the most romantic thing ever, somehow it was. It was like there was an electric current running between Adam and me that intensified whenever we passed each other, and sent sparks flying between us when our eyes met and we smiled. He’d probably say it was just static from the cheap nylon carpet, but I knew better.
‘Two hundred metres to go,’ I said. ‘You’re doing brilliantly, keep pushing. Yeah, we did. And it was off. The Scale. Like we’d had years of practice. Or maybe he’s just a natural at it, I don’t know. But it wasn’t awkward or cringe or anything, just lovely. Even when my cat jumped on the bed in the middle of it. Honestly, he and Adam have this total bromance going. Frazzle thinks he’s the best thing ever.’
‘He’s not the only one,’ Dani said, giving me side-eye from her position on the rower.
‘Oy! Who was it who just referred to her new boyfriend as “the most amazing person in the world”?’
Dani opened her mouth to argue – possibly to make the point that clearly, from her objective point of view, Mike was the most perfect man ever to have drawn breath, in which case I’d have had to argue the toss and tell her that clearly, going purely on the evidence, Adam was a superior human being, and it would all have got a bit silly – but fortunately she didn’t have the breath to say anything at all.
‘One more pull,’ I encouraged her, feeling like someone on Call the Midwife, ‘and you’re there.’
‘Right.’ Dani lay on her back on the floor, her chest heaving. ‘Your turn next, and then we’re done, right?’
‘Then can we go to that place down the road that does the incredible cupcakes?’
‘For sure.’
I got back on the machine, telling myself that I’d be finished in just another couple of minutes. But my legs were still feeling trembly with fatigue, and I knew I’d need all the help I could get to last the final kilometre.
‘So I take it you haven’t heard from Fabian again?’
‘Oh. My. God. I was saving this up to tell you over cake, but do you want to hear it now?’
‘Go on then.’
‘I didn’t hear anything from him for ages. Like, over a week. I was so relieved the calls and the bloody flowers had stopped, because I was starting to feel like I was living in a flaming funeral parlour and I kept having to go round to the old people’s home with these ridiculous bouquets, and I was worried they’d start thinking I was crushing on one of the residents. So I reckoned Mike warning him off had worked, and I was right. Kind of.’
‘What happened then?’ I panted.
‘Then, last Friday, I was at work, and he walked in through the door. Only he wasn’t alone.’
‘Oh shit.’
‘My mum was with him.’
‘What?’ Literally thrown off my stroke, I slowed down and almost stopped.
‘Keep going, Zoë. Think of the cupcakes. Yeah, he turned up with my mum, at my work. I almost died.’
‘But how…?’
‘Obviously I had no idea what had happened, but Mum explained it all to me afterwards. I’d told him a bit about her, how we didn’t have the best relationship and stuff, and how sad it made me, and how I hoped one day we’d be able to make things right again. I thought at the time he wasn’t listening, because he never really did, but he must’ve been. Because he found out her address and wrote to her.’
I kept rowing and didn’t say anything, but my mind was whirling. Fabian Flatley? Getting in touch with Dani’s mother to try and arrange a reconciliation between them? It seemed about as likely as Frazzle setting up a shelter for homeless mice.
‘He sent her photos of me,’ Dani almost whispered. ‘Of me… you know.’
‘Revenge porn?’ I gasped. ‘The bastard!’
‘Bastard is right. God knows what he thought was going to happen. I mean, it couldn’t have made things that much worse between her and me than they already were, right? But he picked a fight with the wrong person when he did that. Twenty metres to go… ten… and you’re done.’
‘Never mind done, I’m broken. So what did your mum do?’
‘She went full mama bear. She looked him up on LinkedIn – I didn’t know she even knew what LinkedIn was, but she did – and she found his work address and she got a train from Liverpool and marched right into the office and demanded to