‘Night, then,’ Jack said, and he smiled so wide she could see his whole mouthful of perfect, straight white teeth.
Half an hour later, Rachel was standing outside Will and Tom’s building. She pressed the buzzer, hoping Will would be the one to answer the door. She felt almost grubby after talking to Jack about Tom; like she wasn’t sure she could look him in the face.
The front door opened and Anna peered around it, a green biro in her mouth and her glasses pushed up on top of her head. She must be marking kids’ exercise books.
She smiled and beckoned Rachel inside, then said, ‘They’ve mugged us off, Rach – they’ve ordered Domino’s, lazy bastards.’
‘I heard that,’ Will said as they entered the sitting room.
‘You were meant to,’ Anna answered, sticking her tongue out at him.
Rachel was laughing. ‘What happened to making us dinner? I was promised pasta bake. I expected to come in here and find you guys chopping vegetables, or at least opening a jar of Uncle Ben’s.’
‘Cooking doesn’t get tougher than this!’ Tom shouted from the kitchen, brandishing a four-pack of beers and a bottle opener.
She laughed again. ‘At least tell me you ordered some of that cheesy garlic bread …?’
‘We did,’ Tom said. ‘Ofcoursewe did. Want a drink?’
‘Sure.’
Too many carbs and two bottles of Asahi later, Rachel and Anna were getting ready to head home. Will was due in Dublin the following morning and would be leaving for the airport in the small hours. Anna had said she was buggered if she was staying over tonight only to be awoken by his 3 a.m. alarm.
‘You good to go, Rach?’ she asked.
‘Yeah. I might just pop to the bathroom, though.’
The last time she’d been in here was on the day Oscar threw up all over her. At the time she’d been preoccupied with getting blackcurrant-coloured vomit out of her hair, but now she was feeling nosier. She was struck by how sparse the room was in comparison with the bathroom at their place. There were no pink razors in the shower caddy, no exfoliating body brushes, no half-finished bottles of body lotion or abandoned anti-ageing eye creams. Will and Tom didn’t have any slowly perishing pot plants or mascara-stained flannels, like she and Anna did.
Then she spotted a posh-looking rose-scented body scrub on the window ledge. It clearly didn’t belong to either Will or Tom, and Rachel knew it couldn’t be Anna’s. She loathed floral fragrances and always chose green or mannish scents.
So whosewasit? Could Tom be seeing someone who’d stayed over and left it here?
Rachel thought back to the day when she’d met him and Dev in Soho. Tom had gone off on some kind of date after, and never told her who with.
She unscrewed the lid of the heavy, expensive glass jar and breathed in the aroma. It was sweet but not syrupy; fresh, light and lovely. Rachel felt a sudden surge of dislike for whoever owned it, then forced her annoyance down like bad-tasting medicine.
She put the container back on the ledge. She was being weird. Inappropriate, even. Screwing the lid back on the jar, Rachel told herself that if Tom was involved with someone, she was bound to be nice. And if he wasn’t ready to talk to his friends about her yet, he didn’t have to.
‘Bloody hell, Rach, you’ve been ages!’ Anna yelled through the bathroom door. ‘Are you okay? Have you fallen down the loo?’
‘Sorry!’ Rachel called back. ‘I’m coming now.’
She washed her hands noisily, avoiding her own eyes in the mirror above the sink, then went back to her friends.
23
‘What do we think about calla lilies?’ Anna asked as she stir-fried a wok full of vegetables the following Monday night. ‘I was originally thinking dahlias and roses, but I wonder if calla lilies might be more elegant. I guess it all depends on the dress I choose, but I need to get a florist sorted … Rach? Rach, are you listening?’
Rachel looked up from the book she was reading – a taut crime thriller foisted on her by her mum – and arranged her face. In truth, she wasn’t sure what calla lilies looked like and didn’t much care. But Anna’s excitement about wedding planning was something a good friend – a less selfish friend – would share.
Smiling despite the waterlogged feeling in her chest, Rachel said, ‘Dahlias get my vote, but they’ve always been my favourite. Can you not book a florist now and confirm the details later?’
‘Maybe,’ Anna mused. ‘I keep wondering about hydrangeas too … Pale pink, perhaps, or white.’
Rachel merely nodded, and after a few minutes’ silence Anna asked, ‘How’s everything at work? How are things with Jack?’
‘Fine,’ Rachel lied. ‘All very professional.’
