“Who cares?”
“He already gets a million horny DMs before breakfast. We used to laugh about it. Girls send him nudes every day. They beg him to fuck them. They offer to sneak into the stadium after away games and blow him in the locker room.”
“You think he’ll cheat?”
“I think I don’t need that kind of pressure on top of being ten years older than him.”
“Willow gets horny shit sent to him too—”
Cheryl couldn’t help it, she let out a scream.
“Whoa,” Eden said. “What gives?”
“You! George, I love you, but fuck off! Willow was almost thirty-four when you met. He’d already fucked everyone on Love Island. He was ready to settle down! Patrick’s a rising star. Rising stars don’t stay with their token cougar girlfriends. Ask Cheryl Cole. Ask Demi fucking Moore.”
She turned away, drawing on her cigarette. She’d never said this stuff aloud, but it had always been there. The shadow over every possibility. That Patrick was hooking up with barely legal girls in his DMs. That she looked like an old lady next to him. That if they dated, his teammates would make fun of him for banging a senior citizen. Thoughts that cut her to the bone. To her credit, Eden didn’t say anything, just drank her wine as Cheryl smoked. A bird chirped outside her window. Dawn was closing in.
“Hey,” Eden said softly. “Cheryl?”
The use of her real name forced her to turn her head. “Yeah?”
“Remember when you were my social media guy and I offered to set you up with some of Willow’s celebrity mates and be a full-time consultant?”
Cheryl frowned. “Yeah?”
“Why didn’t you take me up on it?”
“I-I didn’t want to freelance full time. I wanted an office job. Stability.”
Eden shook her head. “I know you, Bernie. You think no one knows you, but I do. You need everything to be hard so you can feel like you earned your place. And because of your dad and Carlo and a million other shitty men, you don’t think you’ve earned Patrick. But you’re wrong. You’re more of a woman than he’ll ever deserve.”
A lump formed in her throat. “T-Thanks, George.”
“Thank me by taking off the ten tonnes of armour slowly dragging you to hell and let Patrick love you. Just let him fucking love you.”
Cheryl shook her head. It really did feel like it weighed ten tonnes. “It won’t work.”
“Then you’re going to regret it. You’re going to watch him marry someone else.”
Just the thought was like a blade down her back, but she let the pain take her. Elevate her. He who dies pays all debts. “Maybe. But that’s my choice.”
Eden’s face fell, but she didn’t say anything. Instead, she came over to the windowsill and hugged her. Cheryl eased into her arms, the girl who’d once felt like her only connection to the real world. “I love you.”
“I love you too. I want you to be happy.”
She thought about the song Eden wrote when she found out she was still talking to Carlo. Still considering getting back with him for the millionth time. The song was called ‘Sour Milk.’ It had one throbbing chorus repeated over and over.
Back at that old beat
Squeezing the same teat,
Sour milk,
Is still milk
Bitter pills,
Give old thrills.
