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Six
Devon
I spend most of Sunday nursing a hangover, with Wiggles music looping around in my head. Mental note: never get drunk at Ryan’s while he’s on dad duty ever again.
Fortunately, I manage to recover enough by the evening, so by the time Emma knocks on my door I at least look presentable, even if I still feel like the walking dead. The prospect of dinner with my parents and her family isn’t exactly doing much to improve my mood.
“Hey, you ready to do this?” she asks a little awkwardly.
“Was Marie Antoinette ready for the guillotine?”
Her brows shoot up and she offers a wry smile. “You’re in a dramatic mood today.”
I let out a soft chuckle and close the door behind me, falling in step with her as we make our way to the tube.
“Listen, there’s something else going on that I didn’t tell you yesterday,” Emma says after a few minutes of random chitchat. “I was going to, but then I just…chickened out, I guess. I didn’t want to pile on.”
“What is it?” I ask warily, my thoughts immediately straying to the conversation with Ryan about how Emma’s not the kind to sneak around behind my back.
She stops walking and turns to face me, tilting her chin up and squaring her shoulders as though bracing for impact. “I’m moving to Paris.”
I blink at her in confusion. “Paris…?”
She nods. “Yeah. I’ve got a new job with the marketing team at Chanel, so…”
“Wow, that’s amazing.” I offer her a broad grin, feeling genuinely happy for her. “Why were you worried about telling me? Why did you think you’d be piling on?”
“I guess…” she sighs, running a hand through her hair. “I guess I didn’t want you to feel like I was choosing a job over you.”
“Wow…that’s a very flattering picture you’re painting of my ego,” I say dryly. Although Ididbreak into her emails last night because I thought she might have been seeing someone else, so I’m not exactly on the highest ground right now, am I?
She winces. “Sorry.”
“Look, you took me by surprise yesterday,” I tell her. “But I’ve had some time to think about it—”and read your private emails, and vent my frustration at a complete stranger,I think with an inward cringe. “And I think maybe you were right.”
Her eyes widen in surprise. “You do?”
I shrug. “Ryan said something yesterday that got me thinking. I always thought we were so perfect for each other because we have the same priorities and were able to just kind of fit around each other,” I say, gesturing with my hand in an attempt to show how easily we slotted into each other’s lives without disrupting anything. “But maybe I was wrong…”
She nods. “I get it. I used to think the same thing. But then I realised we weren’t really in a romantic relationship anymore. We were just friends who happened to be planning a wedding. It wasn’tbad—not even close to it, but that’s not really how it’s supposed to be is it?” She glances up at me, but I don’t really have an answer for that. “I don’t know about you, but Iwantsomeone to come along and mess everything up. I don’t want someone who’ll just simply fit into my current routine. I want my life completely turned upside down.”
I shiver. “God, I could think of nothing worse.”
She lets out a soft chuckle. “It’ll happen one day., I’m sure. Speaking of—this is yours.” She twists her engagement ring off her finger and holds it out to me.
I wave her away. “Keep it.”
“But—”
“Emma, it’s yours,” I insist. “Do whatever you want with it—sell it, have it made into something else, throw it in the Thames. Whatever you want.”
She stares down at the ring, glimmering in her palm, a hesitant frown on her face. “But…are you sure?”
“I’m sure. Why don’t you trade it in for a couple of designer handbags or something?” I suggest.
Finally, she nods. “Okay. Thank you. For now, I’ll just put it on this.” She tugs the delicate gold chain she wears around her neck out from under her top. “Can you help me?”
She turns around, moving her long, dark hair to the side so I can unclasp the chain and she can thread the ring onto it.
