“What?”
“All the new stuff I’ve ordered.” She takes a bite of toast. “It’s arriving next Wednesday.”
The smile freezes on my face, a cold wash of unease spreading out from the center of my chest. I couldn’t remember exactly how much we had talked about putting on the joint credit card to kit out the new house, but it had been alot. Thousands of pounds, that we would use my bonus from work to start paying off. Dining table, chairs, sofas, wardrobes, mirrors, desks, furniture for the kids’ bedrooms.
I feel sick, a bubble of nausea rising up my throat.
“You… ordered it already?” I try hard to keep my tone neutral. “I thought we were going to talk about it first?”
“We did, remember?”
“That was ages ago.Months.”
“But we’re here now, aren’t we? And John Lewis had an offer on, it was going to run out so I had to get on with ordering it all.”
“Right.”
“Are you feeling OK, Adam? You’ve gone a bit pale.”
“Fine.” I make a show of checking my watch. “I’m fine. You know what? I should probably get going. Don’t want to be late for work.”
Edward
He’d never told anyone. Certainly not his dad.
Not even his mum, not yet anyway. Although he suspected she might already know, deep down—she knew him better than anyone else. Not that he’d gone out of his way to hide it, not exactly, but it just never seemed to be the right time. It was always easier to put it off. And there was something about being an only child that seemed to make it harder.
He’d been meaning to do it for so long, just to get it over with. Craig’s stag do had been the final straw: a whole weekend of lads’ banter, of drinking and piss-taking, and the rest of them trying to chat up random women in every pub, every bar. That horrific lap-dancing club on the seafront, blank-eyed girls gyrating in front of them. First the groom, then the best man, and then they were all doing it, handing over twenty-pound notes for more of the same until someone—he still didn’t know who—paying for him to have a dance, and then this girl right up in his face, and Edward trying his best to look as if he was enjoying it. Trying to pretend he was into it, like the rest of them. Cheeks burning, the rest of them seeing how awkward he looked and laughing even louder.
It was getting harder to pretend at home, too.
All that expectation. Awkward questions about girlfriends, about settling down. Listening to yet another of his dad’s outbursts about George Michael or Elton John or Freddie Mercury,the comments so automatic, so routine, that he didn’t even seem to realize he was making them. The weight of his grandma’s expectation, that he would be the one to carry on the family name, as the only son of an only son.
But now, finally, Edward had made up his mind.
Finally, he had met someone.
Someone who understood what it was like to live half your life in secret, how exhausting it was to conceal who you really were, to hide your true self. Who knew it was important to fly under the radar but had promised to be there when he was ready. Had promised to be his wingman, his backup, or maybe more. Someone he could turn to if it all went wrong.
Tonight, they would talk things through again.
And tomorrow, he would tell his parents.
Edward checked his watch: it was nearly time. The watch had been a twenty-first birthday present, and he knew it was expensive, something to take good care of, to wear only on special days. Days like today.
Because, finally, it seemed that things were going to change.
8
Sometimes the universe does you a favor.
When that happens, I’ve always thought you should just go with it, accept it without asking too many questions. Once in a while a piece of good luck falls in your lap, the cosmic dice fall the right way, and you end up with double sixes. That was my first thought when I heard our offer on the house had been accepted—it had only been an opening bid, a borderline-cheeky offer that was supposed to be the starting point for negotiation. It was still near the very top of our price range, but I expected a bit of haggling at least. It didn’t occur to me that first offer would be accepted without a quibble.
As I said: for whatever reason, or no reason at all, sometimes the universe just does you a favor.
Which is also what I’m thinking after ten minutes in the jeweler’s shop.
It was a flash of inspiration, really, a sudden thought as I’d been about to leave the house. Work bag over my shoulder, jacket on, car keys in hand, that sick feeling of dread still rolling in my stomach as I tried to work out how we’d pay for the new furniture.
