“Come on, Bex, I didn’t know Dan was going to pop the question tonight!” I said defensively.
“Tell me something,” Bex said. “If you’d known, would you have been here on time? Would you have walked away from this oh-so-fabulous opportunity to be here to be part of the announcement?”
I hesitated, just for a second. But it was a second too long. Bex’s eyes dimmed, and I knew I’d made a mistake. “Yes. Yes!”
“Wow.” Bex slumped back in her chair, looking drained. “I don’t know what to say anymore. What will it take for you to wake up and look around at what you’re missing?”
Dan leaned forward. “Hey, guys, I think we’re all in agreement here, yeah? Lucie’s job sucks—”
“Herbosssucks,” Bex corrected him irritably.
“Right, right,” he said. “So why don’t we take a breath, finish this wine?”
“I like that idea,” I said gratefully. “I don’t want to fight on your big night.”
“Neither do I.” Bex rose to her feet. “I’m staying at Dan’s tonight.”
“Don’t do this. I want to celebrate with you,” I begged. “Come on, let me make up for this.”
“I’m staying at Dan’s,” Bex repeated. Even though our flat was a ten-second walk from Sergio’s and Dan’s place was at least thirty minutes away.
Bex’s face was resolute. I gulped. God, I’d really made a mess of things. “Fine. If that’s what you want.”
Bex pulled on her coat, then picked up the gift bag, peered in. I had framed a photo of us during a dress rehearsal for the last ever show we’d performed in at university,Cabaret. We were mugging for the camera in our costumes, entirely unaware of several castmates behind us frowning at our buffoonery. It never failed to make me smile.
“I thought we could hang it in the living room,” I said. “The frame is custom.”
Bex nodded dully. “Thanks. I’ll see you later.” And with that, she left. I watched her leave, a seething mass of guilt and frustration burning its way from my inside out. Dan slowly stood, lifting his coat off the back of his chair.
I met his eyes miserably. “I’m so sorry,” I said. “I feel terrible.”
“I know,” he said. “Bex will be all right. She just really wanted you here when she announced it. Almost the first thing she said after accepting the proposal was that she couldn’t wait to tell you.”
I buried my head in my hands. “I don’t know why she puts up with me.”
“She loves you.” Dan dropped a kiss on my bowed head. “I’ll talk to her. But she has a point. Make sure all this hard work leads to something. You deserve it.”
“That’s all I was trying to do,” I said. “I know I’ll regret missing her big night forever, I really will. But I also felt like this was a proper chance, you know?” I downed the rest of my fizz. “Maybe I should just choose another career entirely. I can’t lose her. She’s, like, the only family I have.”
“Well, we’re always looking for good people at my work,” Dan said. He worked in insurance and earned a packet.
I shriveled internally. I would not last a minute in the insurance industry. Dan thrived in it; he used words like ‘exponentially’ in everyday conversation, understood wine regionsand knew what the hell an ISA was. If that’s what it took to succeed in his world, then I would have no place there.
My face obviously showed my reticence and Dan laughed. “I get it, you’d rather die than go corporate,” he said indulgently. “You have big dreams.” Then his face dropped. “Shit, I sounded like I was taking the piss just then, but I wasn’t. I think it’s great to have a dream. All mine are basic, like reach par in my golf game and make the perfect soufflé. Yours is real. We just worry about what it’s costing you.”
I smiled. He really was the nicest man I knew. “I know.”
“You’ll get there,” Dan told me kindly. “I believe in you. And it may not seem like it right now, but Bex does too.”
A little later, ensconced in my pajamas in front of the TV, I nursed a cocoa and doom-scrolled Instagram to see my feed full of pics from Bex’s big night. There was Bex, beautiful and smiling, brandishing her gorgeous ring. To Bex’s left, Dan staring at his new fiancée with stars in his eyes. On Bex’s right, an empty chair. My chair. What did my Instagram hold? Multiple arty shots of coffee, but nothing resembling a successful personal life.
I threw my phone down with a groan. Maybe Bex was right. What was the point of working yourself to the bone day in, day out, only for your dreams to go unfulfilled? What if, after all this graft and sacrifice, I had nothing to show for it apart from a non-existent love life and an empty bank account? Bex had been the closest thing I’d had to family for years now and yet the way I’d treated her, I wouldn’t blame her if she escaped to Hertford and left me for dust.
Chapter Five
Iwas unceremoniously dragged from a bizarre dream about drowning in tiramisu by the familiar drone of my phone. I rolled over and checked the screen.Lin.Of course it was. Saturday wouldn’t be complete without a wake-up call from her.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” Lin bellowed down the phone before I could even greet her.
