Plus she needed to get home because she had to pick Max up from his sleepover and tell him about his father, given that Declan now knew.
In the end, she sent Poppy a message.
Poppy, I’m so sorry again. I love you and I never intended to hurt you – I was trying NOT to hurt you but of course failed spectacularly – if I could go back in time I would do things so very, very differently. I would just have told you and Declan immediately of my suspicions. I have to go back to Bristol now to pick Max up. I’m going to tell him about Declan, because I have to, and I want you to know that because, if I’m lucky enough for you to want to continue our friendship, I don’t ever want to hide anything from you again. If you’d like to talk any time please just tell me and I’ll come to Melting as soon as I can.
Then she sent one to Raf.
I’m so sorry again. For everything. I was just desperate not to hurt my friend and in so doing I treated you badly. I’m so sorry. I really enjoyed our time together. Thank you for everything.
Neither of them opened the messages.
21
GEORGIE
After an insanely busy week – which she’d needed like a hole in the head – Georgie set off for Melting with Max as soon as she could the next Saturday.
Her first stop was meeting Declan with Max at an adventure playground in Little Melting. Max, as it turned out, was the perfect age and temperament for a surprise reveal of his father’s identity; he’d taken it entirely in his stride and was just keen to meet up and play some football with him in the field next to the playground. And Declan had been very keen to spend some time with Max as soon as possible.
When they arrived, Declan strode towards Max and gave him a big handshake and shoulder clasp, while Max did his standing-taller thing, grinning ear to ear. And then they were off with the ball, Declan leaning down to speak to Max and Max looking like he was already hanging on Declan’s every word, and Georgie was blinking back tears of happiness and relief and taking some photos of her gorgeous boyand his father.
And then she got back in the car to head over to see Poppy. Apparently she’d refused to see or speak to Declan all week other than for him to see Daniel each day for half an hour, which didnot sound good. It would be terrible if Poppy and Declan split permanently because of this.
Having, she now realised, drunk far too much water in the car, she was desperate for the loo by the time she arrived in Melting.
This was really not a time when she wanted to see her mother, so she couldn’t go to the loo there.
She also couldn’t knock on anyone else’s door and ask to use their loo, because they’d wonder why she wasn’t using her mother’s. And she wanted to go before she saw Poppy, because saying, ‘Please can I use the loo,’ was not the first part of the speech she’d been rehearsing in her head all the way here.
She should really, really not have had those three bottles of water.
There was no other option – she was going to have to use the pub’s loo, even though Raf was probably still landlording and he still hadn’t read her message from last weekend. Up to last Saturday they’d been messaging each other a lot. And there’d been the kiss. Obviously it was a silly thing to think because of course what they’d been doing had beenfarfrom actual dating, but it still kind of felt as though they’d gone through a break-up.
She was going to try to speak to Raf again, because it was horrifying to think that she’d hurt his feelings, especially after he’d told her that she was the first person he’d thought about dating since he lost his wife, but she needed to speak to Poppy first, because she was worried about her, and she didn’t want to just go casually into the pub until she’d spoken to Raf properly.
Needs must, though.
Raf was bending down doing something with barrels at the end of the bar when she sidled in through the door. His T-shirt was stretched across his shoulders and you could see the muscles in his legs through his jeans. Georgie was torn betweenwanting to feast her eyes on him and wanting to run away before he saw her.
‘Hi,’ she said eventually. ‘I’m just going to use the loo. Hope you don’t mind.’
Raf jumped quite convulsively and there was a big clunk and then a thud. ‘Fuck.’
‘What?’ She moved closer to see what had happened.
‘It’s nothing.’ He stood up, his thumb dripping blood. ‘You surprised me. I dropped the barrel.’
‘Oh my goodness. That looks bad. I can’t believe you’ve gotanotherhand injury. Let me get you a plaster. Where do you keep them?’
‘Honestly, don’t worry. It’s fine.’
It couldn’t be; there was bloodeverywhere. Who knew that a thumb could bleed that much? Shit, what if it was a really serious injury? That would be unlucky to say the least, coming on top of his recent finger surgery.
‘You should put it above your head. What if you’ve hit an artery?’
‘It would be spurting out. I’m absolutely fine, really.’
‘Can I get you a napkin or something to bandage it?’
