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But I hear it all in my head: his apologetic voice, the downcast look, the phrase “I like you as a friend.” My hand drops. I walk away wondering how on earth I’ve managed to mess up a relationship that wasn’t even one to begin with.

This is a new low, even for me: the breaking up of a fake relationship.

I can’t even make it through something imaginary.

What is wrong with me? Why do I always get this so wrong?

54

Owen

She misses lunch, which, through the grapevine, I hear is because Jamal’s wife has gone into labour and he had to leave.

It’s a shame because I’d geared myself up to tell Alice exactly how I feel, but when she didn’t show, I started thinking maybe it was for the best. Maybe work isn’t the place to declare feelings like this.

So at three o’clock, I take the leap and text her instead.

Me: Sorry we missed lunch. Why don’t you come to mine after work for dinner instead?

I type and retype the message several times, deleting words and rewriting them before telling myself to grow up and hit Send. The second it goes, a sick feeling burrows beneath my skin.

She doesn’t usually keep her phone on her, so she probably won’t see it until she gets a break, and I’m almost certain she’ll say yes. She’s too kind to decline. She’d never knowingly upset someone.

But even after reading her story, there’s still that small niggle of doubt that maybe she didn’t mean it the way I think she did. Maybe the creative flow simply took over and she ran with it.

I don’t know any writers, and there’s no way to google the answer to this one. I just have to take a massive risk, something I hate doing. Something I’ve done before, and look how that ended.

But Alice isn’t Pippa. They’re nothing alike. And surely that can only be a good thing.

I’m not sure what will happen to Operation Wedding if this conversation doesn’t go the way I hope it will, but that remains to be seen.

I can’t put this off any longer.

I think I might actually go mad if I do.

Heading straight to the supermarket after work, I grab a couple of things to make a carbonara, then go straight home and take a quick shower. Alice will be finishing soon, and it won’t take her long to drive over here, so I prepare the sauce and set a pan on the hob for the pasta.

Nerves rattle my insides while my inner voice tries to talk me out of maybe making the biggest mistake I’ve ever made—other than marrying Pippa.

The doorbell goes, and I’m jumpy as hell as I go to answer it. The outline of Alice in her Kitchen City uniform looms behind the glass.

“Hey!” She beams as I open the door. She looks exhausted. “Thanks for the invite. God, what a day!” she exclaims as I step back and let her into the hallway. “I’m sorry for arriving in my uniform, but I didn’t know whether to go home first and change or whether to just head straight here because I would’ve been so late if I’d have gone home first, so, as you can see, here I am in all my work uniform glory, but I suppose it’s nothing you haven’t seen before.”

She’s talking at me, the way she does when she’s a jumble of energy, as she pulls her shoes off and places them neatly on the shoe stand. I can’t help but smile at them sitting next to my shoes and how it looks right for them to be there.

“Gosh, I’m starving. I didn’t get any lunch, as you know, just grabbed a few bites of my sandwich in between the carnage that was today. Jamal’s wife is still in labour. No news there yet.”

“At least it wasn’t a false alarm,” I say, leading her into the kitchen, where she takes a seat at the island.

“Do you get that? A false alarm, I mean? Is that even possible? Surely you’re either having a baby or you aren’t?” She screws her nose up.

“I’ve been told it can happen, something called Braxton Hicks. They feel like contractions, but they aren’t—just practice contractions, I think.”

“God, as if going through the real thing isn’t enough, they have to give you a practice run.”

I hate the fact that she’s been here two minutes, and we’re already talking about babies. It reminds me of what’s at stake here and pushes me further away from my original intention of telling her how I feel about her.

Busying myself at the hob, I let Alice reel off the list of irritating customers she’s had to deal with today and then onto the ridiculous questions she’s been asked and then onto the arguments she’s had with customers. The whole time, I think that this is what life would be like if we were together. It feels so right.