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A little seed of hope buried its way into Alice’s heart. “Really?”
“Sure. I’ve watched you laughing at each other’s awful jokes, WhatsApping those stupid cat pictures to each other, running tabs on who’s winning at Monopoly and just ‘hangin’ out’ for years. And Aaron still hasn’t worked out he’s mad about you.” Polly sniffed disdainfully. “Typical male brain.”
“Why, if you thought that, did you tell me to stop contacting him?”
“To see what he did.”
Alice fell silent. What he’d done was text her daily asking if she was okay.
That was the problem. If she’d only ever seen Aaron as a shallow, ridiculously good-looking womaniser, she’d have shaken free years ago. But there were times—frequent enough to keep her hooked—when Aaron showed her a different side altogether. A kinder, softer side. A side the other women never got to see when he was wining and dining them. Or at least, Alice hoped not. Somehow, she’d convinced herself that meant they had something special. And then she’d been dumb enough to think that was enough.
Polly continued, “Besides, if you and Aaron aren’t a happening thing, isn’t it better to know? If it doesn’t work out, you’ll be free to go off and do all the things you’ve been talking about: travel the world, apply for that job in publishing you’ve always wanted.”
“There are no jobs anymore. Not now that everyone’s self-publishing.”
“You’re being Eeyore again.”
“And you’re being Tigger.”
“Better to bounce through life than drag your ears through the mud,” Polly countered with a grin. “Now, let’s tackle the amazeballs sex.”
Alice pulled a face. “Couldn’t we start with true love and work backwards?”
“Okay, if the sex bit is weirding you out, we’ll tackle love first.” Polly drew a heart around the wordstrue love. “Think of all the friends-to-lovers movies you’ve ever seen.WhenHarry Met Sally,Friends with BenefitsandOne Day.”
“NotOne Day!” Alice protested. “I went through boxes of tissues watching that movie. Twenty years of angst, only to be knocked off your bicycle and die when you finally get together.” Alice shuddered. “It washorrible.”
Polly rolled her eyes. “The point is, friendsdofall in love, and not just in movies either. Remember Bella and George?”
“From the newsagency?”
“Yep. I was kind of behind that.”
Alice’s eyes rounded. “You were?”
“Uh-huh. Every time I went in to buy a lottery ticket, Bella would talk about George not getting a decent meal, and on her day off George would carry on about Bella’s smile. I got so sick of it I arranged to meet them both at the pub, then didn’t show. That was it, they yabbered away until closing time, went home together, and… well, you know the rest.”
“You never said.”
“I wanted everyone to think it was fate. Sometimes fate needs a little helping hand. That said, you and Aaron probably need an earth-mover.”
Alice felt her shoulders slump and Polly reached out and gave her arm a reassuring squeeze. “Just joking. Now to the sex bit.”
Alice braced herself. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t spent hours dreaming about kissing Aaron, but she rarely let her mind go “all the way”. She simply couldn’t cope with the consequences in her body when she did.
Polly had her professional face on. “In my substantial experience, the most mind-blowing sex is always best-friend sex. You’re so attuned to each other the physical stuff automatically follows. There’s none of those awkward moves and wrong angles. It’s like your bodies justfit.”
“Is that how it is with you and Jake?”
Jake was Polly’s long-term go-to when the Tinder scene was fallow. Their friends with benefits arrangement seemed to keep them both very satisfied.
“I guess.”
“Why don’t you fall in love with him, then?”
Polly whipped her hand off Alice’s arm and grabbed her wine. “Because I don’t want to. I get my kicks from helping other people fall in love.”
Alice opened her mouth then shut it. Polly had left home at sixteen after her parents’ messy divorce. Polly made light of it, but she was adamant that all that love stuff was never going to be her gig.
