CHAPTER1
‘If you’re going to hang out here, can you at least keep your feet off the couch?’ Alex shouted from her bedroom.
Alex didn’t have to look at Pete to know that he was rolling his eyes. She didn’t even have to be in the same room. After five years together, she could anticipate his every move, even before he made it. He was just so… predictable; it was one of the many reasons she’d broken things off last year.
‘You let the dog on the couch!’ he replied, ‘And he has four feet!’
‘Yes, but he takes his shoes off.’
I always make terrible jokes around him. Another reason.
Alex glanced down at Winston, her three-year-old dachshund who was currently sniffing inside her suitcase. ‘If he puts his dirty great boots on the couch again, I’ll blame you,’ she whispered to him, while he buried his nose in her pyjamas. ‘Why is he one of the only other humans you’ll tolerate, besides me? You're cutting your big long nose off to spite your face, you know. You could have gone into some fancy kennels for the weekend. Had your hair done, maybe one of those doggy pedis… Winston, can you stop sniffing my knickers, it’s just creepy.’
Winston was a particularly fussy dog, about everything from where he slept (Alex’s bed – middle; the couch – left hand side only; the dog basket – the one by the window in the living room with the weird smell), to what he ate (beef, biscuits, shoes, anything really except that organic shite Alex once tried to fob him off with after a visit to the vet). Who Winston allowed to be within ten feet of him was another contentious issue. Alex was obviously fine, as was Pete and also Geraldine the postwoman. Darren the postman, however, was seemingly the most suspicious-looking motherfucker Winston had ever seen and he made sure everyone knew it.
But when Alex had to work, travel or procrastinate herself into a coma when she knew a deadline was looming, she knew Pete would step in and take the fussy little canine, so that had become routine.
Alex was always proud of how amicable her split with Pete had been, but it was hardly surprising. Since they’d met at a book signing seven years ago, their entire relationship had been without drama, so it’d be pointless to start now things were actually over.
There was no yelling, no fighting and compared to most breakups she’d heard about (her editor, Jasmine, had regaled her with tales of her own divorce where she and her ex had had screaming matches over who got the French coffee press), Alex and Pete had been nothing short of cordial towards each other – friendly even, barring the odd passive aggressive remark about couch hygiene. She’d stayed in the main house and Pete had moved into the granny flat in the garden, while he saved for a deposit. To them it made sense; it was less than two kilometres to the fire station where he worked shifts, so their paths didn’t cross as often as they used to (unless to co-parent Winston). However, this living arrangement seemed rather odd to everyone else, especially Pete’s girlfriend, Florence, an occupational therapist with a penchant for baseball caps and cute ponytails. Alex didn’t see the problem. Pete was her best friend; she couldn’t think of anyone she’d rather rent her flat to.
Alex placed the last of her clothes into the case then zipped it closed, much to Winston’s disapproval. He waggled his bum out of the bedroom, leaving Alex to finish getting ready. The taxi for the airport would be outside in half an hour and she still hadn’t put her face on.
‘You looking forward to the weekend?’ Pete asked, in between telling Winston what a good boy he was. ‘The weather is supposed to be great.’
She paused mid-foundation-blend to ponder this. ‘I am,’ she replied. ‘I mean, I think I am.’
‘You think?’
‘I haven’t seen any of them in years. It feels like a lifetime. It’ll be surreal to say the least. And strange… really strange.’
‘Aren’t you friends with them on Facebook? Instagram? Snapchat?’
‘Snapchat? I’m not twelve, Pete, and besides no one bloody posts anything anymore! It’s only old photos, old status updates. We’ve all been horrible at keeping in touch. I’m hardly on Facebook, in fact I nearly missed Erin’s invite.’
Alexandra hadn’t realised quite how anxious she was feeling until now. ‘Oh God, what if I’m the only one who got fat?’ she yelled to Pete. ‘I swear if they all look exactly the same, I’ll throw myself into the sea and sink like the bloody great hippo I am.’
She resumed makeup blending and heard Pete chuckle from the living room.
‘What's so funny?’
‘Nothing,’ he replied. ‘It’s just that hippos are actually pretty strong swimmers, so…’
‘Fine then, Indiana Jones, a different animal altogether.’
Now Pete was laughing loudly. ‘Alex, Indiana Jones was an archaeologist, not a zoologist. They’re not the same.’
She liked Pete’s laugh. It was a laugh that came from the soles of his feet and it was infectious. It was the laugh of a man who’d once been a huge part of her life and despite his ability to annoy her, that still meant something. Sometimes, when she was in bed at night, she could hear him laughing with Florence in his flat. It always nipped at her heart. She was glad he’d found someone to make him happy, she knew that was never meant to be her role long term, but his laugh being carried across the garden and into her bedroom only reminded her that she was still alone.
It wasn’t like she hadn’t tried to find someone. Once a fan of online dating apps, Alex had now resigned herself to the fact that there were no decent single men in Dublin or indeed on planet earth. Once Pete had started dating Florence (and inadvertently flaunting his happiness in her face), she knew it was probably time for her to get back out there again. Get swept off her feet. Find that elusive spark she’d been chasing for so long. However, unlike Pete, that special someone hadn’t magically appeared after just one date.
‘They can’t all be terrible,’ her editor, Jasmine, had said over lunch. Working lunches with Jasmine were three percent book talk and ninety-seven percent an excuse to chat shit and eat steak on company expenses. ‘It’s Dublin, for God’s sake! Men are everywhere, you can literally trip over them on Grafton Street any night of the week. Surely one of them must be good company?’
‘You’d think,’ Alex replied, picking at her side salad, ‘but I’ve been on seven dates in the past month and only one fella has been worthy of a second.’
‘There you go! What about him?’
‘Unfortunately, I’m nothistype apparently. I have a functioning brain or something.’
