‘Bacon and eggs?’ asked her stepfather.
‘Actually, I wouldn’t mind a bacon sandwich.’ She never mentioned bacon in her resolutions, so she was totally fine to have it, and there was no hangover that a bacon sarnie couldn’t help. ‘In about fifteen minutes, if that’s okay.’ Fifteen minutes. Two miles. Nope, not a hope in hell. ‘Actually, probably in about half an hour. Maybe forty minutes. I’m just popping out first.’
‘Mum, are you wearingrunning kit?’ Max was staring at her.
‘Yep.’ Georgie gave what was hopefully a nonchalant-looking shrug.
‘Sick,’ said Max.
Sick was about right. Georgie hadn’t felt this nauseous since she was pregnant.
‘Happy New Year.’ Her mother looked up from her magazine. ‘Enjoy your… What? Where are you going now?’
Georgie winced. Her family’s voices werereallyhurting her head.
‘Just a run,’ she said.
Max and her stepfather were both staring at her. Fair enough; neither of them had ever witnessed her go for a run before.
‘Oh.’ Her mother frowned. ‘You’ll be back to look after Max, though, won’t you? We’re having a family New Year’s lunch.’
‘Yes, I will.’ Georgie spoke loudly to try to divert Max’s attention but it didn’t work.
‘Do you mean you’re having a family lunch without us?’ he asked.
‘Yes. An all-day thing, actually. Evening, too.’ Her mother wasn’t evenlookingat him – her grandson – as she spoke; she was concentrating on her magazine again. ‘Us and the girls and Alfie.’
The girlswere her other two daughters, Georgie’s half-sisters, Lauren and Lottie, and Alfie was Lauren’s baby.
‘But we’re in your family,’ Max persisted.
‘Not inourfamily.’ Georgie’s mum turned a page. ‘I mean just our little nuclear family.’
‘You can come if you like,’ Georgie’s stepfather said after a pause, during which Georgie’s mother had continued to read her magazine.
Georgie battled with herself not to sayHow dareyou treat my son like thatand just about won.
‘That’s areallylovely invitation.’ She knew her voice was laced with anger and she didn’t care. ‘But we’re meeting our friends in the pub. My best friends. A different kind of family.’ She looked at Max. Shereallydidn’t want to leave him now but for his sake as much as anyone’s, she had to attempt to stick to her resolutions. ‘I’ll be back soon,’ she told him. ‘You can play FIFA while I’m out if you like. I love you.’
She had to try very hard not to slam the kitchen door shut behind her. If there was one thing she hated even more than being second best to both her parents’ new families, it was them making Max feel second best. Howcouldthey? Thank goodness for her friends, who were more like family than her actual family had ever been.
And because she loved her friends, she was going to get out there now and run her two miles and then make a plan.
After a bit more severe pain, whilst she bent down to do up the laces of her pristine, never-before-used, at least five-year-oldrunning shoes, her waistband digging into her bladder area and her head feeling as though it was going to explode, she let herself out of the house. As she went, she took a quick selfie and posted it to the chat, feeling smug all over again when she saw that still no one else had posted anything in there.
If you had to go running, it was a beautiful day for it: frosty, with light, powdery snow falling, but with a blue sky and the sun peeping through from behind pale grey cotton-wool clouds. The setting was amazing too. Georgie hadn’t really appreciated it when she was growing up, but as an adult she recognised every time she visited how chocolate-box perfect Melting Bishop was. All the houses were eighteenth- and nineteenth-century honey-coloured Cotswold stone, set either round the village green or in windy little roads off the green. Her mother and stepfather’s house, where she and Max were staying for the weekend, was wide, low and double-fronted, with views across the green from the front, and over their garden and open fields from the back windows.
Her eye alit on the postbox on the edge of the green.
She should google whether it was legal for posties to give letters back to you if you lay in wait for them when they came to collect mail. Although she’d need to think about that because, since the address on the envelope was in Raf’s handwriting, it would be tricky to prove that she’d written it without showing Jack, the postman, the letter itself, which she obviously wasn’t going to do; he’d been the village postman as long as she could remember and knew everyone.
Maybe it would be safer to convince Raf to give the letter back to her unopened after it was delivered.How, though? He lived inNew York.
She heard herself moan out loud. It was all so complicated.
She jogged across the green and around the pond in its centre, enjoying her trainered feet crunching the lovely,untouched, crisp snow, and really not enjoying the way that every step caused her head to pound. By the time she got to the pub opposite, her heart was pounding too, she was boiling, and every step felt like an effort. She ran round the corner of the pub and straight into a much larger person.
Her feet lost their grip and she started to fall, until strong arms caught her and stood her upright. Raf’s voice, sounding a little sniggery, said, ‘Morning. Would running be one of your resolutions?’
