‘In here,’ I called back from my position on top of my duvet, where I’d been since getting home from my walk with Dad. He’d offered to cook me dinner, but all that emotional deep-diving had drained me, so I’d made cheese on toast and was hand stamping all of the table headers for the wedding instead. Isla and Joe (mainly Isla, I was assuming) had decided on a Mamma Mia theme for their tables, since the first date they’d ever been on was to watch it at the theatre. Their honeymoon was also a salute to the story; they were going island hopping in Greece and their final week would be in Skiathos, where they’d planned a whole day trip to Skopelos. Isla had fantasised about recreating Sophie and Sky’s duet on the beach, which I’d assured her I would pay serious money to see. Joe hadn’t even liked doing the ‘Cha Cha Slide’ at our primary school discos.
‘Wow, you’ve got a real assembly line going on here.’ Maeve appeared, leaning on my door frame.
I glanced at the rows of place cards in front of me, midway through printing ‘The Dynamos’ on a header for Isla’s friends from the florist.
‘Got to be efficient. Less than one week to go.’
Maeve smiled. ‘Wedding of the decade. I cannot believe they’ve managed to pull this off.’
I took in her outfit, which was a lemon-yellow corduroy jumpsuit. She had an orange claw clip holding her hair in place, and chunky gold hoops weighing down her lobes. ‘Hot date?’
She grinned. ‘A first date with someone else. Necked back half a bottle of wine in the first hour, so clearly I had some steam to burn off after this weekend.’
I winced. We hadn’t directly spoken about it since it had happened. And I knew it was hard for her to go between the two of us.
I carried on stamping, avoiding eye contact. ‘How is he?’
She nodded, like ‘yep, we’re going there’. ‘He’s not exactly fine. Not yet anyway, but he will be. You really surprised him.’
I nodded. ‘I know. I want to fix it, but I want to do what’s right by the company too.’
Maeve started taking out her earrings. ‘Give him some time to come around.’
I folded my arms over my Snoopy pyjamas. ‘How much time is time? Because we’ve got quite the event coming up, and we really need to be speaking by then.’
Maeve attempted to reassure me. ‘You’re both adults, it’ll be fine. He’s not going to risk ruining the wedding for this. It’s Rory we’re talking about. But just give him this week, okay?’
I must have looked unconvinced, because she fixed me with her psychologist stare. ‘Promise?’
‘Promise.’ I went back to my stamping, suddenly exhausted. I’d paid so much attention to not mixing the personal with the professional, and now I’d jeopardised both.
38
I’d been on the verge of pulling my own hair out when he’d finally messaged. It was Wednesday, and I’d been working from home for the last two days, waiting for word from Ella that Rory might be back in the office. And by ‘working from home’, I meant watching old episodes of Love Island and stress-eating chocolate digestives. For someone who’d been a stickler for rules their whole life, taking study leave at its word and using university reading weeks to actually read, this was new territory for me. And, judging by the sea of digestive crumbs around me, it was territory best left unexplored. When my phone finally did ding with an incoming text, my first thought was that it was one of the contestants on my reality show. When they didn’t scream out ‘I’ve got a text’, I looked down at my screen, which was lit up with Rory’s name.
Rory: Can we talk?
For the last thirty-six hours, all I’d wanted was this. I’d been doing ridiculous things like archiving our WhatsApp chat and putting my phone on aeroplane mode just so that I wouldn’t obsess over his lack of response. Now that I was staring at those three dots typing, I felt a bit nauseous. I flopped back on our sofa, steadying myself.
Rory: I can come to you. Seven-ish?
It was currently two in the afternoon. There was no way I was getting any more work done today.
***
Even though Rory had seen me in various states over the years – the worst being during a particularly bad case of the flu in our final year, when he’d had to feed me buttered toast and Lucozade – I still changed my outfit three times, settling on a loose-fitting beige jumpsuit and my bunny slippers. Who was I kidding? I was in such deep shit that no outfit was going to save me now. Maeve had gone out ‘with a friend’, which was definitely code for ‘going to Isla’s to give you two some space’. As thankful as I was, it had only allowed me to work myself up into a frenzy. When the buzzer finally went, I tried not to run over to the door, using the same method I did when I ordered a takeaway and didn’t want to look too keen.
‘Hi.’ He was waiting on the other side, staring back at me, and I felt my body relax. Like it had been tied tight with string and someone had let the end go.
‘Hey.’
I used the moment of slightly awkward silence to my advantage, taking him in for the first time in three days. He was wearing jeans and a Nike sweatshirt, his hair slightly messed up from running his hands through it.
‘Nice bunnies.’ His deadpan expression melted for a second as he took in my own get-up.
‘They’re comfy.’ I opened the door a bit wider, trying to ignore the anxiety creeping up my chest. ‘You coming in?’
He nodded, shooting me a slightly forced smile and following me inside, closing the door behind him. Maybe this wasn’t going to be as awful as I’d built up in my head.
‘How have you been?’ I instinctively moved towards the fridge to grab him a drink, but he stopped me.
‘I’m not staying long.’
‘Oh.’ I let my hands drop to my sides, deflated. Rory knew how much Maeve hated shoes in the house, but he’d kept his trainers on. For a quick escape.
‘I thought you’d come here to talk, that you wanted to figure this out.’
Rory wasn’t looking me in the eye. ‘I did. I do.’
There was an awkward pause, neither of us sure what to say.
‘Listen, Rory.’ I spoke at the same time he said ‘Penny’.
I tried again. ‘I didn’t mean for any of that to happen last weekend. I hadn’t spoken to him since that day in the office, and he mistook my doubt –’
‘That’s just it. I’m hurt that you didn’t tell me about this “doubt” as soon as it crept in. That you went to him when you could have come to me. We’re supposed to be partners.’
I felt a sharp fizzle of anger. Only this time, it wasn’t directed at Daniel.
