Page 108 of So, I Met This Guy . . .

Freefalling

‘Ouch. That looks pretty painful. You really should put ice on it.’

Twenty-five thousand feet up in the sky, Flick looked over with concern at Maggie, who was nursing a huge black eye.

‘It’s fine, don’t worry, it looks worse than it is.’ Raising her voice to make herself heard above the engines of the twin-engine turboprop plane, she attempted a joke. ‘You should see the other guy,’ she quipped, then winced sharply. ‘How are you?’

Flick shrugged, then made her own weak attempt at gallows humour.

‘Single.’

It was the morning after the day before and Flick and Maggie were on board a short forty-minute flight from Mallorca to Ibiza. A lot had happened in the last twenty-four hours. A proposal. A mugging. A break-up. A fuck-up. A curveball. A concussion. A ride in an ambulance with the sirens on. A stolen handbag. A diamond ring. An official statement to the Spanish police. An awkward goodbye with a now ex-boyfriend in a hotel lobby. And a romance fraudster who got away again. It was more than happened in many a lifetime, and the two women were feeling both dazed and confused.

‘I’m sorry.’

Maggie threw her a look of sympathy.

‘It’s OK, I didn’t want to marry Rory. To be honest, I don’t think Rory wanted to marry me either. He said he could feel me pulling away, so he wanted to put a ring on it.’ She gave a small smile. ‘I blame Beyoncé.’

‘How was he this morning when he left for the airport?’

‘Angry and upset. Apparently the jewellers don’t give refunds.’

Flick was trying to make light of it, but she looked like she’d had the stuffing knocked out of her. That’s the problem with bruised hearts and battered emotions, thought Maggie. You couldn’t put ice on them. Unlike physical cuts and bruises.

Speaking of.

‘Actually you’re right, I think I might ice this,’ she winced.

‘Of course I’m right.’

Flick attracted the attention of the cabin crew and a few moments later they returned with some ice in a napkin. Maggie pressed it to her eye, which had started throbbing with the pressure in the cabin.

‘I can’t believe they knocked you to the floor and stole your handbag.’

‘The police said there’s been a wave of crime.’

‘And you didn’t get to see who it was?’

‘No, it all happened so fast.’

One minute she’d been about to cross the road, the next she was lying on the ground, surrounded by a crowd of concerned bystanders. One of them had called an ambulance. The other the police. She just remembered her head hurting, looking across the street and seeing the bar stool was empty, and realizing her bag was gone and so was he.

‘What I don’t understand is why you were even there?’

She snapped back to see Flick looking at her, questioningly.

‘Why were you even in that part of town?’

Maggie hadn’t told Flick. She’d been planning to, before she screwed it all up. Then by the time she’d got back to the hotel from the hospital, it was late, and Flick was in bed. And this morning, she’d found out about the marriage proposal and break-up, and finding the right time seemed to get harder and harder. Plus, was there even any point now? She’d lost her phone and with it his number, as it had been in her handbag. There was no way of contacting him. So what good would it do? Flick would no doubt be furious with her for keeping it all a secret and think her an idiot. Frankly, she wouldn’t be wrong.

Still, despite all this, Maggie felt she had to tell the truth. ‘Well, actually, I’ve got a confession—’

‘Oh God, it’s not another surprise, is it? I couldn’t cope.’

‘Um . . . well, the thing is . . .’

‘Don’t tell me, you were on a date,’ joked Flick.