I roll my eyes and tut. I’m about to mutter, “Get a room,” to Marty, my brother who is standing next to me, but when I turn to look at him, he’s bending down to kiss his partner, Jenna, his hand sliding down to caress her pregnant stomach. Her eyes are on her brother, Jake, and Rami, and the faraway smile on her face tells me she can smell what I can smell too. The love. But unlike me she’s filled her lungs with it and is yet to exhale.
“Christ on a bike,” I say to myself instead and I allow myself another eye-roll, this one so emphasised and deliberate it makes me dizzy.
I fucking hate my life.
*****
“Will you not just crash at Jake’s place with us?” Marty asks as we climb into the back of the black cab a few hours later.
“I have a room in a five-star hotel. Why on earth would I swap that for Jake’s box room?” I look at Marty with a lowered chin. “No offence, Jake.”
“None taken!” the birthday boy practically sing-songs. He and Rami are holding hands and standing beside the open cab door. “But you are more than welcome to stay there. I have a fridge full of food that Marty can cook for you in the morning.”
“And we won’t be back anytime soon,” Rami says as he rocks his hip into Jake’s. They’re staying at the hotel Jake’s party was held at and no doubt they have a passionate night of love-making ahead of them while I have nothing but washing off my make-up to look forward to.
Ugh.
“What was that, Maeve?”
Oh, did I make that noise out loud?Fuck.
“Nothing.”
Jenna leans towards me, squeezing me between her and Marty. “Come and stay with us, Maeve. We can wake up late and watch brain-numbingly awful reality TV while Marty waits on us hand and foot.”
“Suddenly sounding like a shit deal for me,” my brother mumbles.
“We’ll be back in the afternoon too,” Rami adds. “And then I can actually thank you properly for all your help over the last few weeks.”
I wave my hand in front of my face. “I didn’t do anything.”
“I disagree,” he says with a warm smile. “You made this happen.” He holds up his hand that is gripping Jake’s firmly. He’s exaggerating but I guess there is some truth in his statement. I did help arrange the flash mob dance performance that brought him and Rami back together.
Brilliant. So I can help other people fall in love but I can’t make it happen for myself. Fucking perfect.
“I don’t like the idea of you being all alone tonight and tomorrow morning when you can be with us,” Jenna says, and somehow she has found my hand with hers.
“I’ll be grand at the hotel. Really, you’re all worrying about me for no reason,” I say firmly.
“But we will see you before you fly out?” Jake asks, and when his eyes find mine, I see genuine concern, or maybe it’s guilt. He and I have had more than a few half-joking conversations about how we’ll stay single forever and now he’s very much not at all single. But as grumpy as I am about this fact, I don’t want him to feel bad about it.
“Here’s a compromise. I’ll pop around to your place to say goodbye after I check out of the hotel. Should be about lunchtime, that work for you?”
“Will you be finished with me by then?” Jake asks Rami, who narrows his grey eyes at his boyfriend.
“Not exactly, but I’ll let you have a break.”
“So generous,” Jake says and his dreamy eyes betray his sarcastic tone. I don’t even try to stop my fifteenth eye-roll of the night.
“Grand, that’s decided then,” I say and face forward. “Let’s let the poor driver get his fare, shall we?”
“Don’t worry about me, love,” the man in the driver’s seat says, his flat cockney vowels raspy and deep. “I’ve had the meter running since you all piled in and started having a lengthy discussion about who’s going where.”
“Gotta love London,” I grumble and extract my hand from Jenna’s so I can pull my jacket around me. It’s early September and a mild night so I’m not in the least bit cold and yet I feel a chill in my bones. I know what it is; it’s exhaustion. Bone-deep exhaustion from too much work, too much travel, and apparently, too much sulking about being loveless and single.
But can you blame me? It’s been nine months since I made the loose New Year’s resolution to try and find some kind of romantic love, and it just hasn’t happened. Of course, I knowwhyit hasn’t happened, but I’m not exactly ready to confrontthat truth just yet. At least not while I’m sitting in the back of a black cab surrounded by two couples who can barely keep their hands off each other.
“Alright, she’s crossed her arms and got that grumpy look on her face.” Marty reaches for the car door handle. “There’s no changing her mind now. Jake, Rami, we will wish you goodnight.”
