Sorry for the late reply. Had a very busy day. When would you like to meet?
He replies immediately:
Tomorrow evening? If you’re free?
Iamfree tomorrow evening, and after a bit of over-polite to-and-froing (noyoudecide, noyouchoose, no whatever works best foryou), we agree to meet at a pub near Waterloo station that’s equidistant between us travel-wise.
My heart’s pounding as we finish our extremely polite conversation. I’m going to see him. We’re going to have a conversation. He’ll probably say something about the bet.
What do Iwanthim to say?
I’m not sure.
Do I even really want to see him? I don’t think I do. I think I’m just doing this because Max asked me to. I don’t want to have my heart broken any more. I clearlycan’tdo relationships and I don’t want to prolong the agony of the end of this one.
I really wish I hadn’t said I’d go now. I can’t back out, though.
I’ll have to go, listen, and then say a courteous goodbye.
24
JAKE
I don’t one hundred per cent know whether I want to be here.
When Freya texted me yesterday, I reflex-action-repliedyesto herwould you like to meet?question.
Then she ignored me all day while I pathetically checked my phone obsessively. And then we had an excruciatingly polite text conversation to arrange this meeting.
I nearly pulled out of it today and then decided to message Max for some brotherly input; it genuinely did help talking to him last week, and I totally get his point about wanting to helpmegiven the way our relationship has been since his accident. He persuaded me that I had nothing to lose by coming.
So here I am, standing outside the pub we’ve agreed to meet at. It’s three minutes after our agreed meeting time but I don’tthinkFreya’s going to stand me up; I think she’s just slightly late. She probably got engrossed in whatever creative thing she was last doing.
And, yes, here she is, speed-walking up the road. She’s wearing wide beigy linen trousers and a short, pinky-orange jumper, and has her hair loose, and she looksgorgeous. Asshe always does. She also, I note, has bluey-green splodges of something on her hands.
‘Been painting?’ I ask, after she’s come to a halt a good metre away from me and we’ve said hello. (Apparently there will be no physical contact in our greeting.)
‘Yep. Downstairs loo. Just needed to finish the second coat. I’m really sorry I’m late.’
I smile, despite the general awkwardness of the situation. I love the fact that she’s always doing something creative and that it so often makes her a little late for things and that when it does she’s always very apologetic.
‘No worries,’ I say. ‘Shall we go and find a table? What would you like to drink?’
I don’t really know how to broach anything I’d like to talk about (i.e.us), so when we’re sitting down I say, ‘So how have you been?’
‘Great, thank you. You?’
‘Yep, good, thanks.’ I’mreallyregretting this now. It’s like being in a look-but-don’t-touch museum. I’m physically in the same space as Freya, and seeing her is reminding me of how much I like her, thought I was falling in love with her; but we aren’t really communicating. Although… she must have a reason for asking me to meet. A stupid part of me is hoping. The rest of me – the sane part – expects it to be something to do with Sonja and the production company. Or some terrible newspaper article that I haven’t seen.
‘Soooo,’ Freya begins, before stopping and chewing her lip.
I wait.
Eventually, she continues, ‘When we… after the TV show… I didn’t give you a chance to finish explaining.’
I nod, a little warily if I’m honest, because I’m still not sure where we’re going with this conversation.
‘So… I wondered if you… wouldliketo explain. Obviously you might not want to. In which case forget I mentioned it.’
