I am pondering my rage, my current favourite activity, when my phone bings and I see another message from Jay.
Sorry I can’t join you all today, #MakeSureJinxWins! Catch up soon? x
I grimace and scroll up through his other messages since the night we spent together.
All unanswered.
I’m sorry if I upset you. Get well soon and shout if you need anything x
My sister is an actual demon x
Thank you, I had a really special weekend. Hope you are smiling as much as I am xxx
These messages don’t help my fury die. They make me panic, feel guilty, confused. Three things I am not fond of. So I go downstairs instead to see what culinary delight awaits me.
‘Oh you’re going to be so proud of me. We’re going to be properly civilised. I went to The Deli and bought food, like healthy food. Look!’ Kevin is swooping around the impressively laden table and gestures at some beetroot hummus and a yellow-looking puree. There are three different types of salad and some beautiful pastries, patinaed with sesame seeds. I suck my bad temper in and sit as he pulls me out a chair. He is trying after all.
‘Healthy food?’
‘I knew you’d be impressed.’
‘I am, I never thought I’d see the day you’d willingly buy salad. Never!’
‘I would have agreed about Kevin and salad but you know, never say never, always wise to be flexible,’ Dan says with a smile.
‘Oh and you are very flexible,’ Kevin says but not with his usual flirtatious attitude. This is more as if he has to say it because he can’t help himself but can’t quite make eye contact as he does so.
A shy Kevin? Are my secret hopes for these two true? I want to punch the air, my bad temper momentarily allayed. Keviniscrushing on Dan. I am here for this! Now I have to find out if Dan feels the same. I think he reciprocates – why else is he suddenly spending every possible waking moment with Kevin practising romantic duets over the piano, helping him to design and make his outfits? – this could have legs.
‘I am.’ Dan nods matter-of-factly buthedoesn’t mutter it,heholds Kevin’s eyes as he speaks. Flirtation alongside statement of fact? Oh, I hope so.
I know I am smirking but I can’t help it. I start to scheme to see if I can push these two together more than they already are.
Whilst plotting, I pile my plate with salad and scoop a tortilla chip into some of the beetroot dip.
‘Thank you for this,’ I say and Kevin beams. ‘So what’s the plan? Let’s sort out what you want to do with regards to your parents. Although I have to say I didn’t expect apology lunch first.’ I take a bite of the chorizo-and-goat’s-cheese-filled pastry and hope Kevin’s deli habit overtakes his Deliveroo one.
‘Apology lunch?’ Kevin snorts, actually snorts, and Dan’s eyes grow wide. ‘For you? Oh, this is not that. You do not need an apology lunch. A wake-up call, some hard truths maybe, but not an apology lunch.’
‘Woah, what do you mean?’ I’m fully taken aback. ‘You completely overstepped the other day. I felt so humiliated. I always thought I could rely on you to have my back but by sending Jay around you were completely insensitive.’
‘Insensitive?’ Kevin’s eyebrows rise so high they virtually disappear into his hairline.
‘Yes, insensitive. You should have found a better solution than just choosing the most convenient.’ I can’t believe I’m having to explain this. But instead of nodding in comprehension Kevin’s nostrils flare and his eyes bulge, like an over-stimulated horse.
‘You needed shopping the other day and I couldn’t do it.’ His tone is firm; he is calm but speaking through gritted teeth. ‘Dan couldn’t do it so I arranged for someone else, deliberately chosen because they’re someone you seem pretty damn comfortable with. And yes, I did see him leave the other weekend. And yes, whilst you were up there in your Pity Palace I got your food delivered, water and snacks brought to your room, so the way I see it you should be thanking me, not stropping around the house dwelling on how wronged you feel because someone saw you looking human. If anyone deserves an Apology Lunch right now, then it’s me.’
Pity Palace? Stropping!
I drop the pastry back on the plate, my mouth open at this unexpected assault. This is unlike Kevin, and I don’t understand why he is being like this. I want to challenge this but don’t want a full-scale battle.
I limit myself to raised eyebrows and mutter ‘unbelievable’ at the salad.
It is enough, it seems.
‘Meunbelievable?’ he responds quickly, angrily. I have never heard Kevin this angry before. Ranty, yes, daily, but there is real force to his tone here. I flick a look across to Dan who shrugs his shoulders and gives me a sympathetic smile but isn’t lining up behind me. ‘Me unbelievable?’ he repeats. ‘No, not me. Normally yes, but not in this instance. This is on you. You bitch me out for being insensitive but when I messaged Jay earlier to invite him to this Let’s-support-Jinx-when-her-parents-are-here meeting, the one we were all doing together, remember? When I texted him, he apologised because he already had plans, added he was happy to still be involvedandasked how you were. Now Jay is not a man who struggles to communicate so it seems pretty obvious to me if he needsmeto tell him howyouare then that man has been texting you, probably ever since he kindly came across town to deliver your shopping...’
I feel my mouth form a mutinous pout. Kevinnevertells me off. My mind is a whirl and I’m not entirely sure what to say, where to look, how to respond. But that’s okay because he clearly has no intention of letting me get a word in.
