“You could finally meet someone, a woman.”
“She is bloody sixty!” I say.
“So what? Who cares, Mia? I fuck with people twenty years older than her.”
“But I don’t want to fuck. I want love. Romance. Friendship.Peace. Quietness. Something low-key. That woman is the opposite of everything. She is a public figure. People recognise her. She disrupts my peace, and she owns a strange club where people do god knows what. I don’t want anything to do with it!”
Bella grins and cocks an eyebrow.
“You seem awfully worked up for someone who is not interested.”
“Urgh!” I shout because whatever I say, it’ll all be used against me.
“Mia,” Bella says. “Just try it and dip a toe into the waters. This is your chance. You are being courted by the woman everybody wants.”
“She’s not courting me?—“
“Are you bloody stupid?” asks Bella, and yes, I might be.
I get up and get a bag with two muffins from Bella’s favourite bakery I stopped at on my way here.
“Btw, your mother is on the way,” I say. “Did your dad tell you?”
Now it is Bella’s turn to groan.
“He didn’t,” she says with a growl.
“Here,” I say and hand her the bag. “Emotional support muffins.”
Bella laughs. “You’re the best.”
“Do you need anything?” I ask her as I aim to leave.
“Can’t you stay when my mother arrives?” she asks. “She’s so much nicer when you’re around.”
Yeah, another thing our mothers share.
“Sure,” I say and put my bag and coat back.
I watch Bella eat the muffins. She offers me a piece, but I don’t want anything. Mr Thorne returns with a milkshake.
I retell how I got the gift, and Bella laughs hard. I tell her about the neighbour, because we can’t talk about anything else.
“Write her,” Bella says. “What do you have to lose?”
“Everything,” I say.
“Not from a thank you.”
Bella is right. I should at least say thank you.
So I take my phone to type a message.
Bella smirks at me the entire time.
“Don’t,” I hiss at her. My finger hovers over the send button.
“Do it, Mia,” she says.
