Cass shrugs her shoulders and scrunches her face up into that triumphant I-told-you-so expression that she was born knowing how to do. Then a quick flash of panic crosses her face ‘Oh my God, you haven’t got back together with Teresa, have you?’
‘No!’
‘Or Juniper? Ani?
‘As if!’ I say.
‘Okay then, oh, or Beth?’
‘Seriously? She married that Nathan three months ago. Have there been any of my girlfriends you’ve liked?’
‘Stella was okay,’ she smirks. ‘I had forgotten about Nathan though. Beth would have dragged anything up the aisle.’
‘Thanks.’
Cass giggles. ‘Well then have you...?’ She pauses. ‘Oh. My. God. You and Lily. You and The Love Doctor. Be still, my heart. Are you dating Lily now? Has that happened?’ She starts punching her arms up in the air one at a time and the triumph on her face now is tenfold what it was a second or two ago.
‘Um...’ I hadn’t expected this reaction. ‘We’re not dating, we’re just staying friends but you know, your birthday night...and I promised I’d remain celibate for six months and I barely made two and ah shit, Cass, I just..’
My speech is interrupted as we hear Olive bellow outside, ‘No slacking, come on. Twenty more!’
‘I wanted to show you change is possible and not something to be scared of and I’ve fucked that up pretty badly.’
‘I know that change is possible, you daft sod, and often necessary. Seriously! I’m not four. The main thing here is that you may have fucked your plan badly but you know as long as you didn’t you-know-what Lily badly, we’re all good. That, I can’t be having.’
‘You’re so gross!’
‘And yet you love me.’ She leans over, putting both her hands on the floor and sticks her tongue out at me like a rabid puppy before sitting up again.
‘I do. And I completely understand that you have crowing rights for millennia over this.’
She grins and shuffles forward to get closer to me. ‘Yup, but skip all that. I want more details...’
I fix her with a no-way-in-hell look and it’s her turn to make oh-gross noises.
‘I didn’t mean like that,’ she says, after a highly exaggerated faux-gag. ‘You said you’re not dating. That, I want to know more about that.’
‘Nah. It’s embarrassing but full disclosure –’ I hold up my hands ‘– she’s not responding to my messages. So I’m guessing that’s a clear sign that she does not want to know. So it just has to be a one-night thing.’
‘I don’t really know what to say about that. I mean, rude, but also shout out for the gal who knows her own mind. Bet that’s never happened before.’
‘Seriously, is that all anyone is thinking?’
‘Why, who else knows?’
‘I had footy the other day.’
‘And you told that bunch of morons before you told me?’
‘Nah, not strictly. I chatted to Mo a bit.’
‘Ah, that’s okay. Mo speaks sense. What did he have to say?’
‘Yeah, he said normally if someone’s not answering your messages then you should leave them be but because we’re scheduled to work together and because I feel pretty strongly about her then I need to step up and try and talk it out, just once, but talk it out. ‘
‘See, like I said, the man has wisdom. But back to the vow thing, it was you that pushed the staying celibate for six months thing, I never said you had to be celibate. All I said was that you had to avoid a relationship and that I didn’t believe you’d be able to maintain celibacy.’
‘Yeah, I failed at that. I did try.’
