“Ryan!” I call out after him, and he immediately stops and waits as I hurry over to him, Cosmo nervously holding up a finger to Rebecca, who is standing by the door, pointedly tapping her watch. I hold out the tote bag that’s been hanging off my shoulder this whole time.
“Here,” I say, giving it to Ryan. “Almost forgot. This is for you. Good luck in your meeting.”
“How lovely, a gift!” Cosmo declares, before taking Ryan’s elbow and leading him away. “Thank you, Harper, and speak soon to sort that lunch.”
I turn around and start making my way home.
He doesn’t call me. Or message me. The whole day.Zilch.
I told him Ilovedhim! Does he think I do that every day?! I certainly do not! And he thinks it’s acceptable behavior to leave someone in the lurch after they’ve poured out their heart?Well.I guess that shows what kind of person he is after all.
I’m not messaging him, obviously. I’ve already said my piece. I get that it was quite a lot to throw at him before eight o’clock in the morning, but he’s had the entire day to think on it and get back to me, and I haven’t heard a peep out of him. I’m not expecting him to say it back or anything. I get that we had a big falling-out and maybe he’s still cross or maybe he thinks we had our chance—twice—and it didn’t work then, so it’s not going to now. That’sfine.
But he still needs to acknowledge what I said.
I’ve been trying to stay busy so I don’t check my phone every few seconds, but that’s not easy when you’ve launched a highly successful podcast and your phone is buzzing all the time with emails and notifications. Every time it goes off, I grab for it, desperate for his name to come up on the screen, and you know what? It’s never him.
No amount of work can distract me from thinking about this morning and the butterflies dancing around in my stomach. Not hearing from him can’t be good news, though, can it? Surely, he’d have been in touch by now if he felt the same. Instead, he’s probably writing an essay in his notes app, trying to work out a way to let me down gently.
It did occur to me that I have a mole inside the office in the form of Mimi, so I could ask how he’s behaving to try to work out what’s going on, but I was too embarrassed to tell her what I said to him. If I haven’t heard from him by the end of today, then I will call her and explain everything and she can give me some advice on what to do.
For now, it’s just me in this.
Tucking my phone under my pillow so I can’t look at it anymore this evening, I come to the disappointing conclusion that Icouldtidy up. It’s a drastic idea, but I can blare music while I do it so my thoughts are drowned out and itwilltake a long time, which is exactly what I need.
As I start the soul-destroying job of unloading and then reloading the dishwasher to a motivating playlist of Queen’s greatest hits playing from YouTube on the TV, I start to understand why people recommend cleaning as you go along. There is a mountain of work ahead of me tonight. Singing along to “Radio Ga Ga” as I scrub the sink, I praise myself on throwing myself into being a responsible adult tonight and cleaning the house rather than seeing if anyone was around to go for a drink.
I stop what I’m doing as I realize that seeing if anyone was around to go for a drink would have been a much better idea and I’m a complete idiot.
My doorbell rings. That will be the delivery of some new books I ordered this week.
But it’s not. It’s Ryan.
“Hi,” he says, his eyes immediately landing on the bottle of surface cleaner and the cloth I’m holding. “Are youcleaning?”
“Yes,” I reply defensively. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to finish our chat from earlier. May I come in?”
“You’ve taken your time getting back to me. You said we’d talk, and then I didn’t hear from you all day.”
“I’m sorry, but I thought it best to talk in person about this.”
“How did you know I was going to be in?”
“I took my chances.”
“You could have messaged so I knew you’d be coming over,” I point out indignantly.
“I did!” he protests.
“No, you did not!” I say, aghast at the verycheekof it.
He rolls his eyes. “Check your phone.”
“I’ve been checking it.”
He sighs. “Can I please come in? I’d really like to talk to you in the flat rather than in the doorway.”
