Chapter 1
Philip
Iam three sipsinto my pint when I realise my leaving drinks have somehow become a full-scale tribute night to my professional competence, my emotional unavailability, and my alarming ability to survive on Marks & Spencer meal deals and sarcasm.
“Speech,” says Becca, lifting her glass.
“Absolutely not,” I protest.
“Just a few words,” says Ollie.
“I have plenty of words,” I tell him. “I’m an editor. That’s the whole problem. I know exactly how many terrible ones a speech would contain.”
That gets a laugh, which is annoying because it encourages them.
We are crowded around two pushed-together tables in a pub in Islington that tries very hard to look like it has always been here, all reclaimed wood and hanging plants and artfully mismatched lampshades. It smells of beer, fried food, perfume, and wet coats. Outside, London has spent the day being grey in a committed, almost religious way, and everyone has come in carrying the last of the drizzlewith them. It should feel cosy. It mostly does. But there is a loose thread running through the evening that I can’t stop tugging at in my head.
Wednesday.
I leave on Wednesday.
It sounds both impressively soon and slightly made up.
Becca leans across the table. “You don’t get to leave the country without saying anything inspirational.”
“What exactly about me has ever suggested I am inspirational?”
She gives me a long look.
Luke snorts beside me. “You’re hardly known for keeping your opinions to yourself.”
I turn my head and find him hunched over his drink as if it has personally offended him by being too cheerful. Luke writes crime novels with titles that sound like they should come with a body bag and a warning from the police. He also dresses entirely in dark colours, looks permanently inconvenienced by the existence of other people, and has somehow become one of my closest friends.
Not that either of us would phrase it that way in public. Or private, frankly.
“I didn’t realise you were paying attention,” I tell him.
Luke grunts and takes another sip of red wine. Red wine in a pub. Psychotic behaviour, if you ask me, but he insists it is better than lager and says this with the conviction of a man who has opinions about tannins and suspects the rest of us are philistines.
I take a drink and let my gaze drift around the room while everyone resumes talking over each other. My team is here, plus two authors, one production manager, and a publicist who I am reasonably sure only came because sheheard there might be chips. It is loud in that pleasant, Friday-night sort of way. Glasses clink. Somebody at the bar shouts a laugh that rises above the rest and then disappears again.
I should be having a better time.
That sounds ungrateful. I know it does. I am not blind to the fact that being taken out for drinks by people who like me is, objectively, nice. So is the reason for it, in theory.
A senior editorial role at a large publishing house in Toronto is not the sort of thing people are expected to look miserable about.
It is a good job. More than good. It is the kind of job you say yes to before your fear of change can get in the way. Better pay. Bigger list. More influence. A chance to build something. A fresh start.
There is no denying it is a brilliant opportunity, and every time someone says so tonight, I smile and nod like the well-adjusted man I am pretending to be.
Becca nudges my arm. “You disappeared there for a second.”
“Impossible. I’m far too present and emotionally available.”
She grins. “Nervous?”
I roll the pint glass slowly between my hands. “About moving to another continent or about having to fake enthusiasm for Zoom meetings in a different time zone?”
