‘Interesting,’ Nisha said, turning her gaze on Amy. ‘What do you think?’
‘About what?’ Amy asked, play-acting indifference but sounding stiffer than she’d intended.
‘Sam and Tilly,’ said Nisha, exasperated. ‘Keep up.’
Amy’s stomach already felt like it was swimming with bile, but she figured that alcohol couldn’t make matters any worse– and anyway, she needed some sort of fortification if Nisha was going to insist on talking about this. She chugged what was left of her spritzer.
‘I think,’ Amy said carefully, ‘that it’s none of my business.’
‘Hear, hear,’ Meg said. ‘I didn’t come out on a rare afternoon of freedom to discuss who my brother may or may not be boffing.’ Pearl had gone out for the day with her school friend Max and his family to celebrate the boy’s eighth birthday– and Meg clearly intended to make the most of this opportunity for rest and relaxation.
‘Having said that,’ Amy went on, as her brain asked her mouth what the hell it thought it was doing. It was moving without permission, forming words she hadn’t planned to say. ‘Tillyishis type. They look like they … fit. They make sense together.’
God, she sounded almostmournful, even to her own ears– like she was confronting a painful truth she’d been avoiding. Which, to be fair, she kind of was.
‘At a very superficial level, maybe,’ Meg said, sipping at her cider. ‘But I was never convinced they’d go the distance. They always looked more like friends to me than anything else– she never seemed to get under his skin. It was all very polite andnicebetween them, from where I was standing.’
At this, Amy felt the other woman’s eyes sweep her face as though inspecting it for clues. She didn’t raise her gaze to Meg’s for fear of inviting questions– or, if Nisha had anything to do with it, aninterrogation– that she had no idea how to handle. However, this moment seemed to confirm that Meg understood more about the messiness between Amy and Sam than Amy had given her credit for.
‘I’m only saying this because I’m on my second pint,’ Meg went on. ‘He’dkillme for it– but I think he’s holding out for a great, passionate love, like the ones in Philippa’s books. Or those A level texts you used to argue with him about, Amy. I never saw the debates first-hand, but some evenings he’d arrive home and I’d almost be able to see the steam coming out of his ears. He’s had the same look about him more than once in the past couple of months– notably after your throwdown at the bake sale.’
Amy cringed and made a ‘please, let’s not’ face, but she couldn’t help feeling that Meg was making a point.
‘Has working with him made you like him any better, Amy?’ Nisha asked innocently, scooping a handful of dry-roasted peanuts from the open packet between them. ‘Youdidmanage not to murder him when you went up north for that trip– which was pretty impressive given you got stuck in the same room.’
She’d raised a single, perfectly threaded eyebrow– as if she had Amy bang to rights. In a cop drama, this would have been the moment when Nisha– grey-faced and knackered after a long night of sticking it to the accused– triumphantly announced, ‘See you in court, sweetheart.’
Amy steeled herself, then said, ‘I feel exactly the same about him now as I did when we were kids. No offence, Meg.’ This response had the advantage of being both ambiguous and entirely truthful.
Nisha frowned, then sighed dramatically and said, ‘Such a shame. He’d make a lovely boyfriend. Part of me wishes I could bring myself to become obsessed with Sam instead of Alex … But the heart wants what the heart wants.’
Amy sagged with relief at the change of topic, while Meg shook her head fondly at her friend. ‘I keep telling you: justask him out. For all you know he might be obsessed with you, too. At the very least I’m confident he fancies you– he pops in and out of the shop more than anyone else I know. I’ve bumped into him in there at least three times this week andevery timehe’s been buying a litre bottle of orange juice. Nobody needs that much OJ, unless they have some pathological fear of developing scurvy.’
Amy laughed heartily at this. Then she felt a presence behind her, someone standing in the way of the sunlight so its glare was no longer focused on the back of her neck. The respite was welcome, even though she knew instinctively whose shadow she was suddenly basking in.
‘Hey, Sam!’ Nisha cried. ‘We were literally just talking about you.’
‘Oh?’
Amy twisted her body on the bench she was sitting on, curling herself around so she could examine the expression on his face: a wry eyebrow raise, its confidence undermined by the wariness Amy could see in the set of his mouth and jaw.
She chose to focus on this, rather than on his legs– almost entirely exposed in football shorts. Dimly, she remembered that he played for some local amateur team. She knew what Kit would say if he were here:He has the face and hair of a young Robert Redford and the thighs of Jack Grealish. If you had any sense, you’d climb him like a tree.
Amy shook herself, then tried to refocus on the conversation that was happening around her.
‘Yes!’ Nisha was saying. ‘Amy was just telling us about thissuper-romantic dance you’ll be doing together at the festival.’ She shot Amy a mischievous look.
‘Er– that isnothow I described it,’ Amy cut in, mortified. Her face was burning.
‘I meant to text and speak to you about that,’ Sam said to Amy, his voice low and confidential.
‘Before or after you agreed to it, which meantIhad to agree to it?’ she asked him, her tone bright but biting. ‘This is the second time I’ve been bounced into something because your insistence on being Mr Affable has prevented you from saying no to things youabsolutelyshould have said no to.’
‘In my defence, Carolyn was very clever this time,’ Sam said. ‘When she described the idea, she made it sound– without explicitly saying so– as if you’d been party to the discussions that preceded it. It was only after I agreed to go along with it that she revealed she hadn’t so much as spoken to you. I’m sorry, I feel terrible about it.’
To her immense annoyance, Amy believed him. He looked thoroughly abashed, and the conversational ambush he’d described was classic Carolyn. Amy shook her head, resigned and almost amused. ‘The woman is a viper in a Max Mara trouser suit,’ she said. ‘I’ve worked with her for over eight years and she still manages to blindside me on a weekly basis.’
Sam smiled slightly at her surprisingly generous– if tacit– acceptance of his apology. ‘At least it’s only one dance,’ he shrugged, still visibly embarrassed. ‘Are you able to do the practice session next week? Thursday, I think it is.’
