“It’s not serious, is it?” Alfie asked with a worried frown.
“No, it’s not serious. I just…” What did I say to get them to stop asking? Did I lie to them? Would that be easier? “I had a UTI and I needed some antibiotics.”
Yes, it turned out I would rather lie and give myself a UTI. Although why the fuck I picked that, I had no idea.
Milo stared at me as he tried to read my expression. “Really?”
“Yes! Why would I lie about that?”
“To get out of telling the truth because you don’t want to worry us,” Milo said. “It’s a classic Darcy move.”
“Diversions and distractions are one thing, but lying is another,” Alfie said. “And I really don’t think Darcy would lie about this.” He smiled encouragingly at me, and it made me feel worse. I hated the fact I was digging myself a hole, but I didn’t know how to stop. They’d give me a ladder if I asked, but Milo would also give me shit for months.
And the pair of them would be paranoid as fuck about me.
“I suppose,” Milo said slowly. He thought for a second and when he opened his mouth to add more thoughts, I cut him off and said,
“By the way, we’ve had some complaints about the presence of seagulls and a reminder from the local council thatnobodyshould be feeding them.” I fixed Milo with a long, hard look and, for once, he had the good grace to look sheepish. “They are pests and they’re getting an attitude. Apparently one walked into the sandwich shop on the front last week and took a cheese butty off the counter. Madge was furious!”
“Fucking hell,” Milo said. “Now that is brazen.”
“Which is why we should be discouraging them,” Alfie said. He’d never approved of Milo’s attempts to build a seagull army to enact petty vengeance on our next-door neighbour, Rupert, for some imagined slight.
I’d long since decided against getting involved, because I had better things to focus on, but Alfie seemed determined to attempt to instil sense in Milo.
I didn’t think it was working.
“I have never encouraged them in my life!” Milo exclaimed.
“Really? That’s what you’re going with?” I asked as Alfie sighed exasperatedly.
“Yeah, for today.” He shrugged. “Madge is terrifying, I’m not telling her I like the winged bastards.” Milo turned and strolled towards the front of the shop, whistling nonchalantly and throwing in a few scattered lines of song here or there before suddenly shouting, “Alfie, come and help me get the boards out.”
Alfie shook his head but didn’t move. “You promise you’re okay? You know you can tell us if you’re not.”
“I know, but I’m fine. Honestly. We’re just a little busier than I anticipated, but it’s not a bad thing.” I smiled, hoping it didn’t look forced. “Oh, I meant to say, we should revisit the idea of loyalty cards. I know it was mentioned, but I don’t know if we ever got anywhere with it. And I’m sure it wouldn’t be too difficult to get Milo to put something together.”
“Sounds good. Maybe we can talk about it next week? I can look at some pricing options over the weekend then, as well as some ideas of what we could offer.”
“Perfect,” I said, picking up my rolling pin again and glancing down at the large plastic bag full of biscuits I’d been in the middle of smashing. Alfie turned to head back out front, and I tried to ignore the anxiety gnawing in my chest by bringing the rolling pin down, hard, on the bag.
Lying to my friends was a new low for me and I didn’t like it. It hadn’t made me feel any better either.
If anything, I felt worse.
But I’d lied for the right reasons, if that was even a thing, and it would be worth it in the end, whenever that was. I simply had to get through this rough patch first, like one of those tankers sailing across the treacherous waves of the North Sea.
As long as I didn’t fall overboard in the process.
“You know, if you keep going like that, we’ll need to think of a new way to use biscuits,” Owen said, his voice casually cutting through my spiralling thoughts like a beam of sunlight pushing through thick rain clouds, creating a bright patch of stillness on the surface of rough water.
My eyes focused on the bag of biscuits on the counter, rolling pin hovering in mid-air. I’d only meant to break them up into small chunks to mix into our tea and biscuit flavour, but instead I’d turned them into crumbs. “Bollocks,” I said, irritated at myself for getting so wrapped up.
“Don’t worry about it,” Owen said. “We’ve got plenty of biscuits.”
“I know, I just… it’s such a waste.”
“Nah, man, we can do something with them. Maybe we could try a cheesecake flavour? Use this as little balls of biscuit base. Or I could just make us a cheesecake.” With every calm word he spoke, I felt myself starting to relax. And instantly my mind began to explode with ideas, each one sparking like a firework.
