Page 10 of Best Summer Ever

‘That’s pretty much what I said!’ Penny laughed.

‘Why didn’t you let us know you were coming?’ Nick beamed, then his smile faltered as he looked back over my shoulder into the house. ‘Are you on your own?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Penny, as the penny dropped. ‘You did come on your own, didn’t you?’

‘I did,’ I told them, realising they were both expecting to see Laurence, because whenever I came back to Wynbrook now, it was always with him. ‘I’m very much on my own.’

‘Well, that’s great.’ Nick nodded, the grin reappearing.

He’d never been a fan of my former beau, and I knew Penny wasn’t particularly keen either, but she had always been better at hiding it than he had.

‘Permanently, as it turns out,’ I further said, my voice wavering a little, which was annoying. I took a breath before continuing. ‘I’ve left Laurence,’ I then more steadily said.

‘That’s even better,’ Nick laughed, and he threw the meat tongs in the air and only just caught them.

‘Nick!’ Penny gasped, as she looked worriedly at me.

‘What?’ He shrugged, as he then clumsily flipped a couple of burgers. ‘You never liked him either, Pen.’

I looked at Penny and found she’d turned bright red.

‘It’s fine,’ I told her. ‘I knew you didn’t.’

The truth was, Laurence hadn’t liked her or Nick either. In fact, when I thought about it, he was often the one who put me off video-calling and messaging them. Not that I was making excuses for my tardiness, but it was further food for thought. He was in constant touch with his friends, aka work colleagues, but had never encouraged me to talk to my childhood chums.

‘I am sorry though,’ Penny sympathetically said. ‘You’d been together a while.’

‘Probably too long,’ I tried to say stoically.

‘I hated the way he always treated you like his pet project,’ Nick then unexpectedly blurted out. He sounded really rattled. ‘As if your flighty ways needed fixing.’

His tone was scathing.

‘You can’t really blame him for that,’ I responded, ‘because for a while I wanted to be fixed. When we got together, I thought he was going to sort me out.’

‘Idiot,’ Nick muttered.

I didn’t know if he was referring to me or Laurence.

‘Youaresorted,’ Nick then more loudly said. ‘You’re exactly who you’re meant to be, Daisy.’

I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. If that was the case, I was destined to be fanciful and unfocused forever!

‘Do you want to talk about it?’ Penny asked, sounding calmer than Nick. ‘The break-up, I mean.’

A part of me really did. I wanted to tell them how I’d walked in on Laurence and his colleague working on the wrong sort of project, how status-obsessed he’d become and how unhappy in the relationship I’d been for quite some time, but I didn’t. The part of me that simply wanted to relax and enjoy some beer and burgers with my mates won out.

‘There’s nothing to talk about, really,’ I said. ‘We just grew apart, I suppose, and I decided to call time. It’s all still a bit… raw, though. It’s only just happened. I’ve only been back a few hours.’

‘Of course.’ Penny nodded.

‘What have your mum and dad said about it?’ Nick more bluntly asked. ‘I bet they’re gutted. They always thought the sun shone out of Laurence’s—’

‘Nick…’ Penny said.

‘They’re both pretty upset,’ I confirmed, thinking of their reactions.

And that was another reason why I wasn’t going to talk about Laurence’s extra-curricular activities. Neither of my friends were gossips, but I couldn’t risk the truth of what had happened getting back to Mum and Dad. It wasn’t loyalty to Laurence that stopped me exposing him as the cheat he was, I simply didn’t want to make the situation even more difficult for my parents than it already was.

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