Sad. Very sad. They’d never been so distant in their lives. The exclamation marks made Georgie’s words so fake-breezy.
She fake-breezily replied with ‘Thank you!’ herself. Sad again.
She suddenly decided that she’d like to see Declan later, if he’d like to see her and picked up her phone.
Would you like to come over half an hour early this evening so that we can both be with Daniel together? Nice for him?
His reply came straight back.
Love to, thank you.
Poppy wasn’t sure whether she was devastated that he’d thanked her like that – that they’d got to that level of distance – or looking forward to seeing him or apprehensive about what they’d talk about.
It was a good job she’d been shopping for clothes earlier in the week because she felt a lot better about seeing Declan knowing that she looked okay (she’d bought a top in a size bigger than usual, and honestly she feltsomuch better).
‘Is that a new top? You look lovely,’ Declan said, as soon as he got inside.
‘Thank you.’ Poppy was pretty sure that if you had to describe the way she looked right now it would bebashful.
Luckily, Daniel, as soon as he’d learnt to crawl, had also learnt to pull himself up to standing and cruise around the furniture, and he kept making a break for freedom and the stairs, so they were too busy laughing with and about him to feel too awkward, and then it was time for Poppy and Ankita to go to the pub.
It had been nice seeing Declan.
23
GEORGIE
Georgie’s thoughts were filled with Poppy the next morning as she drove to Melting to drop Max with Declan for the night.
Poppy had always been far more like family to her than her actual family. She missed her. A lot. She hoped so much that she was doing okay. She’d sent a few messages to say she hoped Poppy was alright and had then stopped because she’d had no reply and was worried that Poppy would feel harassed if she carried on messaging her. She wished so much, though, that they could somehow restart their friendship.
As she rounded the corner of the Duck and Grapes after dropping Max with Declan at the cottage where Declan had rented a room – he’d told her that he didn’t want to rent a more permanent place for himself yet because he was hoping against hope that Poppy would take him back – she caught a glimpse of Raf, and on impulse stopped and rolled down her car window.
She missed him too (in a different way, obviously), and it wasn’t like speaking to him was going to make thingsworse.
‘Hi,’ she called. ‘How are you?’
Raf looked round and hesitated, really looking for a moment as though he was going to blank her, before walking over to the car.
‘I’m good, thank you. I heard about your secret. Declan and Max. I see that that was abigsecret.’
Georgie nodded.
‘Yeah. I get why you would want to do anything, literally anything, to avoid Poppy finding out the way she did in fact find out.’
Georgie nodded again. ‘Yep. I’m so sorry, though.’
‘Yeah, no, all good. Totally understandable. You have to put old friends above new ones. Anyone would. Anyway. I’m glad you’re well.’ And off he walked while Georgie stared after him.
Andfuckhe clearly still thought that she’d only spent time with him in order to get the secret back.
Which obviously had initially been true, but it had very quickly changed into her just loving his company.
She rolled the window up as it started to rain horizontally into the car.
It was horrible to think that she’d hurt his feelings.
Maybe she should just get out of the car and walk over to him and tell him that he was wrong and that she’d really, really liked him.
