‘Lily?’ she heard Aaliyah say. And then, ‘Hi, Matt. You probably don’t remember me. I’m Tess and Lily’s friend, Aaliyah.’
Marvellous.
Two
Matt
Matt was struggling not to laugh, which was ridiculous, because this was not funny.
Well, the fact that Lily had draped a large purple thing over her head and leapt behind some scarves to avoid him was funny.
But the fact that now they were clearly going to have to speak to each other was not so funny.
He’d really thought that Tom had told him that Tess had had a big hen weekend in London a few weeks ago, so he’d assumed that her friends wouldn’t be here for longer than a day or so before the wedding and that he wouldn’t have to see Lily until later in the week.
When they’d split up and she’d refused to speak to him again, he hadn’t understood where she was coming from. Right now, he did understand. Last night, when he’d seen her in the restaurant, he’d felt like his head and heart might explode just at the sight of her, let alone at the prospect of holding an actual conversation with her. It was just too much. He needed to be prepared, and he wasn’t prepared yet. He should have worked out something to say when they next met while he was lying awake last night thinking about her.
‘Matt?’ Aaliyah repeated.
‘Hi, Aaliyah,’ he said. ‘Of course I remember you.’ He’d spent a lot of time with Tess, Aaliyah and the fourth of their group, Meg, during the fifteen months that he and Lily had been together. He’d barely seen Aaliyah and Meg since, though. Aaliyah put her arms out and they shared a quick hug. ‘It’s been a while. What have you been up to?’
‘Having babies, basically,’ Aaliyah said. ‘I have three kids now. And I work part-time as a GP practice nurse. How’ve you been?’
‘Wow. That sounds busy. Congratulations. Yeah, I’m good, thanks.’ He smiled at her, and tried hard – and failed – not to glance over to Lily, still under the purple thing. He didn’t do social media and he’d always avoided talking to Tess about Lily since their split, because he just hadn’t wanted to know. Now hedidwant to know. Didshehave a partner and three kids?
And was she happy? He hoped so.
Aaliyah’s eyes were moving backwards and forwards between him and Lily behind the scarf display.
‘Hi, Lily,’ he said reluctantly. God, his voice sounded odd.
Lily didn’t move for a moment, and then she lowered the purple thing slowly and looked out round the display and gave a little shake of her head with her eyebrows raised, like she was trying to act surprised.
And despite the renewed sense of unfinished business festering inside him – apparently he really hadn’t parked his feelings about her at all – and the purple fabric still draped across Lily’s cheek and shoulder, all he could think was how beautiful her heart-shaped face was and how he wished she was smiling right now because he’d always loved her smile.
She had her hair done differently. It was naturally wavy and she never used to straighten it – it would be down or up on top of her head, but always with lots of curls – but today, and last night too – she’d done something to make it straight and had it up in a thick, highish ponytail.
‘Oh, hello, Matt. I didn’t see you there. I was just looking at these lovely scarves. Howareyou?’ She flung her arms out in a parody of a surprised gesture and knocked the scarf display with her right arm. ‘Ouch,’ she said, as the whole display careened away from her and crashed – surprisingly quietly – at an angle onto a display of bags, piles of brightly coloured scarves cascading to the floor.
‘Are you okay?’ Matt asked, stepping forward and pulling the display back to vertical. It looked like her arm had hit the edge of one of the shelves with quite serious force.
‘Yes, thank you.’ She flexed her arm a little without looking at it. Lily’s automatic response to everything had always been that she was fine. The time she broke her wrist skiing when they were together, she’d refused to admit it was even hurting, until he’d caught her cradling the wrist with her other hand with tears in her eyes. So she might be okay, or she might be really hurt. ‘I can’t believe I just did that.’
She looped the purple thing over her shoulder, bent down and began to gather up scarves. It looked like her wrist was okay, actually.
Matt stared down at her. If he was honest, he just wanted to leave the shop immediately, to not have to talk to Lily, but obviously he had to help her clear up. He bent down too.
Damn. He was too close to her; he could smell her scent, the same one that she’d always used, hints of almond and vanilla he remembered her telling him one time, when they’d been standing in her bathroom together. God, that had been an intimate moment. Which he shouldn’t be thinking about now.
He edged backwards and looked hard at the scarves on the floor, to give his heart rate a chance to settle.
‘Why don’t I take that?’ Aaliyah reached over Matt’s head for the purple thing on Lily’s shoulder. ‘There isn’t space for me to squeeze in down there too.’ She looked behind her to where the shop worker was busy with another customer. ‘He genuinely doesn’t seem to have noticed. Why don’t I go and chat to him about sunglasses to distract him while you tidy?’
‘Good plan, thank you,’ Lily said, smoothing, folding, piling and replacing scarves really quickly.
‘You’ve got a serious talent for stacking shelves with scarves.’ Matt was going as fast as he could, at about a quarter of her rate.
‘I know and I never realised.’ Lily didn’t pause her lightning scarf-work to speak. ‘Such an important life skill. I’m not quite so talented at crouching like this, though. My thighs are killing me.’ She placed a pile of red scarves neatly on a shelf and shifted from her squat to a cross-legged sitting position before moving on to a heap of blue scarves.
