Sofia slapped her hand on the table.
‘Wow, this is a small island, isn’t it?’
Grace started laughing at the same time as her two friends. Proper tears in your eyes and a pain in your stomach laughing. People from other tables looked their way as the three of them linked hands.
Her friends had inadvertently revealed two big secrets to each other, but her biggest and most shameful secret was still safe. She couldn’t believe Sofia would leave it there though. They hadn’t kept anything this big from each other in forty years. Grace let the laughter die away and waited for Sofia to carry on the inquisition.
‘But why were you talking about Grace and Will? The only man I’ve heard her talk about is someone called Nick.’
Angeliki gave Grace a hard stare.
Oh, great, now Angeliki was going to think she had a thing for Nick. She’d better nip this in the bud. It was like some terrible stage farce with people rushing in and out of each other’s bedrooms and lots of mistaken identities.
‘Sofia’s got the wrong end of the stick. I only mentioned Nick because he’s one of my new students. He’s a lovely guy.’
She gave Sofia their ‘shut up now or I’ll kill you’ look.
‘In fact… Angeliki has just started dating him. They met at Will’s party.’
Sofia winked at her out of Angeliki’s eyeline.
‘Aaah, I love new romances. You’ll have to tell me more. But I’d still like to hear all about Will’s party.’
Grace stirred the froth on her cappuccino and put a spoonful in her mouth.
‘There’s nothing to tell.’
‘Angeliki? What’s your version? What was it that had you thinking there was something between our Grace and this Will?’
Grace knew that look. It spelled danger. Sofia was obviously furious at being left out of the loop.
Angeliki paused a moment.
‘All I can say is that Will never looked at me like that when we were dancing. Talk about steamy.’
‘That’s so not true, Angeliki.’
Grace tried to hide her irritation at the way the conversation was going. Sofia wouldn’t let it drop now, for sure.
Her phone buzzed with another message. It was the fourth that day from Will.
We really need to talk about last night.
He might do, but she certainly didn’t. She wanted to forget last night ever happened.
Sofia moved her chair nearer to Grace’s.
‘Is that Will?’
‘No. Why are you saying that?’
Her friends exchanged a look. Great, now they were ganging up on her. It was like being back in high school. She expected them to start singing ‘Grace and Will, sitting in a tree’ any moment.
Sofia bumped shoulders with her.
‘Because you’ve gone bright red. It’s soooo cute.’
‘Shut it, now.’
