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Half the popcorn resting on her belly flies to the floor and I’m spluttering with laughter when she turns to me aghast. “What the fuck? What do you know that you’ve not told me yet?”
I wrinkle my nose and purse my lips. “Just a feeling. I don’t think he’s single.”
“And you don’t care?” Her eyebrows are nearly meeting—and they are some pencil-thin little skinnies she’s got right there—never one to turn in favour of a trend.
Chewing the inside of my cheek, I muse, “For some reason, no. Although it pisses me off he hasn’t been honest with me.”
“Yeah!” she yells. “I wonder why.”
Shrugging, I again try to seem as indifferent as possible. “I’ve got no inclination for a relationship right now. It is what it is.”
When Kallie puts all of her sweets, chocolate, biscuits, mince pies and her slurpee on the coffee table so she can turn and face me fully, I know I’m about to get both barrels.
“Uh, he’s a senior where you work, right?” Her large black eyes show she’s livid.
Taking a deep breath, I grunt. “I’ve tried not to think about that.”
“When you become an inconvenience, he’ll want shot of you. Mark my words.”
I blow out a breath, sucking my homemade banana milkshake up through a metal straw. I drink shakes everyday for breakfast (usually protein-laden ones), so when it’s Christmas, all that’s going in this sucker is sugar, syrup or cream. Oh, and yeah, artificial everything.
“They can’t get rid of me, Kal. I’ve gone from a junior writer to Account Manager in six months. I’ve proven myself invaluable.”
In fact, getting the job with Chrissy has been an absolute godsend. For once feeling like an integral player, a valued member of staff, and a capable person. Doing the thing I always set out to do got me through the terrible days in the aftermath of Albiegate (as it has become known to me and Kallie).
I feel her eyeroll from across the room even though my eyes are fixed on David Tennant and Catherine Tate.
Kallie’s not impressed I’m messing about with an unavailable man. I know the words are coming before she even utters them.
“You’re better than this,” she says, in that grumbly way of hers.
“Maybe I’m not, babe. That life I lived with the members of Flawless, you can’t unsee all that shit, all right? Not to mention—”
I hardly grew up knowing any kind of stable, loving relationship. I’ve got no framework, no model marriage, to be going on with here. Love, to me, has always been a mystery. Perhaps it forever will be. If that’s the case, then I might be better off admitting that now—and then I shall never suffer any disappointment. So, for the time being, something casual is all I need. Something that could never become anything.
“Working for Sharon got me this job,” I argue, vehement. “I always said a couple of years working for her and I’d get kudos from any agency in London. Here I am now, working for one of the most prestigious of the lot. It was always a stop gap. I did it. But there was a price. I can’t—”
All I hear are her nostrils as she breathes in and out deeply. “This is about your mum and dad, I know.”
“Right now, it’s about me. About the fact the only man I ever loved—”
I toss everything off me and walk around the sofa, covering my eyes, trying to stem the inevitable. Kallie knows I’m upset and curses, but she’ll still not give me an easy time of it, I know that.
“That’s the first time you’ve admitted you loved him,” she says softly, reading the anguish in my demeanour, finally.
“More than anything,” I admit, shaking.
“Mira—”
“No, I don’t want your pity.” I continue pacing about, waving my hands around so she doesn’t become that person who tries to hug me and tell me it’ll all be fine. Because it won’t be. “I’ve been angry, and I let you see the anger, but when you and she split up…” We sayhername less than we say Albie’s. “…I wasn’t going to put my shit on you and add to your own bollocks. But yeah, I really, really loved him. What happened with him cut me into ribbons, inside.” Gesturing at my stomach, I clench my fists so she can see what I mean. “Often when the door closed and it was just me, it got ugly and I was a husk. I was broken, because of what he did.
“So that explains Miles,” I say, taking a deep breath. “It explains getting great head and having no-strings sex with no explanations or answers. And what may come, will come. But if what’s already happened ain’t killed me yet, why would this? That’s if it does go tits up, anyway. I might get another job. He might. One day, he might announce it’s over and we’ll both pass each other in the corridor pleasantly.” She snorts at that, as do I, hearing it back in my own head. “Whatever happens, let it come. I lived every day working for Sharon in constant fear. It was hell on earth. It feels like, whatever will be, will be from now on. I’m stronger for getting out. I can handle the consequences, whatever those are. Trust me.”
She inhales deeply. “Sounds like you’ve already predicted it’s going to end badly.”
“I didn’t trust anyone before, babe. Where do you think my trust-o-meter is now, after Albie?”
She stuffs a mince pie in her face. “I’d say about the level of Psycho Woman Who Does Not Give a Fuck.”
