‘Maybe I will.’ Poppy’s forehead was wrinkled a bit, like she was actually thinking about it. Seriously. The Raf effect was ridiculous. ‘Maybe just one day a week would be okay for Daniel.’
‘I think it definitely would. And I don’t think we should havemaybesabout our resolutions this year.’ Georgie reached for the Prosecco and topped up all their glasses. Wow, they’d finishedanotherbottle. ‘I think we shoulddefinitelydo them.’
She really did want to sort herself out with a healthier lifestyle before she turned thirty-five, which was only just over ten months away.
‘Oh, oh, oh, I know!’ she said. ‘We shouldmakeeach other do them.’
‘How, though?’ Ankita asked.
Georgie waved her empty glass at her. ‘Write them down and make each other stick to them. Simple.’
Ankita shook her head. ‘We’ve tried that before. It doesn’t work. We need a penalty of some kind. Something that will properlymakeus.’
‘I’ve been on my feet for hours. I need a rest.’ Noah, who was the landlord and Raf’s cousin, and who they’d all known forever, put two more bottles of Prosecco and two of red wine down on the table, and squeezed his giant frame into the corner of the three-seater sofa that Beth and Ankita were sitting on. ‘What are we talking about?’
‘Resolutions.’ Beth smiled at him. ‘We all want to make some and we’re trying to work out how to make ourselves keep them.’
‘What are yours?’ asked Noah.
Beth screwed up her face. ‘I don’t totally want to say.’
‘Beth,’ said Raf. ‘Are you saying that you have asecret?’
‘Kind of.’
‘Which is akin to lying by omission?’ Raf smirked.
‘Not always,’ Georgie said. She knew that because she was fast becoming the queen of actual lying by omissionandsecrets, and she didn’t like it.
Raf raised his eyebrows at her. Like he could almost tell what she was thinking.
Georgie raised her own eyebrows right back at him. He didnotknow what she was thinking.
‘Okay.’ Noah finished topping up everyone’s glasses. ‘What’s the Failed Resolution Penalty going to be?’
‘Don’t know.’ Ankita’s brow was furrowed in thought. ‘It has to be a proper punishment.’
‘Obviously,’ said Raf, ‘it should be secret-related. Everyone has to divulge their biggest secret if they don’t keep their resolutions.’
‘That could work.’ Ankita reached for the red wine. She alwaysliked to mix her drinks because she alwaysmaintained that it stopped hangovers (it neverdid). ‘But how will we do that practically?’
‘Brainwave, brainwave, brainwave,’ yelled Poppy, looking a lot livelier all of a sudden. ‘We write our secrets down and put them in envelopes and give them to someone else.’
‘Yes, yes, yes.’ Georgie was very impressed. ‘And if we don’t keep our resolutions the secret envelope gets opened and the secret is read out.’
‘Another brainwave,’ Poppy screeched. ‘We should all address an envelope to ourselves and then pass the envelope to the left and put our secrets in, seal the envelopes and then—’ she paused and everyone stared at her in anticipation ‘—postthem.’
‘Nice.’ Raf nodded.
‘And we have to record the resolutions now and then prove we kept them,’ Noah said. ‘Photographic evidence.’
‘We can set up a chat and send the photos to it.’ Poppy was still shouting veryexcitably.
‘Clever.’ Beth nodded. ‘And we reconvene here in exactly one year’s time to open the envelopes.’
‘We need to drink to this,’ commanded Ankita.
Noah filled everyone’s glasses, again, and then they all went for a down-in-one, just as Declan, Poppy’s husband, pushed open the pub’s main door and made his way over to them.
