‘Is it your lovely next-door neighbour in London?’ asked Beth.
‘Nope. He’s gay. And even if he weren’t, we’re too good friends.’
‘Your uni friend, Fred?’ asked Poppy.
‘No,’ said Ankita. ‘Also too good a friend.’
‘Who?’ said Georgie.
‘Okay.’ Ankita’s smile was coy, there was no other word for it. Which was weird, because in the thirty years that they’dknown her, she’d never done coyness. And now she was twisting her hair round her finger so much that her hair was literally in danger of looking messed up. ‘It’s Noah.’
Beth blinked. ‘Noah who?’
‘Noah Burton. Duck and Grapes.’
‘No way,’ Poppy breathed.
‘I’ve basically had a crush on him since we were about fifteen.’
‘Oh.’ Beth’s jaw was literally hanging open. Georgie gave her a little nudge. Obviously itwasastonishing. Noah was gorgeous, but in a cuddly, rugby-playery, slightly dishevelled way. He was the perfect pub landlord. Always cheerful, always chatty, always nice. But not like a London banker. Not like Ankita. It was mind-boggling imagining them together. What would they have in common? But Ankita was obviously really excited, so they should be pleased for her.
‘So did he ask you out?’ said Georgie.
‘I askedhimout,’ said Ankita.
‘Wow,’ said Poppy. ‘Congratulations.’
‘He didn’t mention it,’ said Beth.
The others all turned to stare at her.
‘DoesNoah mention a lot of stuff to you?’ asked Ankita, frowning slightly.
‘I’ve been doing his flowers at the pub twice-weekly since New Year,’ said Beth, ‘so four times now, and we’ve ended up chatting quite a lot. Speaking of which, he told me that Raf’s moving back to England.’
Raf was moving back to England? Wow. Huge.Huge. Georgie really needed to find out where he’d be living; if it was anywhere nearby she might be able to engineer going to his home and getting the letter back. That would beamazing.
As Georgie opened her mouth to ask about Raf’s move, Beth said, ‘But I’ll tell you about that in a minute. First tell usabout the date with Noah. Where are you going? When did you ask him out? What happened?’ She sounded almost accusatory. Honestly, absolutely everyone seemed to have gone a bit mad recently.
When they’d finished talking about the quite astonishing Ankita-and-Noah-date news, Georgie would have to manoeuvre the conversation back to Raf.
Apparently, Ankita had fancied the pants off Noah for nineteen years and had dated a lot less than everyone had always assumed.
It was funny how you could know people really well for most of your life and still not know everything about them. Well, notthatfunny. None of Georgie’s friends had a clue about her current predicament and it was not amusing.
‘This is so exciting, Ankita,’ Poppy said. ‘I’m so impressed that you asked Noah out.’
‘It’ll be nice for Raf’s family that he’s moving back to England, won’t it?’ Beth hadn’t said anything for a while. She really was giving the impression that she wasn’t super happy about Ankita dating Noah.
‘Raf’s gorgeous, isn’t he, Georgie?’ Ankita clearly thought it would be nice to move the conversation away from her and Noah. ‘Maybe something will happen between you and we could go on a double date.’
Georgie laughed. Frankly, if it would get her secret back, she’d go on any number of double dates.
‘Assuming everything works out with you and Noah,’ Beth said, not sounding at all jokey.
Georgie turned to stare at her. Beth never, ever said negative or mean things.
She looked at her three best friends: Beth sweet and mad-haired in pink, Ankita svelte in black, Poppy in her stained top, her ponytail lopsided from all the hugging earlier and her eyesand nose still a little bit red, but still looking beautiful, and doingsowell to try to rise above the hideous Declan affair thing. Apart from Max, they meant more in the world to her than anyone else. This Noah thing was not good.
