Ari gave Sebastian a look. “Thanks, but it’s okay. I’ll probably just order pizza or something. Maybe watch Eastenders.”
She didn’t tell him that she wasn’t comfortable around his friends. Sebastian and Luis had their own lives outside of her, Ari knew, and it was best to keep it that way.
Sebastian pulled a face. “Fine. Go home and eat your sad pizza and watch your sad soap opera. But don’t say we don’t invite you places.”
“I never said that you didn’t—”
“And don’t say I didn’t tell you to ride the loins of the man whose child you bore either,” Sebastian added triumphantly. “Because my darling, if you pick anyendtonight, try and make it his, and not the one on the telly from the east side of London.”
Ari gave Sebastian another look. “You really are like a dog with a bone on this. If I’ve told you once I’ve told you a thousand times—”
Sebastian held up his mobile to cut her off, showing an incoming call. It was their current bride, Ari noticed. Mrs “money-is-no-object”.
“Phone call, sorry,” Sebastian whispered without looking sorry at all, swiping right with an enthusiasm Ari found almost disturbing.
“It’ll keep,” she warned, but Sebastian merely shrugged.
“Darling,” he said, using the tone of voice he exclusively reserved for brides.
Then his face changed. “Darling, look—”
Ari watched as Sebastian’s face changed again, this time turning an angry and blotchy kind of red.
“Darling, I just think—” he tried once more, before swapping the phone to his other ear. “Look, you bossy fucking hag, if you think that you can just call us up and demand every little thing like some bitchzilla bride from hell—”
“Sebastian!” Ari snapped, snatching the phone from his hand. Holding it to her chest for a moment, she shook her head at Sebastian in reprisal, before taking a deep breath and bringing the phone to her ear.
“Hi Stella, how nice to hear from you. What can we do for you and Corentin today?”
* * *
Tom looked tired when he walked into Ari’s house later that day. There were dark circles under his eyes and his skin looked waxy and pale. He gratefully sat when Ari asked him to, gulping at the coffee she pushed his way.
“You can’t keep doing this, you know,” Ari said kindly, pouring herself a glass of water. “All this travel. What time even is it for you right now?”
Tom sat back in his seat. “What time is it now? Half two? I guess it’s half nine in the morning for me then. I tried to sleep on the plane, but just... Anyway, I got half an hour here and there. I’ll be fine.”
Ari looked at him with concern. “Go and take a nap upstairs. I’ll pick up Reine from school.”
“I think I’m a little big for Reine’s bed, don’t you?”
Ari felt herself blushing. “Oh, well, yes, um, I guess you could, uh, take my bed, maybe, and then—”
Tom gave her a soft smile. “I’m fine, Ari. I want to pick her up. Besides, it’s probably for the best that I keep going until tonight. Beat the jetlag tomorrow.”
Ari nodded, though she frowned just the same.
“All this travel though, Tom. You can’t keep doing it. We need to work out something new, something different. Something easier on you.”
Tom sighed. “Look Ari, you did the hard work for nearly eight years. Eight years without me. It’s my turn. Let me do this.”
She sank into the seat next to his, sighing in return. “You don’t have to keep punishing yourself, you know.”
“I’m not punishing myself.”
“You are. I know you too well. I know how you think and feel. You are punishing yourself and that’s not what I want.”
She glanced to the side, meeting Tom’s eyes. He was staring at her with an odd expression — a thoughtfulness to his eyes.
