Page 107 of If I Never Met You

‘I’m really sorry. We need the table back?’ She held her slender arm out and twisted the strap on her wristwatch so the clock face was visible to Laurie, to underline her point.

Of course, Laurie had forgotten the harsh table turning in popular places like this. She couldn’t squat here and get smashed even if she wanted to.

The waitress did indeed look really sorry for Laurie and Laurie was aflame with the heat of the room’s fire pits for what her father had put her through. She left cash with a big tip for the beers and tore out of Albert’s Schloss without making eye contact with anyone.

Outside, Laurie checked her phone to see if her dad had messaged –lol of course he hadn’t– and called him. It rang out, unanswered.Hi this is Austin! I know we all hate talking into these things but speak after the beep if you can bear it.She could leave a stinging rebuke on answerphone but what would be the point?

When she glanced up, she started at Jamie walking towards her, looking like the essence of young gorgeous Manchester wanker in a black sweater, dark jeans and black trainers. Jacket thrown over the crook of his arm, even though it was minty-fresh cold. Vanity, always.

He was with another heavyset young man in a red jacket and two girls, one with short dark hair and another with a ballet dancer’s bun. They were both, it was evident from a distance, gorgeous.

‘Hi!’ Laurie and Jamie both said, in unison.

They mutually exchanged an alarmed look that said:If we are meant to be dating then this should be handled a certain way but we’ve not really thought what that might involve.

‘You go ahead, I’ll have the house beer,’ Jamie said, fixing it hastily, gesturing his friends inside.

When they’d safely trooped through the door, he said, ‘That’s a mate from my Liverpool days and some other friends. Somehow I didn’t think when you said you were coming here, it’d be Sunday. You waiting for your dad?’

‘Well Iwas.’

Laurie explained to Jamie why she was leaving, and Jamie grimaced and said: ‘That’s completely shit. And he’s not picking up? Wow.’

‘Yep. Also, don’t turn round and look, but be aware they’ve given your friends seats in the window, and they have a direct line of sight to us right now.’

‘I’ve never felt as guilty in my life as I do, doing absolutely nothing wrong with you.’ Jamie grinned and Laurie tried to smile, but she couldn’t manage much of one.

It was good to see him, if in excruciating circumstances. Was he on a double date …?

‘Are you OK?’ he said.

Being asked if she was OK, a friend seeing her not OK-ness, tipped the balance. Laurie’s eyes stung in the bright winter sunlight and she said, morose with alcohol on an empty stomach: ‘Was there something in Dan that was like my dad, that I unconsciously homed in on? I feel like I wore aplease kick my arse some moresign. Without knowing it. Should I have treated them both differently?’

‘No. Listen,’ Jamie put his hand on her side and moved Laurie further out of the way of the door, as more customers arrived. ‘Listen to me on this, I know what I’m talking about. It’s got fuck all to do with you. I’ve let down some great people in my time and it was never, ever anything to do with them. In fact, sometimes the fact they were great sent me spinning off even harder in the opposite direction.’

Laurie gulped. She was right on the precipice of tears and this sort of kindness could push her right over.

‘Theyare messing up. This istheirinadequacy. Don’t put it on yourself. That your dad can’t be a father and Dan can’t not be a treacherous dickhead are faults in their own stars. You’re over here.’ Jamie gestured a circle around Laurie. ‘Doing you. And you are completely fucking great.’

‘Thank you,’ Laurie said, tightly.

‘If you ever believe that you’ll be completely unstoppable. I kind of hope you don’t.’

He smiled and Laurie smiled back, weakly.

‘Jamie …?’ The ballet bun hair girl hung off the door, in an insouciant way, like a child playing. In skinny jeans, she had a pelvis the size of a banjo. Laurie wondered if Jamie was playing it. She felt a pang of insecurity.

‘We need to order food?’

‘Get me the roast dinner thing. Do they have that? OK, one of those please.’

The girl lingered, looking to Laurie, then Jamie, then back to Laurie again, disconcerted.

‘Can I have a moment with Laurie, please?’ Jamie said to her, and her eyes widened.

The door slapped shut as she scuttled off inside. The girl watched them with bug eyes, from beyond a pane of glass, her mouth moving rapidly as she no doubt updated her tablemates.

‘Are you seeing her?’ Laurie said, blurting, slightly taken aback at the idea. What a tangled web this was: what about his fake girlfriend, and what about Eve?

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