“What’s nothing?” asks a smooth, low voice behind me.
Ice enters my bloodstream.
“Grace’s texting with her ex,” Iris immediately confirms over my shoulder to the looming figure. I close my eyes and run my tongue over my teeth, trying my hardestto keep my mouth shut. Rolling back my shoulders I turn around, steeling myself before I acknowledge him.
His hair looks disheveled compared to its usual effortless bounce, but his eyes are still that unnatural blue that laser through my own.
“Helloooo!” I say in a singsong voice that I immediately regret when I see the confused twitch of his eyebrow.
Bancroft’s eyes move to my red lips, then flick up to my gaze as he gives me a devastating look of disappointment and asks his sister if she’s ready to go. As if he couldn’t bear to interact with me at all.
“Yep, bye, Grace!” Iris beams, oblivious to the shovel she just passed to me to dig myself further into a hole. She kisses me on both cheeks. “So lovely to see you. We should grab a coffee soon.”
My heart tugs at her genuine sincerity.
Bancroft breezes past me without a second glance and I watch them walk away, reminding me of how different things had become since the first time I saw them together. An ice-cold poker slams through my stomach at the thought of Bancroft and me being thrown back into how we were before the Ditto project began. I wait a cursory thirty seconds before leaving the building, hoping to avoid the pain of a classic goodbye-but-we-need-to-go-in-the-same-direction moment. But I didn’t need to worry. As I step out onto the scalding pavement and wander down to the depths of hell to catch a tube, I watch Bancroft open the door of a town car for Iris and close it behind them.
17
Nine Months Ago
EB: Are you free right now?
GH: Just got out of a meeting, what’s up?
EB: Meet me at Wilfred’s in 15 minutes, I have something incredible to show you.
The bell tinkled as I entered the busy coffee shop, and the sweet smells of vanilla and hazelnut immediately flooded my nostrils. I scanned the crowd, finally landing on Eric, sitting at a table in the corner. He raised his eyebrows and gestured hurriedly for me to sit down.
“What’s going on?” I threw my bag down on the spare chair.
He gave me a bemused smirk. “No ‘hello’? ‘It’s been a while’? Nothing?”
“I’ve only been gone a week.” A rare “family” vacation with William and my parents. I’d ended up working most days anyway, much to William’s chagrin. I rolled my hands in front of me to hurry things up. “But hi, hello, it’s been a while. How are you?”
His smirk grew into something more devious. “Coffee?”
The porcelain saucer ground across the wooden table as he slid it toward me.
“Oh my God, can you just tell me what is going on?” I grabbed the coffee from him, ignoring the spark lancing through my hands as our fingers briefly brushed.
I took a sip; he’d ordered my usual down to a T but I was too frustrated at his teasing to say thank you. Being outside of the office together was strange enough, but not knowing the reason for being here was causing a tingling anxiety in my stomach. Did he need to talk about something that wasn’t safe to discuss at work? To tell me something he didn’t want anyone overhearing?
After another few seconds of smirking suspiciously, he finally gave in. “OK, look over there, but be subtle...” He gestured with his chin at a table behind me.
I spun around and gasped dramatically. A milk frother behind the counter hissed steam, covering the sound.
“Jesus Christ, I said be subtle!” Eric threw a palm over his face.
I placed my fingers on the back of my wooden chair to steady myself as I turned my head back to face him. “I don’t have a subtle bone in my body and you know it.”
He let out a rare laugh; the sound sent warmth through my chest. “Well grow one, and fast. I’m trying to be incognito.”
“But that’s Jeffrey,” I replied.
“Yes,” Eric concurred.
“With adate,” I said.
