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The tree is Jess through and through. It’s fun, stylish, and really beautiful. I feel bad, trying to steer her away from Kenny, but he just isn’t a good guy. Not for her or for any woman.
‘I really like your sister,’ Kenny says, reading my mind. ‘I know you don’t think I’m good enough for her.’
‘You’re not,’ I agree. ‘I see the girls coming in and out of here. I heard the stories from Declan, about what you’ve been getting up to since you binned Beth off. I felt so sorry for her—’
‘You didn’t like her,’ Kenny reminds me with a scoff. ‘You thought she was stuck up.’
Well, she was stuck up. I remember her making fun of me over a word I used that she said made me seem like I was a lower class than her – I can’t even remember what the word was what now, that’s how petty it was.
‘I never really got to know her,’ I remind him. ‘Before you got rid.’
‘Can we sit down for a minute?’ Kenny suggests, gesturing towards the pristine black leather sofa.
‘Sure,’ I reply. I wouldn’t normally be so keen but anything to avoid going back home.
The look on Kenny’s face shifts into something I haven’t seen before, as he searches for the words to get going. The usual smug, smarmy grin I know on him is nowhere to be seen. I instantly soften, which annoys me. Is he playing me?
‘Seeing as though it would appear you’ve made your mind up about me via Declan, and monitoring my house guests, apparently, I’m going to set the record straight,’ he starts. He takes a deep breath and then… ‘I didn’t leave Beth, she left me.’
‘She left you, but you kicked her out, right?’
‘Not exactly,’ he replies. ‘To make a long story short, we’d been married for a couple of years, and we had talked about having kids previously, but only in a really general way. But when I brought up trying for a baby, because I really did want kids, Beth finally confessed that she didn’t. I think she had hoped to change my mind, and while I never would have tried to change hers, it became very clear that we wanted different things, so we decided to separate.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I say genuinely. ‘That’s rough.’
‘It wouldn’t be so bad, if she hadn’t met someone new almost right away, and if I hadn’t almost bumped into her in town a few months ago, with a baby bump the size of a football and her new bloke carrying the pram they had just bought.’
I wince.
‘And if you think that’s as tragic as things get, think again, because I did what any smart, mature, rational thirty-something professional adult would do, and I crouched down on the floor to hide behind a bin.’
‘Sorry, Kenny, I had no idea,’ I reply. ‘Declan just told me you guys didn’t want to be together any more, and that you had turfed her out.’
‘No offence, but I was never going to be able to talk to Declan about the details, was I?’ he replies. ‘I was going out more, to be home alone less, and trying to have a good time, and Declan loved it, but I was miserable.’
‘He idolised you,’ I say. ‘He thought you were living the dream, sleeping with a different girl every night – and I’ve seen a few here myself, this week even, but I’m sorry for judging you, if you’ve been going through a difficult time. I know what it’s like to be suddenly single.’
Kenny relaxes in his chair a little, now that he’s got the hard part out, his face starts to look more like him again.
‘This place doesn’t have the revolving door you think it does,’ he says.
‘Okay, well, it has these past couple of weeks,’ I can’t help but reply.
‘The women you’ve been seeing here – you know it’s been the same woman, right?’
I stare at him for a second.
‘What?’
‘My cousin had been staying with me, visiting friends at the uni before they go home for Christmas,’ he replies. ‘How old are you, that you can’t tell twenty-year-olds apart and not realise you’re seeing the same one?’
Oh, God, I feel mortified.
‘Hey, come on, don’t feel bad,’ Kenny insists. ‘Sometimes we see what we want to see, or what we really don’t want to see, but you know now. The only girl who isn’t related to me – because some of us prefer that – who has been here is Jess. I really like her, Billie. I’m not messing her around. If anyone is going to hurt anyone, it’s going to be her hurting me, when she leaves after Christmas.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ I insist. ‘More sorry by the minute. I’ve had you all wrong, all this time.’
‘I’m sorry if you feel like Declan left you because of me,’ he says sincerely. ‘But if he saw me, miserable, drinking every night, and thought that seemed like a great life, then maybe I did you a favour. And at least he’s going to sign the house over to you.’
