‘You’ve told Jack WHAT?’ Anna demanded after Rachel’s first attempt at an explanation. She was aghast, and she had less than five minutes to adjust to the news thattonight, Matthew, Tom was going to be … Rachel’s boyfriend!
It wasn’t only cowardice that had led Rachel to leave her admission to the last minute. She knew that Anna wouldn’t approve of the ruse, and the less time she had to get indignant and teachery about it, the better.
‘In my defence, I didn’ttellJack anything. At least, not to begin with,’ Rachel said. ‘He made an assumption I chose not to correct, and … well. Perhaps it ended up going a bit far.’
‘A bit far?!’ Anna thundered. ‘That’s one way of putting it. For God’s sake, what a MESS … And I presume this is all for the sake of driving Jack wild with jealousy?’
‘Not exactly,’ Rachel said, choosing this moment to examine, then pick at, the rough edge of a fingernail. ‘Though it does appear to have had that effect. It was as much about trying not to feel sopatheticaround him – trying to send a signal that he couldn’t just pick me back up and play with me whenever he felt like it.’
Anna let out an angry breath that Rachel was surprised didn’t ignite the fence they were standing next to. ‘After everything – the cheating and the endless tears and the bottomless rage – you couldn’t send him that messageanotherway?’ she asked, incredulous. She shook her head briefly, as though she were embarrassed on Rachel’s behalf. ‘Did it evenwork?’
Rachel felt like the wind had been knocked out of her. ‘Not exactly.’
Anna was wearing a pained expression, as though she could smell something unpleasant.
‘And Tom is in on this?’ she asked. ‘He’s agreed to thisridiculous pretence?’
Rachel nodded weakly but kept quiet – fearful that saying the wrong thing might fan the flames of Anna’s rising, righteous anger.
‘I suppose you didn’t think at all about Tom’s feelings,’ Anna said, starting to walk again. ‘About how this might affecthim.’
‘Well … I suppose it’s annoying for him,’ Rachel mumbled, not quite sure what Anna was expecting from her and stumbling to keep up as she strode around the corner. The piano bar was now in sight. ‘And I know it’s wrong of me to have involved him in a lie.’
Anna squeezed her eyes shut and took a deep breath. ‘Un-fucking-believable.’ Rachel noted that her friend’s shoulders had travelled several centimetres north towards her earlobes. Also that she was swearing, which years spent in the classroom had largely cured her of – no matter what the provocation.
Anna sighed, then seemed to collect herself. ‘We don’t have time to talk about this now; your birthday guests – or should I sayaudience? – await.’
Rachel flinched at her sarcasm.
‘The one thing I will say is this,’ Anna went on. ‘In all the years I’ve known you, I’ve never thought of you as manipulative. Guarded, definitely. Scared to let people in. Economical with the truth at times, for the sake of self-preservation. But this isgame-playing, Rach: messing with other people’s emotions for your own ends. And it seems not to have occurred to you that someone might get hurt.’
With that, she marched forward, pushed open the huge wooden door to the bar and went in, holding it open behind her.
Reeling, Rachel followed.
That could have gone worse, she told herself – though she wasn’t entirely sure how.
Will handed Rachel an amaretto sour, and after eating the sticky cherry garnish off the side she told herself to sip it slowly.Resist the temptation to neck it.
The cold tang of the drink was delicious on her tongue: a welcome distraction from the weirdness of the situation. Almost everyone who’d been invited to her birthday celebration was here now, and she’d already dealt with Kemi’s astonishment at being introduced to her ‘boyfriend’.
‘I’d have believed you weren’t shagging Harper if you’d told me you had a hottie at home,’ she’d said, dumbfounded. ‘And he issuper-hot. Maybe even more so than Jack, if you’re into the sexy scientist look.’
Rachel had bristled at this. ‘Tom’s a graphic designer, Kemi. Not everyone who wears glasses is a scientist.’
‘Whatever. He’s still a total snack,’ she’d said, shrugging. Rachel, unreasonably annoyed by the exchange, had been glad when Ella appeared and Kemi flew screaming across the room to greet her.
The combination of bourbon and amaretto in her drink had already begun to tamp down Rachel’s anxiety. What was initially a rolling boil of worry in her stomach had reduced to a simmer. She suspected she’d be able to ignore it altogether by the time this glass – or maybe the next one – was empty.
A moment later Tom was back from the bathroom. With some difficulty he squeezed himself onto the velvet-covered bench that Rachel, Anna and Will were already sitting on, separating her from the others. Greg and his husband Carlos were sharing their booth – one of several that had been reserved for Rachel and her friends.
Tom could have sat next to Greg, in the obviously available space on the other side of the table. When she looked at him to query why he was squashing her, he widened his eyes in a meaningful stare. ‘We’re supposed to be an item, aren’t we?’ he whispered when no one was looking. ‘And wasn’t thisyouridea?’
It felt odd being this close to Tom when it wasn’t strictly necessary. They were crushed together from shoulder to knee, their legs touching under the table and their arms colliding each time one of them moved. It wasn’t uncomfortable or unpleasant, but it was definitely unsettling.
He smelled so much like himself: of citrus, soap powder and something else enticing that she couldn’t put her finger on. It was the same fragrance she’d noticed that day in the beer bar, when he’d gone off on his mysterious date. All of Rachel’s senses were overloaded, short-circuiting. The nearness of someone large and male, the noise of the bar and the sharp sweetness of her drink were all conspiring to muddle her thinking.
Carlos’s voice cut through the general clamour and brought Rachel back to the moment. ‘It’s lovely to meet you, finally,’ he said. ‘Greg’s told me so much about you.’
