He squeezes my shoulder. ‘It is great to see you, though. And yeah, it’s a pretty crazy coincidence. Fate, maybe? I did wonder why I suddenly wanted a pint this evening, of all evenings.’ He does an exaggerated mysterious face, and I can’t help smiling. I’d forgotten how cute he is when he clowns around.
No. Not smiling. Not cute. I think of what Gerty and Mo would say, and gather my resolve.
‘What did you want to talk to me about?’
‘I am glad I bumped into you,’ he says. ‘I really . . . I have been meaning to call. But it’s so hard to know where to start.’
‘Hit the phone icon, I’d suggest, then search your contacts by name?’ I say. My voice is shaking a little, and I hope he doesn’t hear it.
He laughs. ‘I forgot how funny you are when you’re angry. No, I mean, I didn’t want to tell you this on the phone.’
‘Tell me what? Let me guess. That you’ve broken up with the woman you left me for?’
I’ve caught him off guard. There’s a little thrill when I see his perfect confident smile waver, and then a wash of something else – more like anxiety. I don’t want to piss him off. I take a deep breath. ‘I don’t want to see you, Justin. This doesn’t change anything. You still left me for her, you still – you still . . .’
‘I never cheated on you,’ he says immediately. We’ve begun walking, I’m not sure where; he stops me again and puts his hands on my shoulders, turning me so I have to look him in the face. ‘I would never do that to you, Tiffy. You know how crazy I am about you.’
‘Was.’
‘What?’
‘How crazy I was about you, is what you meant to say.’ Already I wish I’d taken the chance to tell him that the reason I don’t want to see him is actually nothing to do with Patricia. Although I’m not sure what it is about. It’s about . . . all the other stuff, whatever that was. I feel very muddled all of a sudden. Justin’s presence always does this to me – makes me all confused until I lose my train of thought. That was part of the romance, I guess, but right now it doesn’t feel nice at all.
‘Don’t tell me what I mean and don’t mean.’ He looks away for a moment. ‘Look, I’m here now. Can’t we just go get a drink somewhere and talk about it? Come on. We can go to that champagne bar around the corner where they serve your drinks in paint cans. Or we can go to the top of the Shard, remember when I took you there as a treat? What do you say?’
I stare at him. His big, brown eyes, always so earnest, always sparkling with that crazy excitement that caught me up every time. His perfect jawline. His confident smile. I try very hard not to think about the awful memory that came when I kissed Ken, but it seems to be in my system now, worse than ever with Justin here. My skin’s crawling with it.
‘Why didn’t you call me?’
‘I told you,’ he says, impatient now, ‘I didn’t know how to tell you about this.’
‘And why are you here?’
‘Tiffy,’ he says sharply, ‘just come for a drink.’
I flinch, and then take another deep breath. ‘You want to talk to me, you call ahead and we arrange a time. Not now.’
‘When, then?’ he asks, frowning, his hands still heavy on my shoulders.
‘Just . . . I need time.’ My head feels cloudy. ‘I don’t want to talk to you right now.’
‘Time like a couple of hours?’
‘Time like a couple of months,’ I say before I’ve thought about it, and then I bite my lip, because now I’ve given us a deadline.
‘I want to see you now,’ he says, and suddenly the hands that are on my shoulders have moved to touch my hair, my upper arm.
That flashback plays behind my eyes. I shrug him off. ‘Try delayed gratification, Justin. It’s the only kind you’re going to get, and I have a feeling it’ll be good for you.’
And with that, I turn before I can change my mind, and stumble back into the bar.
26
Leon
Holly has almost a full head of hair now. She’s like a female Harry Potter – hair sticking up all over the place no matter how much her mum tries to