‘Yes,’ I had gasped, desperate for his touch. ‘Oh yes.’
I had never been more certain of anything in my life.
‘Lucy?’
Ted’s voice brought me back to the reality of my kitchen but I couldn’t stop the strangled sigh from escaping at the loss of that memory.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I was … watching the rain.’
He gave me a doubtful look, having stepped away from me after the boom of thunder, instead of pulling me in for a kiss. The storm must’ve distracted him too.
‘Hmm. Yes. Well. That sort of proves my point, doesn’t it? Walks in the rain seem more likely than anything. And that doesn’t sound like fun to me.’
‘Well I’m sorry,’ I snapped, partly cross with myself for being so stupid as to make a booking without checking with him first, and partly cross at him for not seeming to be keen to spend time away with me in a cosy, country cottage. ‘I thought us spending seven days together would be fun. And romantic. And, oh silly me, I assumed you’d jump at the chance of having seven nights of sex without needing to get up early for work every morning.’
I glowered at Ted but he met my angry stare with silence, and then the alarm I’d set for the oven timer, beeped.
‘I suppose we should eat,’ Ted eventually said.
‘Yes,’ I agreed, turning off the alarm. ‘We should eat.’
Three
‘Have you paid a deposit?’ Ted asked, a couple of hours later when we’d finally settled on the sofa together, after I’d loaded the dishwasher, cleaned the kitchen, and put the rubbish out, while he’d answered three phone calls and spent over an hour doing some work on his laptop for “an important client”. Ted had another beer and I had yet another glass of wine, finishing the bottle. ‘You’ll get a refund, won’t you? When you cancel.’
We had eaten in silence until Ted had eventually asked for more details of the cottage in Midwinter, but it had quickly become clear that he had no intention of going and that anything I might have said to try to persuade him would have been futile, so I hadn’t tried.
‘Erm.’ I clicked on the TV remote and an episode ofLove Island All Starspopped up on the screen. I immediately changed channels. I didn’t need the competition. My body wasn’t bad, but I tried to keep it covered as much as possible. Especially in the winter months when it was more the colour of porridge than sun-kissed bronze. Neither of us were football fans, but anFA Cup Finalwas preferable, in my opinion at least, to theother offerings. I hadn’t renewed my subscriptions to any of the streaming services because one of my new year resolutions had been to watch less TV. ‘I had to pay the full amount. It was a last-minute booking. And it’s Valentine’s Day next Friday, so no.’
His head shot round so that he could look at me. ‘You won’t get a refund?’
‘Not if I cancel. No.’ I stared at the TV as one of the footballers rolled around on the wet grass, hugging his right knee.
Ted shifted his position and his torso was now facing me, ‘What do you mean, “not if I cancel”? We discussed it. I can’t just swan off for a week without giving my firm proper notice.’
I turned my head to meet his eyes. ‘And yet you said during supper that if I changed it to somewhere hot, you’d be happy to help me “get over my little problem with flying.” And that you could email Babs in HR and tell her, and it’d probably be fine.’
‘No, I…’ He lowered his gaze and shook his head before looking at me once more. ‘Okay. I did say that. But come on, Lucy. You know I’m not particularly into the countryside. And long walks don’t really do it for me. Especially not in the rain. I’m sure you’ll be able to get a refund. Even if it’s only a partial one.’
‘What if I don’t want to? Cancel, I mean.’
His mouth opened and then closed and his brows knit together before he spoke.
‘Why wouldn’t you want to cancel? I know you probably meant it as a pleasant surprise, but as I said earlier, you should’ve discussed it with me before you booked. I don’t want to spend a week in a cottage in the middle of nowhere. Cancel, and we’ll do something special on Valentine’s Day. I’ll take the day off and we’ll spend it together.’ He looked away from me and glanced at the TV. A roar had gone up among the crowd and the footballers were now all hugging one another after one of them had scored a goal. ‘Erm. As it happens, I’ve just been told about a networkingevent next weekend and … I think perhaps I should go to that. That was one of the calls I got tonight.’
I didn’t ask for details and Ted didn’t immediately offer any, but he was right. I should’ve discussed it with him first, before I’d booked our week away. I don’t know why I hadn’t.
And yet, perhaps I did know why.
Something had definitely changed between us since New Year’s Eve. Not by a huge amount, but by enough for me to know there had been a change. And then Mum had asked me a couple of weeks ago if everything was going okay between me and Ted, so even she had noticed. Erin said I was imagining it at first but last week, on one of our regular, girls’ nights out, she agreed with me.
‘Ted’s never been overly effusive on the romance front,’ Erin had said, ‘But I agree it’s odd that he hasn’t mentioned doing something on Valentine’s Day. Last year he told you three weeks before that he was planning a surprise treat for you. I remember, because I said that as he’d told you he was planning a surprise, it wasn’t a genuine surprise. And you said it was a surprise, because you didn’t know what the actual treat was. And then it turned out to be dinner in the restaurant at the pub where you’d met.’
‘Yes. And you sarcastically said that you’d never heard of anything so romantic.’
Erin had laughed. ‘It was hardly imaginative, was it? Dinner in a pub restaurant. I said it then and I’ll say it again now. Surely he could’ve come up with something better than that?’
‘At least he made an effort. This year, he hasn’t said a word.’
