Bo sat back. “Can I think about it?”
Ida smiled. “Of course you can. Think about it seriously though, okay? You said it yourself: you’re a bad actress.”
“Don’t sugarcoat that or anything,” Bo retorted drily, and Ida grinned.
“You know what I mean. You’re pretty, I’m not saying you’re not. But that prettiness doesn’t translate onto the stage or screen. It translates intohere,” Ida poked Bo’s chest. “And into this . . . I don’t know, vibrancy you’ve got going on.”
Vibrant.That was the word Max had used too. For a moment, Bo missed him so much she could hardly breathe.
“Think about it, okay? You’ve got plenty of time to let me know too. I’m not offering the business to anyone else just yet. You’ve got first refusal.”
Bo nodded slowly.
“And Bo? Please message Max. I’m tired of seeing you so woebegone. Message him. Tell him how you feel. Tell him about Madelief. Tell him whatever.” Ida poked her again, giving her a look full of meaning. “Justmessagehim.”
* * *
Bo picked up her phone when she got home, a little drunk, a little bewildered, and more than a little terrified.
Ida was right though. She needed to do this.
Steeling her nerves, she opened the last message Max sent her. Thinking for a moment, she chewed on her lip, working outher reply. She couldn’t very well type out, ‘Max, I love you, please come back’, could she? Or could she?
She was still thinking, still chewing on her lip, when her phone vibrated in her hand. It was probably Uber Eats, offering her twenty per cent off her next curry. Or maybe it was Willa, wanting to know about her day.
Bo looked down, and her stomach sank. It wasn’t Uber Eats. It wasn’t Willa.
No. It was Max.
Max Fitzroy: I’ll be back tomorrow, and I’m bringing my friends. We’ve decided to have the party at Geoffrey’s house. We’ll try and keep the noise down.
That was it. Nothing else. No references to his oblique message of a few days previous. No references to their relationship, or current lack of one. No references to the romantic, amazing and passionate sex they’d had just before he left. Just a courtesy message, short and to the point.
Well, she could be short and to the point too.
Bo: I miss you
She thought for a moment, then deleted the message before she had the nerve to press send.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The last party Bo attended had been at Oliver’s house. It had been a gathering of all his Insta-fitspo friends, and there had been so many phones held aloft for selfies that simply walking from the living room to the kitchen to get a gluten-free, low-carb bean burger had been like trying to navigate the battle of Agincourt. That party had started badly and ended worse, with Bo walking in on Oliver having sex with Phoebe on his weight bench. She hadn’t really felt like going to a party since then and hadn’t willingly eaten a bean burger either. Especially not a gluten-free one, because yuck. Association was a bitch, and all that.
What would a party with Max and his friends be like? Would they all be orchestra members and musicians like Max, or would there be other, equally as glamorous career types there? Bo couldn’t help but wonder, just as she couldn’t help but wonder what sort of food and drink Max would serve. Would he cook? With a Nokia 3310, it was unlikely he would be able to order anything in. What drinks would he put on? Would he raid Geoffrey’s enviable wine rack? Or would it be a strictly tea and biscuits kind of affair?
Not that Bo would find out, because she wasn’t invited. Max’s “we’ll try to keep the noise down” had been unambiguous. He was having a party, and he was going to keep the noise down to not disturb her in her summer house, where he fully expected her to be.
She was sitting by the pond in her garden — because if Max thought she was going to abandon a sunny afternoon spent onherproperty to keep away from him and his friends, he had another think coming — reading a book. Well, book might’ve been a stretch. It was a manual on owning a small business, and she was poring over the pages, trying to make sense of suchterms as ‘limited liability’ and ‘key performance indicators’. She was seriously considering Ida’s offer, but knew she needed to do a little research before agreeing to anything. She’d even sent a quick email to Lisa, asking if they could pencil in a date for a conversation about finance and financial planning. Lisa would probably spit her coffee out when she opened it. The only time Lisa and Bo ever talked about money was when Bo’s mother had been too busy spending it, and for years, Lisa had been at Bo to think more seriously about her long-term economic prospects. Bo had never wanted to before, but now, with Ida’s offer to consider, she knew it was a necessity.
As she lay in the garden, she saw, in the distance, the unmistakable outline of Max out on the decking outside his house. She couldn’t help it; her heart constricted at the sight of him, and that aching pull of longing for him ran through her. Her stomach flipped and her skin tingled, and she hid behind her book, hoping and praying he hadn’t seen her, while fully expecting that he had. She couldn’t help herself from peeking over the pages to stare at him though, surreptitiously sneaking glances when she could see his attention was caught elsewhere.
He looked stressed, Bo realized, with his glasses sliding down his nose and his hands full of what looked to be wire. He had a small step ladder with him, and she watched him for a few moments, trying to work out what the hell he was doing, when it suddenly occurred to her that he was hanging lights over the decking. Party lights. Max was hanging party lights. Or at least, he was trying to.
It was comically adorable, and she longed to walk up to him, wrap her arms around him and kiss him. It wasn’t like they had argued or anything, was it? They just hadn’t spoken. Since having sex. Days ago.
Chewing on her lip, Bo stayed where she was, watching Max as he hung light after light. Strange, but she never thought ofMax as being the kind of man who had friends. These past few months, they’d been so insular. It had just been him and her, the two of them together, and while they’d spoken of ex-lovers and family, they’d never really talked about anyone else. To learn that not only did Max have friends but that he regarded them well enough to deck out his home with lights to amuse them was a surprise to her. A surprise which filled her with a kind of wistful poignancy.
Bo had to admit it: she’d liked having Max to herself. She’d liked when it had just been them, and they’d been wrapped in each other away from the world. At the same time, she was glad Max had people other than herself. Glad he had a social life that he enjoyed. All the same . . .
