“Thank you for the lift home,” I say as I push open the door. Vinny nods his head, not saying any more as I exit the car.
It’s easier to forgethimthan the words he spoke to me. They seemed to penetrate me deeper—stuck quicker.
* * *
The girls are already seatedat The Elm when I arrive. It’s a quirky little café on Oxford Street. We try to meet when our lunch breaks allow it, but with our ever-changing schedules, it’s hard. Lucy is a fashion designer, and Megan is a columnist for a women’s magazine.
Sliding into the bench seat, I grin as I watch the girls speak animatedly between one another. I only catch the tail end of what Megan is saying, but her words have my eyes bugging out in surprise. “A picture of his damn cock!” she exclaims as she stares super close to the phone in her hand.
“Oh, Jesus, what now?” I groan, my shoulder dropping. “I don’t know if I can deal with any more penis this week.”
“Hugh thinks he’s huge,” Megan roars with laughter, thrusting the phone out at me. Stupidly, I take it, peeking down at the screen.
I lean my shoulder into Lucy, a hand grasping my chest. “He did not send you a dick picture!” I can’t control the laughter that leaves me.
“Uh-huh, he thinks what? That I will be sad I’m missing out on.” She screws her face up in disgust at the phone. “That?!”
Megan wipes the corner of her eyes with a napkin, trying to recover from her laughing fit, as she asks, “Why is he even messaging you? He ended it.”
“He’s been messaging since Sunday evening. He says he wants to meet.”
“You’re not considering it, are you?”
She looks at me as if I’m crazy, but I already know she will give him every opportunity to be ‘Mr Right’.
“No! Of course not. He can do one. I’m so over him!” she states, resolute.
“Good, you’re too good for the likes of Hugh,” I tell her, plucking the menu from between the salt and pepper pots.
Megan stands to get the coffees when the barista signals they’re ready, and I’m thankful that the girls have already ordered for me. Flattening my hands to the steaming mug, I bring my hot chocolate to my lips and take a sip of the sugary liquid.
“So, Erin called today. She is coming home in a few weeks,” I tell them, licking my lips.
“I didn’t think she could leave her mum?” Lucy questions, her brows drawing downward in a frown.
Hmm, I didn’t think about that. “Yeah, I’m presuming she has someone to help her whilst she is here.” I shrug. “She wants to use the studio office. I thought we could plan a night out whilst she is here.”
“Do you even need to ask?” Megan grins.
“Will she be up for it? She didn’t seem like the type to hit the clubs when we met her,” Lucy asks.
“She said she wanted to. And she had just found out about her mum when we met her. Having to leave everything behind here to go look after her can’t have been easy.”
“Yeah, I didn’t think about that. It will be nice to see her! I bet she could use the break,” Lucy says into her coffee.
I hear my phone ringing in my bag and lean down to dig around for it, pushing all the crap inside about to find it.
Shit.
I cringe at the screen when I see who it is. “It’s Joey,” I tell the girls. I stupidly gave him my number the first night I met him. He seemed like a cute guy at the time, and I didn’t know he would be a clinger.
I let it ring out, missing the call.
“The note that managed to crawl out of the bin,” I pin them both with a pointed glare. “it was from Joey. The flowers, they weren’t from Mason.”
“What? Ugh, damn Joey.” Megan waves her hand dismissively.
“But then Mason turned up at the gym last night. I was covering Henry and didn’t have anyone for backup.”
