Page 25 of The Work Husband

‘I’ve got to get into character,’ Jamie argued unrepentantly. ‘Gin and tonic?’

‘Go on then.’

I found a seat at a table with three chairs and waited, alternately watching Jamie at the bar and glancing at the door through which Sam should appear any minute.

It was almost two weeks since I’d seen Molly. That night, I’d arrived home to find Sam in the kitchen making a cup of tea, looking so completely normal it had almost taken me by surprise.

It was like I was expecting there to be lipstick on his collar or a strand of copper hair on his jacket lapel. Like I expected him to carry Ava’s scent or her literal fingerprints – some physical sign that he wasn’t mine any longer.

‘How was Molly?’ he asked, kissing me on the lips.

‘Good. Seems like they’re getting the hang of the whole being parents thing. Arthur’s still cute.’

‘Isn’t that the deal?’ Sam asked with a grin. ‘They start out cute and then they turn into screaming monsters after a couple of years, but by then you’re so invested you can’t give them back?’

I laughed. ‘Something like that, I guess.’

We looked at each other, and silence descended – a silence that could only be broken by one question.

I asked it. ‘How… how was Ava?’

‘All right. She’s settling into her job, and she’s found a room in a flat share in Clapham.’

And did you see her room? But I couldn’t bear to ask that question.

Instead, I said, ‘I’m kind of knackered. I think I’ll go to bed.’

Sam looked surprised but said, ‘Okay. Night, Georgia.’

And that had been that.

When Jamie was back in the office the following day, I’d found myself confiding in him again about my worries.

‘He’s acting like seeing her is totally normal,’ I fretted. ‘Like there’s nothing for me to worry about. But how can there not be? People don’t just suddenly start seeing their exes again for no reason, right?’

‘Don’t ask me,’ he replied. ‘None of mine will speak to me, so I wouldn’t know. But what I can help you with is the next stage of our plan.’

I’ll just ask what it is, I thought. I don’t have to agree to anything.

But before I could ask, Jamie carried on. ‘Next Friday night, Birch Bar. You arrange to meet Sam there after work, and when he walks in, what does he find?’

‘Um… what?’ I asked, although I suspected with a growing sense of dread I knew the answer.

‘You and me,’ Jamie said. ‘Not snogging – nothing like that, don’t worry. But having a drink together, all nice and cosy. So he feels jolted, like he’s… interrupting something.’

It’s just a drink, I thought. It’s not like Jamie and me going for drinks after work isn’t a thing we’ve done before.

‘Okay,’ I said cautiously. ‘But, I mean, it’s either something or it’s nothing, right? How’s us going for a pint after work going to make him think there’s something going on?’

Jamie sighed. ‘It’s all in the presentation. Hear me out.’

He explained, and I’d found myself feeling a grudging admiration for his attention to detail. His plan was tactical and subtle. It was almost as if he’d done this sort of thing before.

And so here I was, at a table in one of Soho’s hottest new bars, wearing a new dress Sam hadn’t seen me in before. That morning, when he’d suggested going out somewhere after work as he often did on Fridays, I’d vaguely said I wasn’t sure how my day was going to pan out but that I’d keep in touch.

Then I hadn’t kept in touch. I’d left Sam’s lunchtime message on read – mostly because Jamie had insisted on confiscating my phone and keeping it in his desk drawer all afternoon so I couldn’t respond – and when he’d messaged again at five thirty, sounding slightly impatient, I’d gone to the ladies’ and changed into my new dress before replying:

Actually, I’m just off to the Birch Bar. Want to meet there?