‘I’ll talk to them,’ he promised as Sarah steered me in the right direction, barely able to see one foot in front of the other through the pouring rain.
‘Thank you,’ I said. Someone should and I didn’t know where to start.
‘Don’t worry,’ Mal replied. ‘It’s going to be fine.’
I only wished I had his confidence.
‘Cup of tea?’ Sarah suggested, pushing Joe’s room divider out the way once we were safely inside, the noise of the party far away. ‘Yep, this is clearly a tea situation.’
‘It’s also a my-parents-hate-me-and-I’m-going-to-lose-my-job situation,’ I replied, tossing her a towel to dry her hair. ‘Lots of milk, one sugar.’
I sank onto the sofa that Joe had folded neatly away. Considerate of him. Wet through and freezing cold, I stared straight ahead, my head full of helium but my body made of lead.
‘Nixon?’ I said, teeth chattering.
‘Taylor,’ she replied.
‘I know you’re going to say no and I know you’re only trying to help,’ I said with my best attempt at a reassuring smile. ‘But I would really like to be on my own for a minute.’
‘You look like you’ve been constipated for a week and you’re trying to convince me you don’t need a suppository.’ She took a mug out of the cupboard and set it next to the kettle. ‘You’re a grown woman. If that’s what you want, I’ll leave you be. Unlike some people, I trust you.’
‘You must be the only one,’ I replied. ‘No one out there would trust me as far as they could throw me.’
‘I wasn’t talking about anyone out there,’ she said, dropping a teabag into the mug then coming back over to the sofa to press a kiss to the top of my head. ‘I was talking about you learning to trust yourself. Your instincts were sharp enough to clock CJ, albeit two years too late, and you need to trust them now. This was always going to happen eventually, at least now you won’t have to worry about when. It’s time to bet on yourself.’
‘Don’t know if I like my odds but I haven’t got a lot of choice, have I?’
‘Nope.’
She fixed a fallen shoulder strap on my dress then pinged it gently. ‘Get into some dry clothes before you catch your death. If it’s all right with you, I might hang around outside for a minute, in case you change your mind and want some company to go with that cup of tea. Lights on or off?’
‘Off please.’
Flipping the switch to leave me in gentle darkness, she let herself out, pulling the door halfway closed behind her.
So the news was out. The worst thing that could’ve happened, had happened. Although comparing the whole world knowing I was Este Cox with the idea of getting back together with CJ did sort of put it in perspective, and perspective was needed.
This wasn’t the greatest tragedy ever to befall mankind. In the greater scheme of things, it wasn’t even as bad as the fact they didn’t sell Mini Eggs year-round or that Justin Timberlake was allowed to continue existing after Britney’s book came out, but it still felt rough to me. Mum and Dad knew, Gregory Brent knew, along with everyone at the party and everyone who followed Charlotte on TikTok. The school would find out. And the most absurd part of it all? Even though my life had literally just been irrevocably changed, I wasn’t sitting thinking about the damage to my teaching career, the reactions of my family or how much more pressure this put on me to deliver a brilliant sequel.
I was thinking about Joe.
‘You’re a disgrace,’ I told myself as I kicked away my soaked slides, the wooden floorboards warm underfoot.
‘I wouldn’t go that far.’
His silhouette stood in the doorway, black against grey, as Joe leaned against the frame. Out the window, I saw an umbrella-carrying Sarah raise a hand in a farewell then walk away up the garden.
‘You don’t know what I was talking about,’ I told him, one foot covering the other, my toes curling as he crossed the threshold, dripping wet.
He took off his shoes, leaving them by the door, white shirt clinging to his arms where the umbrella hadn’t been enough to protect him, his grey trousers now almost black. He studied me for a long second with his damp hair falling in front of his eyes, little rivulets of rainwater creating a sacred circle around him.
Instead of joining me on the sofa, he walked across to the kitchenette counter and dug into the punnet of strawberries we’d bought at the fête. I grabbed one of the cushions from the other end of the sofa and held it tightly to my cold body.
‘Want one?’
I shook my head and I watched him bite into his, filling the air with a fresh hit of sweetness.
‘They’re good,’ he said, licking the juice from his lips. ‘Nothing like English strawberries in the summer.’
