She did not want there to be strife amongst her best friends. Now or ever. She wishedso muchthat she could just ignore her secret. She didn’t have any choice though; she had to work out whether her suspicions were right.
‘I wonder whether we should all get going,’ she said. ‘Can we all have a big hug first?’
She group-hugged them into herhard. She didn’t want them to argue with each other and she didn’t want any of them to hate her.
So she’d be back at yoga in two weeks’ time, and she’d better learn some more Italian in the meantime and make a plan to get her secret back from Raf. And obviously work out soon whether or not the secret wasright.
Georgie had ample time to reflect on all sorts on the very long drive home after yoga, including the fact that it didn’t matter that they’d pissed off Mags so much; realistically it would not work for her to schlepp all the way to Cirencester for yoga every fortnight. She also thought a lot about Poppy and Declan, obviously, and about Raf. And her secret.
Once she was home and scrabbling around her kitchen to get things ready for work in the morning, her eye alit on the secret letter she’d received in the post a few days before.
She couldn’t actually remember who’d put their secret in her envelope, but she had to admit she was curious about what was in there.
She wondered whether Raf was curious about what was inherenvelope. He wouldn’t dream of opening it, though, she was sure. She hoped.
Georgie was jogging slowly past her favourite café the next morning, the one that made her favourite carrot cake with butter icing (shehatedher resolutions), when she had a brainwave.
Recent events had proved that she needed to be surreptitious, but there was a really easy way of doing that.
As soon as she got home, she took her laptop out. Nope, no good; there was nothing available online for ages. She was going to have to call.
Seventeen minutes later, after she’d listened to ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ all the way through three times on hold, she finally got through.
‘It’s urgent,’ she said. ‘Could I get an appointment one evening this week?’
‘You have to call on the day and book a daytime one if it’s urgent.’
‘Okay. Great.’
Dammit. Okay. Fine.
She went back online and booked the first one she could – for three weeks away – as a backstop for if she couldn’t find another way.
10
GEORGIE
Shiiiiit. It was 10.58p.m. Georgie dropped her tea towel and sprinted for her bedroom, leapt into bed, pulled the duvet right up to her chin, took a selfie of herself and posted it to the ‘Resolutions’ chat. It was already becoming difficult to remember to keep on proving that she was going to bed in good time four nights a week.
If only it was as easy as this to ‘prove’ that she was sticking to all her other resolutions. Bloody yoga. Bloody skating. Bloody Italian.
Back out of bed, because she had at least another hour of tidying and marking to do, she went back into the kitchen to finish the dishes.
As she was squeezing all her saucepans into an over-full cupboard a message pinged in from Raf.
So I’m back in Bristol. Having been away for so long, I don’t have many running partners here so naturally you sprang to mind. You up for a run?
No. Actual torture. She was getting better at running and was heading towards the point where she might even post a picture of her ‘map my run’ time on the chat instead of herself in running kit, but she didn’t want to run with actual fit people.
Although… Maybe, somehow, they might end up in his house and she could find the letter…
Running, though.
Oh. Brainwave.
You know what kind of partner I WOULD like? A skating one.
You Torvill, me Dean?
