‘What’s that, love?’ came the cabbie’s voice through the flimsyplastic screen. My eyes blinked open to see the taxi driver’s gaze fixed on me in the rear-view mirror, probably trying to gauge if I was a puke risk or just plain old crazy.
‘Nothing,’ I said quietly, my fingertips tracing the soft circle of skin where my ring used to sit. ‘Please just take me home.’
15
‘You should call him.’
I gawped at Alice, mouth open. As if she’d just suggested I jump off Beachy Head stark naked.
‘Call who?’
Alice rolled her eyes, her pursed lips confirmation that she wasn’t willing to play this game. She took a sip of her wine, suddenly very interested in her nail beds. She was waiting me out and I knew it, but it didn’t make it any less annoying.
‘Why would I call him?’ I huffed eventually, dropping theI don’t know who you’re talking aboutact. I wiggled the third and fourth fingers of my left hand, a habit I’d developed ever since I’d found my ring lying forgotten on my bedside table when I got home from Luca’s gig. The metal band felt cool and reassuring against my skin.
‘Because you haven’t stopped thinking about him since Saturday night.’
‘Because you just gave me vodka instead of gin,’ Jacob spluttered, grimacing as he returned his glass to the beermat in front of him.
‘Because you’ve been polishing that same pint glass for fifteen minutes.’
I put the glass pointedly down on the bar, watching it sparkle under the lights as I tucked the tea towel under the tie of my apron.
‘Because your face is the colour of a tomato right now.’ Jacob grinned. He was enjoying this game way too much.
‘Because—’
‘OK!’ I held up both hands in surrender, cutting Alice off before she could add yet more fuel to the already-blazing inferno. Alice swapped her half-full glass of Chardonnay for Jacob’s vodka tonic much to his delight, a snail trail of condensation marking their silent exchange.
‘What’s the big deal anyway? You see each other practically every week already.’ I’d always envied Alice’s ability to view everything in black and white. Occupational hazard for a doctor, I guess. But thisthingwith Luca was so far from black and white. It was an ever-changing kaleidoscope of colours, some of which I’d never even seen before. The heat I’d felt on Friday night when his fingers had touched mine was a blistering hot red. The sense of happiness I’d started to feel at the prospect of seeing Luca at the community centre, a bright sunshine yellow. The ripples of green when I clocked Harry’s mum purposefully drop her car keys in front of Luca, her Pilates-toned derriere angled in his direction as she bent down in slow motion to retrieve them. A washed-out grey-blue surrounding the whole picture, a swirling mix of confusion and sadness.
‘He’s afriend, right?’ The probing lilt of Alice’s voice confirmed she thought otherwise, but she knew me too well to dive right in and say what we both knew to be true. Luca wasn’t a friend. I wasn’t sure what hewas, of anything really, but after Saturday night, I was certain hewasn’ta friend.
I blinked, processing.
‘I guess.’
‘So,friendsphone each other and thank them for a fun night.’
I rolled my eyes at her, grateful for the sight of Old Sam, one of our regulars who’d had a full head of brilliant white hair for as long as I could remember, approaching the bar. Some thingsat least never changed. I busied myself with pouring him a pint of Guinness, not needing to wait to hear his order which had been the same for the past fifteen years. As the dark, stormy liquid swirled in the glass, I glanced back over at Alice who was hunched over her phone, her face illuminated with a soft blue glow as she scrolled purposefully through something on the screen. Jacob was leaning over, whispering something intently in his sister’s ear – although she simply shook her head, batting him away when he tried to snatch the phone from her.
‘Keep the change.’ Old Sam smiled, pressing a crisp £5 note into my hand. He was probably the only patron left who still paid in cash. As I slotted his £5 note neatly into the designated section of the till, I frowned. The spot at the side of the register where my phone always sat while I was on shift was empty. I patted the back pockets of my jeans, rooted around in the front pocket of my apron. Empty. A lump lodged itself at the back of my throat as my eyes darted back to a suspiciously pleased-looking Alice. She had my phone in her right hand, the nameLucaappearing on the screen as a ringing tone buzzed aggressively through the speaker.
‘Give me that!’ My feet left the floor as I performed a full-body lunge across the bar, swiping the still-ringing phone from Alice’s hands.
‘Hello?’
His voice took me by surprise, the phone slipping through my fingers onto the floor with a clatter. For one panicked second I froze, all three of us looking down as though it were a grenade about to explode, before Luca’s voice buzzed through the speaker once more.
‘Hello?’
I dropped to the floor, all fingers and thumbs as I hot-potatoed the phone from one hand to the other, before eventually managing to take it off speaker. My thumb hoveredover the End Call button, all red and enticing. But I knew he’d only call back, so I raised the phone to my ear.
‘Yo!’
Jacob spluttered most of his drink over the bar top, Alice almost falling off her stool. I’d never saidyoin my entire life, so God knows why that was the first word that popped into my panicked brain.
Luca sighed impatiently, clearly not recognising my voice, which wasn’t surprising considering the wholeyodebacle. ‘Sorry, who is this?’
