She smiled. “Because I had to get past that, Seph. He’s a waste of my energy. I got the best thing in my life from him and I’m thankful for that. And now I know what a piece of lying shit he is, I’m glad he made the choice he did.”
I wrapped my hands around the hot mug and squeezed it. “I’m glad he made that choice too.”
When I left twenty minutes later, opting to walk home to get some fresh air, I imagined what’d happened, how she’d probably been swept off her feet by a man who she worked with, how he could’ve ruined her career. How her little girl had been rejected before she was born by the man who was meant to be her hero.
How as strong as Georgie was, she needed someone to match that.
And I wasn’t sure if I could be that strong. Not when I’d spent so many years being a big kid, fucking his way round London and only getting away with making bad decisions because I was clever enough to talk myself out of them later.
They’d already been screwed over by one man. I didn’t want to be the one to cock up and do it again.
I stood outside my apartment and looked up at the moon and the stars, clear in the cold early spring night. The world felt bigger now, too big.
Maybe Georgia and Rose were what I was looking for. I just didn’t know whether I deserved them.
Chapter Thirteen
Seph
It now seemed I didn’t need to have alcohol to have a hangover. By Friday, I’d managed to find every excuse under the sun to avoid going into the office, and dodged most of Georgia’s phone calls, responding via email or text.
I was a coward and I’d already talked myself into a place in hell. Georgia had confided in me what happened with Rose’s father and now I was ghosting her.
Ava was waiting for me in Amelie’s at lunchtime on Friday, a laptop in front of her with a sample book for materials. It was difficult to believe that the little girl who’d annoyed the absolute crap out of me was now a fully-grown woman, who was just as annoying now, but somehow had managed to create a successful business and was pretty talented too. Her engagement ring twinkled under the lights and every so often I saw her glance at it.
“Still have time for lunch with your big brother?”
She grinned up at me and closed the laptop, pushing it to one side. “Always. And it’ll give me some space to think about what this really fussy client actually needs. I don’t know what’s worse: you when you had no idea what you wanted at all, or someone who thinks they know what they want even though it’s the wrong thing.”
I shrugged. “I have no idea what you mean. Don’t you just go into a house and tell them what would work?”
“If only.” She rolled her eyes. “I put forward several different ideas that would work and hope they have the taste to choose one of those. Only this client is determined to have a William Morris theme in a twenty-first century house because she wants, and I quote, ‘a blend of influences’. It’s going to look like an end of season sale’s thrown up all over it. This,” she tapped the book, “is me mitigating a disaster.”
I laughed quietly. Ava’s life of interior design was one I envied. She tended to have wealthy clients who had money to burn; theirs and her problems were definitely first world ones and escapism for me from the commercial shit I was wading through.
“Eli’s just found out he’s won that case that’s taken up all his time for the last couple of months. I hear drinks are happening after work.” I sat down opposite her and watched her smile when I mentioned Eli. They’d been together for a couple of years, meeting each other because Eli was a partner at Callaghan Green, although Ava kept her interactions with the company to socialising and if she needed any colour photocopying done.
I was pretty sure she was responsible for half the times when the copier broke down, it was just that Max hadn’t realised it yet.
“He messaged me. I’m meeting you there. Looks like we’ll have half the family there too. Shay’s just finished his shift and Lainey’s here for the weekend too.” She smiled brightly, radiating something I wished I could bottle and share, because my little sister only made the world brighter.
“Shit, Shay off shift is never good.” I wasn’t sure if I had the capacity this week to deal with the sexploits of Shay Green. “Can I stay at yours if Shay wants to use the apartment as a shag palace?”
Ava choked on the mouthful of coffee and almost spat it out. “Shag Palace? You sound like something from nineteen seventy-five.”
“I can’t have another night of hearing him entertaining. Seriously, it’s like having a porn site turned up loud, but a really awful one where you hear things you can’t unhear. There was one woman he brought back last week, and she really seemed to like his…”
“And stop there.”
I started laughing. “Noise cancelling headphones. I made him buy me some.”
“Seriously? You realise this is revenge for what we all put up with after Cassie?”
I stilled at my ex’s name.
Ava’s face grew serious.
“You’re not back in touch with her, are you?”
