‘No way,’ he shouted.
‘Loser,’ she yelled back, and kept her foot down.
‘That was so much fun,’ she said to Beth afterwards, as she peeled herself out of the boiler suit.
‘You were insane.’ Beth’s eyes were round. ‘You beat us all! How did you drive that fast?’
‘Just channelled all my immense life frustrations and anger into it.’ Poppy laughed with Beth as she spoke, but as she lookedat Declan out of the corner of her eye, she realised that she wasn’t totally joking.
They ate pizza and drank bright blue slushies afterwards, and Poppy sat at the other end of the table from Declan and did pretty much enjoy herself as long as she didn’t look at him. When shedidlook at him, she couldn’t stop wondering why he wasn’t speaking to anyone else and was looking weird again.
As she and Beth chatted to Max about Formula 1, his new obsession, she realised that she could hear Raf and Noah talking on her other side, and it sounded as though they were maybe talking about Raf’s love life. She shouldn’t eavesdrop, except… Georgie’s face kind of lit up every time Raf got anywhere near her, and Poppy’s heart clenched at the thought of lovely, sunny, always-kind Georgie getting hurt.
‘How are you feeling now?’ Noah had just asked. It was cute; he obviously found talking about emotional things awkward. ‘About Anna.’
Raf didn’t speak.
‘Asking because I care about you, mate,’ said Noah, after some silence.
‘Thanks. I know you do. Thank you,’ Raf said. ‘You get used to it.’
‘Five years is quite a long time.’ Noah was still sounding like he’d rather stick pins in his eyes than have this conversation. So sweet of him to press on anyway.
‘Yep.’
‘And you’re young still. I mean, nearly forty, but young. You know. You have the rest of your life ahead of you.’
‘Yep.’
‘I care about you, mate,’ said Noah again.
Aww.
‘Thank you.’
‘You know,’ Noah persisted, ‘Anna was amazing and we all loved her. I mean, not like you did obviously, but what I mean is even though obviously we haven’t been through it ourselves, we all get how devastated you are, but she wouldn’t have wanted you to mourn forever. You could maybe meet someone else. Have kids. You have the rest of your life to live. The future. Sorry, mate, sorry if this is intrusive, but you know.’
He sounded so awkward and so sincere; Poppy just wanted tohughim. Anyone with Noah in their life was very lucky.
‘No, it’s okay, and thank you for caring.’ Raf’s tone matched the seriousness of Noah’s. ‘I do have the rest of my life ahead of me, and I’ve recovered to the extent that I can actually be happy in the moment. And I would now genuinely like to have a long life ahead of me if I’m lucky enough for that, and, yeah, maybe one day I might be ready for a relationship again.’ Oh, wow. Maybe he and Georgiemightget together.
‘That sounds like brilliant progress. You didn’t seem happy at all for a long time.’
There was a pause from Raf and then he said, ‘No, I wasn’t. I went to New York because I couldn’t be here. I couldn’t stand being around people who knew her, going to the places we went together, people who I know care about me looking at me pityingly. I had to get away.’ Heartbreaking. He hesitated again and then said, ‘I worked very hard and I partied very hard and I managed to focus so much on other stuff that I started to enjoy myself sometimes. And now I’m doing well. I’m home because I’m ready to see family and friends again. It’s a relief to have got to where I am now. Because everything was shit, really shit, for a very long time.’ So tragic. Poor, poor Raf.
‘Yeah, mate, I see that.’ Noah’s voice sounded thick with emotion. ‘You’re doing fucking fantastically.’ Aww again.
‘Thank you. Really, thank you. When Anna died, I knew how much you all cared and I couldn’t deal with it. Like your grief for me made my own even worse. Now I’m grateful. Thank you.’
‘And?’
Raf laughed. ‘You want to ask me about something, don’t you?’
‘No.’
‘Like Georgie, you’re a terrible liar.’
‘And how do you feel about her?’ Noah asked.
