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Chapter Seventeen
“What in crapola’sname happened here?”
Polly stood in the kitchen doorway, wearing a very short tight red dress and looking decidedly seedy. Alice had been up for hours. At the kitchen table on her laptop, she’d searched every skerrick of information she could find on Henry Beacham-Brown. Her search engine had overflowed and she’d clicked and read until she was practically seeing double.
“Nothing, why?”
“Did you two have a fight last night?” Polly surveyed her suspiciously as she beelined for the pantry.
Alice snapped her laptop shut and shuffled together her papers, Henry’s lovely smile turned face down on the pile.Sorry, Dad.“Why do you ask?” she said cagily.
Polly, two slices of bread in one hand, peanut butter jar in the other, waved the jar at the floor near the dresser. “All that glass.”
Relief flooded her. Of course,Polly thought Aaron had come home with her after the quiz night. After all, they’d been discussing for several days how Alice should manage it. What she’d wear, how she’d play it super cool, particularly after Aaron’s rather caddish behaviour when he’d turned up uninvited the other night.
“Panda man,” Polly had sniffed disdainfully when Alice told her (sketchily) about the bedroom door incident. When Alice frowned with complete lack of comprehension, Polly elaborated: “Eats, roots, and leaves. Except he didn’t have the decency to stay for a meal. Very off. He needs to be taught a serious lesson.”
Well, he had, hadn’t he? Last night in the street. Alice swallowed a wave of nausea remembering the look on his face as she spat words at him in a tone that would pass for hatred. Shocked. Stunned. Hurt.
She hardened her heart as it threatened to go doughy. He’d brought it on himself with his man-whore behaviour. Everything she said, she’d meant. With a cherry on top.
“It was a little accident.” Alice hated lying to Polly. She tried to sound casual as she changed the subject. “Where’ve you been all night?”
“Oh, just somewhere,” Polly said airily as she loaded a knife with peanut butter and slathered it onto the bread, then squished the slices together.
“A Tinder date?”
“Maybe.”
Tinder. The nausea was back, bile rising in Alice’s throat. It was utterly stupid of her, but she’d kept the piece of paper by the side of her bed with the Tinder profile Aaron had written up for her. Only because it was in Aaron’s handwriting. Which was pathetic. She’d bin it. Along with Polly’s scribbled equation about amazeballs sex equalling true love that she’d shoved into the back of her dressing table drawer. Amazeballs sex, however cataclysmically orgasmic it might have been, clearly did not lead to true love between Alice and Aaron. Or any love at all for that matter.
Alice scraped her chair back and stood up.
“Aren’t you going to fill me in on what happened?” Polly said through a mouthful of bread and peanut butter.
“I promise you don’t want to know.”
“I promise I do.”
“Maybe later. You’ll be late for work.”
“I don’t have any patient appointments booked until ten. Why do you think I still look like this?” Polly held her arms out wide.
Hungover, shagged stupid and in last night’s crumpled little red dress, Polly was still utterly glorious. And still her best friend. Alice fought the tidal wave of words rising up her throat. Polly had been her go-to for every problem since they were sixteen. Somehow, though, she sensed Polly couldn’t solve this one. This was monumental; the stuff of Greek tragedies. She’d found a father and lost her one true love. Hurled one of her mum’s precious pieces of antique crystal against the wall. It was about time she started to work things out for herself.
“I can’t be late opening the shop,” Alice muttered, clutching the papers and her laptop to her chest.
“Munchkin. Something big has happened, I can tell. Except you’re acting seriously weird, so I can’t work out if it’s good or bad.”
Alice got to the door and stopped. “Both. I’ll tell you this evening. Don’t step in the glass, I’ll clear it up when I get home.” Stiff-backed, she started down the corridor, but something was niggling at her. Something the old Alice wouldn’t have thought twice about. She walked back into the room and focused on Polly’s black curls.
“Polly. Please don’t call me Munchkin.” In her peripheral vision she saw Polly’s jaw drop. Her inner resolve wobbled, then hardened. “It makes me feel like a kid.” She made to walk off and threw over her shoulder: “And in case you haven’t noticed, I’m not one anymore.”
* * *
Oliver’s stride was so familiar, even at a distance. As far back as Aaron could remember Oliver had moved this way: perfectly synchronised, like he was swimming through air. Aaron had always secretly envied Oliver’s walk; tried his best to copy it, but he’d never quite got the same grace and economy of movement.
But now, as Oliver approached, something was missing. From him, not Oliver. There were no teeth of envy chewing away at his insides. Instead, a sense of warmth flooded through him. God, if he’d ever needed his brother’s help, it was now.
