘Ros. When was Patrick ever nice? Or polite?’

It was a fair point. He was a lot of things but nice wasn’t one of them. But who wanted nice? Nice was just a polite word for boring. Patrick was adventurous and passionate and bold and even though I tried so hard not to, now he was back in my head, I missed him so much I could taste it.

‘It has been a while, what if he’s changed?’

‘He could have been turned into a unicorn that’s been tasked with protecting the Holy Grail and I still wouldn’t think it was a good idea to text him,’ she replied, blunt as ever. ‘You were together six months and it’s taken you three years to get over him. Don’t do this to yourself.’

‘It was nine months,’ I corrected. ‘Almost ten.’

Nine months, twenty-two days and twenty-three hours if we were being precise. Accuracy was important to me.

‘You were together nine months, almost ten,’ Sumi repeated. ‘Then you were offered an amazing job opportunity that didn’t mean you had to break up but he knocked the whole thing on the head without giving it a second thought.’

‘I know,’ I said softly. ‘I was there, I remember.’

‘I just don’t want you to get hurt again,’ Sumi groaned. ‘This is so like him, so casual, so vague. What if you reply, get your hopes up, and then he tells you he’s married with kids?’

The thought of Patrick being legally tied to someone else hit me like a wet haddock. I slowed down in the street, suddenly sick to my stomach.

‘And you already know it’s a bad idea,’ she added, her voice softening slightly. ‘If you’d wanted someone to tell you to text him, you’d have called the soft-touch, not me.’

She meant Lucy. Lucy was, in fairness, very persuadable.

‘Enough about that Twat-Faced Wank Chops,’ Sumi said, invoking her favourite nickname for him, before I could add fuel to the Patrick Parker conversation fire. ‘Are you excited for your first day at work?’

‘Nervously optimistic?’ I replied. Patrick’s message had worn the edges off my giddiness but I was still a bundle of happy nerves when I thought about it. ‘I’ve got loads of ideas, I think it’s going to be good.’

‘It’s going to be brilliant,’ she corrected. ‘Have fun, be amazing and do not spend the entire day thinking about Patrick “I’ve got a PhD and not in the dirty way” Parker.’

‘But also in the dirty way,’ I reminded her.

‘Thinking about his knob is not going to improve matters, so stop it,’ Sumi warned. ‘No thinking about him, no looking at photos of him and definitely no texting him. These are my commandments, Ros, I command thee. Thou hast been commanded.’

‘I’m sure I’ll be far too busy for him to even cross my mind,’ I assured her even though we both knew I could be put in charge of air traffic control at Heathrow and I’d still manage somehow. ‘I’ll talk to you later. Love you.’

‘Love you,’ Sumi replied. ‘Don’t text him!’

‘Sorry for all the smoke and mirrors yesterday,’ Ted said, leading me out of the bright and colourful PodPad HR office and down a markedly less bright and colourful staircase I hadn’t seen the day before. ‘But we’ve signed a million NDAs for this show and I couldn’t tell you anything until you’d signed a contract.’

‘No problem,’ I answered without hesitation, jogging closely behind him. Why were we leaving the Cool Office? Why was he leading me into the basement? ‘My curiosity is officially piqued. What’s the show about?’

Ted stopped at the bottom of the stairs and gave me a grin. ‘What was your last show about?’ he asked.

Someone enjoyed exercising power wherever he could find it.

‘The Book Report?’ I replied. ‘It was a culture show, book-based, obviously, clue’s in the name. The host interviewed a different author every week, asked them about their favourite books, you know, from different stages of their life. I developed it from scratch, got to work with the authors, the publishers, everything.’

He fumbled with an enormous ring full of keys and opened a heavy security door. ‘You like books?’

‘Yes,’ I nodded. ‘A lot. You?’

‘Eh,’ he grimaced as he pulled open the door in a pantomime of chivalry. ‘Not really a book man.’

Not really a book man.

‘Is the new show book-related?’ I asked as we walked down a dimly lit corridor, a prickle of excitement running up my spine as fluorescent lights clicked into life one by one above us. ‘Because it’s a great format, super easy to put together. If we find the right host, it could be up and running in a few weeks.’

‘Here’s the thing,’ Ted stopped short in front of one of six identical plywood doors. ‘We’ve already got a show for you. PodPad signed an incredibly talented person and they have the potential to be massive but they need the right producer to help them. Someone creative, someone who isn’t afraid to take risks, someone who can get a brilliant show out of a brilliant mind.’

‘And I’m that producer?’ I asked, a little surprised but pleasantly flattered.

He clicked his tongue and shot at me with double-finger guns.

‘So,’ I said, bracing myself against the sudden drop in temperature. Downstairs was much colder than upstairs. ‘Who is the incredibly talented person and why are we in the basement?’

‘This is where the studios are, soundproofing, yeah?’ He opened the door to a tiny, dark, dingy room and suddenly I was very nostalgic for the home comforts of my shed. ‘And you’re not going to believe it when I tell you. It’s insane that we’ve been able to get him, totally mad. Even I can’t believe we got him and I’m the one who signed the massive cheque for the bastard. He’s a genius. And not a book genius, like, a proper genius normal people have heard of.’

My heart began to pound and not just because I was incredibly claustrophobic. Here it was at last, my opportunity to put myself on the map, show everyone what I could do, working with a non-book genius. Who could it be? Lin-Manuel Miranda? The Rock? Anyone but Kanye.

‘OK, the anticipation is killing me,’ I said, watching Ted flick six switches on at the wall only to see half as many bulbs light up. ‘Who is it?’

He sat down in a beaten-up leather office chair that had been patched up with duct tape one too many times and grinned. ‘He’s an athlete.’

‘David Beckham?’ I guessed, heart pounding. I couldn’t do it to Posh and the kids obviously but a feverish flirtation would probably be morally acceptable.

‘Bigger,’ Ted grinned.

‘Roger Federer?’

‘Even bigger,’ he replied, eyes closed and hands up in the air, ready to conduct an invisible orchestra. ‘It’s Snazzlechuff.’

It was at that precise moment I realized I had followed a man I did not know into a soundproofed basement with no idea about his mental state and, to make matters worse, I was wearing shitty kitten heels that would never in a million years be able to penetrate his skull if I needed to use them as a weapon.

‘Excuse me?’ I said, very politely.

‘It’s Snazzlechuff,’ Ted repeated. ‘Snazzle. Chuff.’

‘Are you having a seizure? Should I get help?’ I asked, looking around for signs of human life besides the two of us. I knew I shouldn’t have listened to Murdered to Death on the train to work.

‘You’ve never heard of Snazzlechuff?’

I shook my head as I calculated my best possible route of escape. Probably bash him in the head with my backpack, bolt back upstairs, grab one of the free beers and launch myself through the plate-glass window.

‘He’s literally the most famous person in the entire world,’ Ted said, not even trying to hide the disdain on his face. ‘He’s got the most successful gaming channel in history, more than 15 million followers across all platforms and you’ve never even heard of him?’

He shoved his phone in my face, waving it around until I grabbed it out of his hands.

‘This is him?’

Ted nodded.

‘Why’s he got a dog’s head?’

The picture in front of me showed a skinny body, clothed head to toe in a bright red tracksuit, with an enormous Wes-Anderson-looking Dalmatian’s head on its shoulders.

‘He always wears a mask,’ Ted explained. ‘It’s part of his mystique.’

‘What’s his real name?’

‘No one knows,’ he replied, waving his fingers around and making spooky noises. ‘He’s an enigma.’

‘You said you signed his cheque?’ I said as I swiped through the photos. ‘Surely that had his name on it?’

‘Cheque went to his agent.’

‘I thought you said he was an athlete?’ I said, deflating by the second. Bye-bye David Beckham, farewell Roger Federer, see you in my dreams. Both at the same time, hopefully.

‘He’s an e-sports athlete,’ he explained. ‘He’s a god on YouTube.’

‘Then that explains it,’ I replied, folding up my dreams of a workplace romance and storing them neatly next to my Ted-might-be-a-serial-killer anxieties. ‘I’m not really a YouTube woman.’

He sat forward and peered at my forehead.

‘How old are you?’

‘Thirty-two but very dehydrated,’ I said, tossing my hair to cover as much of my face as possible. ‘So, when am I meeting this superstar? Is he here?’

‘Course not,’ he answered. ‘It’s Wednesday, he’s at school.’

It just got better and better.

‘How old is he, Ted?’ I asked.

My new boss scratched his stubble thoughtfully. ‘I want to say fifteen but he could be a tall twelve. It’s very hard to tell with kids these days, isn’t it?’

‘It is,’ I agreed readily, wondering whether or not I could drive the heel of my shoe through my own temple if I was truly dedicated to the act.

‘He’s not like a normal kid though,’ Ted assured me. ‘He’s clever. And funny! So it doesn’t matter that you’re not.’

I looked around the studio, such as it was. Cheaply painted dark grey walls covered in black soundproofing, like foam egg boxes that had been dipped in tar, flickering fluorescent overhead lights and a filthy sheet of glass that separated the producer’s bay from the recording booth. It was covered with so many handprints it looked as though it had recently been used to reenact that scene in the back of the car in Titanic. God forbid I ever turn a black light on the room, I thought to myself. The whole place was crying out for an anti-bac wipe. Or a nuclear blast. One or the other.

‘If I’m being totally honest with you, I haven’t really done anything like this before,’ I said, tugging at the sleeve of my smart white shirt. ‘Not that I’m not up for the challenge but it isn’t something I have a lot of experience in. You’re all right with me learning on the job?’

Ted waved away my concerns with an unmoved ‘pfft’.

‘Mate,’ he replied, even though we were not mates. ‘If you can make books sound interesting enough for people to tune into your show, think what you’ll be able to do with a genuinely fascinating subject like e-sports!’

‘You really mean that, don’t you?’ I asked, glancing around the studio-slash-dungeon one more time.

‘I most certainly do,’ he said with a grave nod. ‘You’re welcome.’

‘And this is only the studio? I don’t have to stay down here all the time?’ I asked, afraid I already knew the answer. ‘My desk’s upstairs, right?’

‘Thing is,’ Ted sucked the air in through his teeth like he was about to tell me my carburettor needed replacing. ‘We’re short on desks at the moment. But you can do a bit of decorating if you like? With your own money.’

He rapped his knuckles on the desk and its loosely attached drawer crashed to the floor.

‘We can probably get you a new one of those,’ he muttered, kicking it away as I held my breath.

Run, commanded the voice in my head. Run far and run fast. But I refused to listen, that was just fear talking, according to Starting Over. The fear of failure and the even more powerful fear of success. I would not stand in my own way, I would embrace this opportunity and succeed. I would also bring in my own cleaning products from home.

‘Just so I’m absolutely, one hundred percent clear about everything,’ I said, running a finger along the mixing desk and balking at the filth. ‘The job I just signed a contract for is to produce a podcast about e-sports with a YouTube child star?’

Ted gave a single, eyes-askance nod.

‘Didn’t you say you lived in a shed?’ he asked.

‘So,’ I said, taking a deep breath in and giving my new boss a bright and glittering smile. ‘When do I meet Mr Snazzlechuff?’

After Ted left me alone to wallow in my pit, I sat at the desk and stared at my reflection in the glass partition between the studio and the mixing desk. The look of despair on my face was altogether too clear since I’d gone at the bloody thing with a full bottle of Windolene I’d found in a cupboard, oddly enough unopened.

Ten years of working every hour god sent and suddenly my career depended on a teenage gaming addict who liked to cosplay as a mid-2000s Jay-Z from the neck down and the saddest Good Boy from the neck up. Where had it all gone wrong?

‘It’s going to be fine,’ I told my own face, even though I didn’t look as though I believed me. ‘You’re lucky to have this job. It’s different and new, that’s all. Everything was different and new once, you’ll be fine.’

But a very large part of me was completely over different and new.

Three years ago, I’d jumped at different and new, lost Patrick, left my friends and whole life behind and for what? To end up right back where I’d left off, only now I was alone and I lived in a shed. Everything was confusing and exhausting, I couldn’t get to grips with any of it: how to decide what to watch in the evening, which politicians were the most evil, who had been cancelled and why. What was I allowed to like, what was I allowed to dislike and where was indifference permitted? No, different and new were on my shitlist. I wanted old and familiar. I wanted easy and understandable. I wanted tried and tested, simple and straightforward, comfortable and known and, without thinking, I picked up my phone, opened Patrick’s text and tapped out a reply, hitting send before I could stop myself.

Hello, stranger, his text said.

Hello yourself, I replied.

‘Well, that’s that,’ I whispered, taking a deep breath and watching a single grey tick appear next to the message, followed by a double grey tick. Message delivered.

Three years of stopping myself from contacting him, three years of having to sleep with my phone in the other room every time I came home drunk or went on a rubbish date or experienced even a flicker of yearning. All of it over in an instant. I looked up, expecting to see some flags fly out, a winged pig zooming past overhead, or to at least hear a distant fanfare, but there was nothing. Life-changing moments were supposed to come with a soul-stirring soundtrack, something to acknowledge their gravitas and importance, but all I had was a soundproofed studio-slash-cell, a half-eaten apple and a bag of Mini Cheddars.

‘The stuff dreams are made of,’ I muttered, yawning before I bit down on the apple. ‘Now let’s see if he bothers to reply.’

The clock on my wall announced the time as ten a.m.

A long night, followed by an even longer day.

CHAPTER EIGHT

‘Having fun?’

‘Never had so much fun in my life.’

I clinked my glass of Pimm’s against the one in Adrian’s hand and nodded across his parents’ vast lawn.

‘Mr Carven told Dr Khan he didn’t want one of your dad’s sausages because they weren’t cooked all the way through,’ I said, discreetly pointing at the middle-aged gents, bickering around the barbecue like a bunch of schoolgirls.

‘And my dad heard him?’ Adrian asked, sipping his drink like so much tea. ‘He’ll have his guts for garters.’

‘They’re currently trying to decide which sausage to cut open to end the debate,’ I confirmed with a nod. ‘Mr Carven wants one from the outside of the grill but your dad wants one from the middle of the grill and Mr Khan is very concerned that if they wait much longer, all the sausages will be burnt and the experiment will be compromised.’

‘Aren’t you glad this is how you’re spending your first Saturday back?’ he said, resting his arm on my shoulders. ‘Is there anything more British than watching a load of old men fight over barbecued sausages?’

‘It is strangely compelling,’ I agreed as the men settled on a sausage and sliced it open. Adrian’s dad hooted with joyous conviction, brandishing the perfectly cooked sausage in his supposed friend’s face. I hadn’t seen anything quite like a British barbecue in a long time. I smiled, my stomach rumbling. Mostly I was just glad to be outside and able to see the sky. I’d stayed late at work all week and not only because my friends were all too busy to see me. I really, really wanted to do a good job and, since I knew absolutely nothing about gaming, it had been a steep learning curve.

‘Mum’s so happy you’re here,’ Adrian said, nodding over at his mother resplendent in her garden party florals. ‘But be warned, she’s definitely going to ask you if you’ve come back to make an honest man of me.’

‘How much to tell her I’m pregnant and it’s yours?’

He threw his head back and barked out my favourite laugh. ‘She’d have you up the registry office wearing her wedding dress before you’d even finished your sentence.’

At least once a year, one of Adrian’s parents would ask me, in person or – my favourite – by commenting on an unrelated post on my Facebook wall, why it was he and I had never got together. The truth of it was, we had kissed once. Both very drunk on alcopops, faces smushed together on the dance floor of the only local nightclub that didn’t check IDs closely enough to see that neither of us was eighteen. It was such a rousing success that I burst out laughing, Adrian’s penis disappeared back up inside him and neither of us had ever mentioned it again. I’d always assumed we must be related in some weird, 23andMe kind of a way, because, love him though I did, it really wouldn’t have mattered if he was the last man left on the face of the earth, I would rather have had sex with my own foot than make a go of it with Adrian Anderson.

‘Christ almighty, is that your mum?’ he gave me a nudge as my parents approached. ‘She looks well fit.’

‘Shut up before I remove your testicles with my house keys,’ I replied, my cheeks flushing the exact same shade as my mum’s strappy sundress. Everyone else at the Andersons’ party was wearing exactly what you’d expect: a bit of Jasper Conran here, a touch of M&S there, plenty of floaty and floral. But not my mother. The hem of her dress barely flirted with her knees, clung to her tiny waist and strained over her absolutely massive chest. I looked down at the round-neck, loose-fit watercolour-print Zara midi dress I’d bought on the way home from work the night before, feeling like a complete frump.

‘She looks fantastic,’ he said, waving them over. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen her out of jeans before. What has she been doing?’

‘More like who she’s been doing,’ I grumbled. ‘Her and my dad are “getting to know each other” again, if you know what I mean.’

‘I don’t but I’m dead serious, your mum could get it,’ he whispered before throwing his arms open for a hug. ‘Mr Reynolds, Mrs Reynolds, so nice to see you. It’s been a dog’s age.’

‘Adrian, how many times do I have to tell you? It’s Gwen to you,’ Mum said, tittering as my friend kissed her hand and spun her around, making the handkerchief hem of her dress flare outwards.

Dad wasn’t nearly as impressed. Ever since we were little kids, he’d never been especially keen on Adrian and Adrian hadn’t really done anything to change his mind, whether he was kicking a football through his greenhouse or suggesting that the very expensive and beautiful steam shower Dad had designed for Adrian’s parents’ new bathroom was ‘cool in a sexy gas chamber kind of way’.

It was fair to say he didn’t help himself.

‘We must go and say hello to Simon and Sheila,’ Dad said, unwinding my mother from Adrian’s arms and casting a cool look in his direction. Adrian fended it off with a wink I was sure I’d be hearing about later. ‘Will you be wanting a lift later, Rosalind?’

‘Don’t worry, Mr Reynolds,’ Adrian answered before I could. ‘I’ll get her home safe and sound.’

Dad gave him another thunderous look and marched on, barbeque-bound, with my mother leading the way.

‘You make it worse every time,’ I said, suppressing a smile. ‘Although, maybe if we told my dad you’d got me pregnant, he’d let me move back into the house.’

‘If we told your dad I’d got you pregnant, we’d be moving him to the heart ward at the Royal Brompton and me to the cemetery,’ Adrian replied. ‘But whatever it is your mum’s doing, you should consider doing the same.’

‘I don’t think I’ll be doing what my mum’s doing any time soon, thank you,’ I muttered into my glass. The cursed image of sushi night flashed in front of me.

‘How’s the job going?’ Ade asked as I watched all the attending dads eye up my mother and all the attending wives glare at the dads. ‘What’s the latest?’

I pulled at the high collar of my dress, as my mum, surrounded by middle-aged men offering her sausages, hooted with laughter.

‘It’s interesting,’ I said diplomatically. I’d spent all week immersing myself in all things Snazzlechuff and I still had no idea what I was going to do. ‘As soon as I work out how to best display the talents of a near-mute fourteen-year-old, I’ll be killing it.’

‘Snazzlechuff,’ Adrian whispered, holding one hand aloft and squinting his eyes as though he were delivering a Shakespearean soliloquy. ‘It’s this generation’s “Rosebud”. I want it to be my dying word.’

‘You’re going the right way about it,’ I assured him. ‘Hey, isn’t that the bartender from Good Luck Bar?’ I pointed over to a tall man with black hair who was busy behind the bar. ‘What’s he doing here?’

‘That’s John,’ he confirmed. ‘He’s my anniversary present to Mum and Dad. Custom cocktails to get everyone so slaughtered, they don’t blame Dad’s barbecue skills when they’re throwing up tomorrow.’

‘You’re such a good son,’ I replied, wrinkling my nose at the platter of chicken legs that was currently marinating nicely in sunshine and salmonella. ‘And you’re buying me a pizza later.’

‘Agreed,’ he said, sinking his Pimm’s. ‘Shall we test-drive the cocktails?’

‘Let’s,’ I agreed, my desire to avoid John from Good Luck outweighed by my desire to get tipsy enough not to worry about my mum having a wardrobe malfunction. The delicate straps of her dress were doing work they were not built for.

Adrian leaned against the bar with a knowing smile on his face while we waited for John to finish rummaging with bottles at the back of the bar.

‘OK, I’ve waited long enough, out with it.’ Adrian reached across the bar and plucked a maraschino cherry from a little black pot while John’s back was turned. ‘What did you text back to Patrick?’

He popped the cherry in his mouth in one, gurning like a madman while he attempted to knot the stalk with his tongue.

‘There’s literally nothing sexy about that, you know,’ I told him. ‘You look like you’re having a seizure.’

‘You’d be amazed at how many times this has worked,’ he replied right as his eyes bugged out of his head and he coughed up the stalk, spitting it elegantly onto the lawn. ‘Answer the question. What’s going on?’

‘Sumi told you?’

‘Sumi told me,’ he confirmed. ‘No judgement.’

A likely story.

‘Maybe I didn’t text him,’ I said with an unconvincing shrug.

Adrian brayed with laughter.

‘Fine, yes, I messaged him back,’ I said, coiling my hair into a high ponytail to get it off my sticky neck. ‘But don’t look at me like that, it’s not that weird. Lots of people are friends with their exes.’

‘Oh, I see,’ Ade replied, nodding. ‘You want to be friends with Twat-Faced Wank Chops. OK, sure, definitely, that’s your plan, is it?’

‘Maybe,’ I shrugged. ‘Maybe not. It actually makes sense to me. Why waste my time, my incredibly valuable time, on dates with complete strangers who are most likely going to turn out to be utterly shit, when I could dig into my contacts and see if there’s anyone worth a second chance?’

Adrian shook his head, refusing to play along. ‘Ros, your contacts are where dates go to die. You only keep your exes’ numbers so you know not to answer when they call.’

‘Speak for yourself. I can think of a couple of people I went out with once or twice but the timing wasn’t right. Including Twat-fac— including Patrick,’ I said, beginning to feel flustered. ‘What if I messed up something good with him when I left? And why not skip all that awful getting-to-know-you stuff and pick up where I left off with someone who’s already seen me naked?’

I gave my head an aggressive toss to make my point and caught a passing pensioner in the eye with my ponytail. ‘Oh, Christ, I’m sorry. Are you OK?’

‘I just had my cataracts done!’ he wailed as I grabbed a handful of napkins off the bar. Behind me, I heard a muted chuckle.

‘Have you thought about wrapping her in bubble wrap before you let her out the house?’

John the bartender leaned against the opposite side of the bar, he and Adrian both wearing the sort of bemused smile that made me feel extra punchy. I pressed my stack of napkins into the older man’s hand, apologizing profusely, as he swiped at his watering eye before a woman in a dusky-blue two-piece rushed up and whisked him away, giving me a filthy look as they went.

‘You look like you could use a proper drink,’ John said, eyeing our empty glasses. ‘Two anniversary specials?’

‘Two anniversary specials,’ Adrian confirmed. ‘And make them strong enough to loosen her tongue. I promised Sumi I’d get it out of you before they cut the cake.’

Ooh. Cake.

‘Fine, yes, I replied to his text to be polite.’ I kept my eyes on John as he mixed our drinks. There wasn’t nearly enough bottle-twirling for my liking, I’d seen Cocktail, I knew how this was supposed to be done. ‘I wasn’t brought up to be rude, Adrian.’

‘Is that right?’ John muttered under his breath.

Adrian grinned as I gave the bartender a double-take.

‘Here you go,’ he said loudly, sticking a steel straw into one of the drinks in front of him to taste his concoction. ‘Two Ruby Wedding Fizzes.’

‘It’s perfection,’ Adrian said, closing his eyes in rapture as he took a sip. ‘John, have I ever told you that I love you?’

‘Son?’

I turned to see Adrian’s less-than-woke dad staring at his only child with a look of intense concern on his face.

‘Not like that, Dad,’ he said, clapping the older man on the back. ‘Please don’t have a stroke during your own party.’

‘Although he could do a lot worse,’ John muttered not-quite-under his breath.

Mr Anderson blustered as I politely looked away, biting my lip to stop myself from laughing. ‘It wouldn’t matter to us, you know that,’ he waffled. ‘Your mother and I just want to see you settled and happy and—’

‘What’s up, Dad?’ Adrian asked, mercifully cutting him off mid-stream.

‘Your mother needs a hand getting the cake out the kitchen,’ he said, lowering his voice to explain further. ‘It’s, uh, quite heavy.’

‘It’s a triple-tier fruitcake,’ Adrian explained for our benefit. ‘She made it herself.’

I nodded, understanding all. Mrs Anderson’s fruitcakes were things of legend. I could have hollowed one out and lived in it and it definitely would have been more of a solid structure than my shed. ‘Do you need me to help as well?’ I offered.

‘I think two of us should be able to manage it,’ Mr Anderson said with an appreciative smile. ‘Lovely to see you back, Rosalind. We must have you over for dinner, I’d love to hear about America. Perhaps you could bring your boyfriend with you? If you’re seeing someone?’

‘Let’s go and get the cake,’ Adrian said with an exasperated sigh. ‘Come on.’

The two of them traipsed off into the house, Adrian slightly taller, his father slightly broader, but both of them cut from exactly the same cloth.

‘I know he won’t thank me for saying it but he’s so like his dad,’ John said as they disappeared into the house.

‘He won’t but he is,’ I agreed. ‘I was thinking the same thing.’

He leaned over the bar, arms resting in between a bevy of bottles. ‘And you won’t thank me for asking this but who did you text when you weren’t supposed to?’

I cast a glance over my shoulder, one eyebrow raised.

‘Bartender’s privilege,’ he said with a lopsided grin. ‘I’m entitled to ask about any and all gossip I hear during a shift and duty-bound never to repeat a word.’

It was a new one on me.

‘There’s an oath, is there?’ I asked, smiling.

‘I’m practically a doctor,’ he confirmed.

‘Or a lawyer,’ I suggested. ‘Or a priest.’

He paused and looked up at me, meeting my eyes just for a moment.

‘Maybe not a priest.’

I sipped my cocktail and tried not to think about what I’d seen in the gents toilets.

‘All right, let me guess, I’m good at this,’ John said as he pulled out a small knife to peel back the foil on another bottle of prosecco. ‘It’s an ex, clearly.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘I didn’t hear all of it but I heard enough.’ John began mixing more drinks while he talked. ‘What’s interesting to me is that your friends clearly don’t think you should text him. Also, you told Sumi but not Adrian and you know those three, they tell each other everything.’

I fought off an indignant flush of outrage. They weren’t ‘those three’, we were ‘us four’. How dare this random bar boy group my friends into a trio when we were definitely, absolutely, always-had-been-always-would-be, a quartet?

‘Fine, it’s an ex,’ I admitted, tightening my ponytail. ‘But that was obvious, you’re not exactly psychic, are you?’

He smiled mildly as he poured what looked like a never-ending stream of gin into a cocktail shaker.

‘What’s the deal?’ John asked. ‘How come they don’t want you talking to him?’

‘We broke up when I moved to America for work,’ I told him, reluctant to go over the details of one of the worst times of my life with a man I knew nothing about other than that he worked in a bar, mixed a mean cocktail and was circumcised.

‘Bad break-up?’

‘Complicated break-up.’

‘He didn’t want you to go?’

I chewed on my bottom lip, unbidden tears burning the back of my eyes. Damn that Pimm’s on an empty stomach. ‘It wasn’t that. We’d only been together for a while but I suppose I thought it was more serious than it was.’

‘Oh,’ John said, rounding out the word and stretching it into oblivion. ‘I see.’

‘But who knows what would have happened if I’d stayed?’ I added. ‘He didn’t want to do long distance and I took it fairly badly, so my friends don’t like him. Standard ex stuff. That’s all there is to it.’

‘That’s the reason they don’t like him?’ John asked. ‘Because you left for a job in another country?’

I paused and took a drink.

‘It’s possible they didn’t all get on terribly well before that,’ I replied. ‘But, you know, your friends don’t always get on with your boyfriend. None of us are exactly in love with Creepy Dave.’

‘No, but I’ve never heard Adrian call him “Twat-Faced Wank Chops” either,’ he said. ‘Seems to me they don’t think he’s good enough for you.’

Oh good, I groaned inwardly. He was going to mansplain my own friends and their opinions on my break-up to me. His poor, beautiful, giant of a wife. Imagine having to put up with this all the time.

‘How long has it been since you texted him?’ John asked, fitting a pint glass into the top of his cocktail shaker. ‘One day, two days?’

‘He texted me on Tuesday, I texted him on Wednesday,’ I replied, watching as he shook his drink into next week. Now, there was some proper Tom-Cruise-level cocktail crafting, I was almost impressed. His biceps bulged against the stiff cotton of his shirt with the strain of his effort but his face was completely impassive. Maybe I could start an exercise class using cocktail shakers as weights. Get a workout and a drink at the same time, what could go wrong?

‘Three days,’ he said, squinting at the maths. He knocked the cocktail shaker against the bar to loosen the pint glass he had wedged in the top and poured the frothy pink liquid into four waiting glasses.

‘It’s fine, it’s whatever,’ I said hurriedly. ‘He’s probably not going to reply.’

‘Oh, he is,’ John replied. ‘He’ll text you tonight, ask what you’re doing later.’

‘And how do you know that?’ I asked, suddenly panicking that he was about to pull off some incredible mask and reveal that ah-ha, he, John the mild-mannered bartender, had been Patrick all along.

‘If he messaged you in the week, he would have had to make real plans with you.’ He topped off the cocktails with prosecco and added them to a silver tray already laden with drinks. ‘This way, it’s a far more casual, no-obligations situation. A no-pressure hang-out. Classic arsehole behaviour.’

‘Is that right?’

His absolute certainty, the complete and utter self-assuredness of his answer, rubbed me up entirely the wrong way. I did not like John the bartender.

He nodded. ‘In the words of a certain singing teapot beloved by young and old, it’s a tale as old as time.’ He wiped his hands on the white bar towel that hung over his shoulder. ‘I’ve seen it a thousand times, Rose.’

‘It’s Ros,’ I corrected.

He tossed the towel down on the bar as a passing waiter scooped up the tray of drinks and melted away into the crowd. He pushed his wavy, black hair away from his face and I strongly considered suggesting to Adrian’s mum that he really ought to be wearing a hairnet.

‘He’ll text and you’ll reply and we’ll be having this conversation all over again next week. Unfortunately it’s very predictable, Ros.’

‘I’m predictable, am I?’ I asked, the fingers of my left hand curling into my palm, fingernails stabbing at my flesh. What a cock.

‘The situation is predictable,’ he corrected. ‘When you work in a bar, you get used to hearing these stories. No need to take it so personally.’

‘Well, you’re wrong about one thing,’ I informed him as I placed my unfinished drink back on the bar.

‘Yeah? What’s that?’

‘We won’t be having this conversation again,’ I declared. ‘Or any conversation if I can help it.’

I turned and walked away before he could reply, marching across the garden. Who did he think he was? And what on Earth did Sumi and the others see in him? I searched for a friendly face that might bring down my blood pressure.

‘Rosalind, there you are.’

Instead, I found my parents.

‘I’m so glad we found you,’ Mum said, her cheeks pink and eyes bright. ‘We’ve something to tell you. Do you want to do it, Alan, or shall I?’

‘You tell her,’ Dad replied, kissing the back of her hand all the way up her arm like an about-to-be-fired 1980s waiter.

‘No, you do it,’ she insisted, all giddy. ‘It was your idea.’

It was still so strange to see my parents engaged in any kind of physical display of affection. I knew other people’s parents got touchy-feely on occasion but mine just didn’t, especially not my dad and especially not in public. But here he was, M&S sweater draped over his shoulders, socks pulled halfway up his calves and a spring in his step I’d never seen before. And, if I was being brutally honest, My Horny Dad didn’t feel like something that had been missing from my life.

‘Well, one of you needs to tell me,’ I cut in, fighting back the hordes of theories popping up in my mind. They’d started a swingers’ club. They were taking up naked tennis. They were starting a naked tennis swingers’ club. ‘Out with it?’

‘It was all this romance,’ Dad said, gazing around the Andersons’ back garden, seemingly seeing a very different party to the one I was attending. ‘It got me thinking. We’ve got our ruby wedding anniversary coming up in a few weeks and I thought, rather than celebrate the past, why not celebrate today? Why not do it again?’

‘Do what again?’ I asked, eyeing John over Dad’s shoulder. He was happily chatting to Mrs Danvers from down the street, my epic putdown clearly not weighing on him in the slightest.

‘Your dad asked me to marry him!’ Mum said, clinging to her husband like a loved-up limpet.

‘But you’re already married.’ I blinked at them, confused. ‘Wait, you are, aren’t you? You didn’t get secretly divorced or anything?’

‘It’ll be a second wedding, a vow renewal,’ Dad clarified. ‘Our first one was so long ago, this time we want to celebrate with everyone who makes our lives so special.’

‘And the first one wasn’t necessarily everything it could have been,’ Mum added, Dad nodding along in solemn agreement. ‘I want this time to be perfect.’

It had never really occurred to me before but I didn’t know much about my parents’ wedding. They didn’t have a single photo up anywhere and they never talked about it the way my married friends did.

‘And I know you’re going to say no but I would very much like you and your sister to be my bridesmaids. It would mean a lot to me if you would at least consider it.’

‘While you’re living with us, rent free,’ Dad added, clearing his throat with a subtle cough.

I smiled and wrapped them both up in a giant Reynolds sandwich, throwing as much enthusiasm as I could muster into the mix.

‘This all sounds lovely,’ I told them, a giant smile pasted on my face. Who wouldn’t want to be a single thirty-two-year-old bridesmaid for her own parents? What a dream come true. ‘Anything I can do to help, just say the word. While I’m living with you, rent free.’

‘There is quite a lot to plan,’ Mum agreed, her fingers woven tightly through my dad’s. ‘But I think we’ll make short work of it all together.’

‘Anything you plan will be perfect, Gwen,’ Dad replied, shoulders straight, tall and proud. If they hadn’t been my parents, it would have been adorable to see the two of them nuzzling, so very much in love.

But they were, so it wasn’t.

I turned away, pretending to be checking something in my handbag as they snuggled into each other, mutterings of love turning into noisy public kisses.

There it was. My phone lit up, quietly announcing one new text message from Patrick Parker.

I stopped for a moment, paralysed.

Until I opened the message, it could say anything. It could be an apology or a declaration of love. It could say ‘I’m good thanks’ and nothing else ever again. It could be a wedding photo, a christening announcement, that GIF of the husky that looked like it was telling you a terrible joke. I could delete it now and never know. Or I could open it and live with the consequences.

Shuffling away from my parents, I opened the message.

Doing anything tonight?

I looked back the bar where John was happily chatting away with Adrian’s mum and silently cursed him and his precognitive powers.

Not really, I replied quickly. Fancy a drink?