Page 5 of If I Never Met You

‘Why?’

‘I don’t think Salter wants his niece socialising with any of us.’

Laurie smiled. If she wasn’t miserable, wanting to further delay returning to Suzanne, and several drinks to the good, she might not wind him up. As it was …

‘By “socialising”, you mean shagging, and by “any of us”, you mean you?’

‘Well,’ Jamie shrugged, slightly taken aback and evidently at a momentary loss. ‘Who knows what goes through the old goat’s mind. You’d have to ask him.’

‘OK,’ Laurie said.

‘Thank you,’ Jamie exhaled.

‘… I’ll ask him!’

She waited for the punchline to land and enjoyed Jamie’s aghast expression when it did.

‘Hahaha!’

‘For fu—’ Jamie performed a mixture of bashful and still edgy. He was being winsome and acting vulnerable because right now she could choose to do him damage, of that she was sure.

‘I’m not a fan of the office gossip,’ Laurie said. ‘I won’t say anything. Don’t muck her around, OK?’

‘It’s not like that, I promise,’ Jamie said. ‘It’s career talk.’

‘Uh huh,’ Laurie said, casting her eyes back to where Eve was tilting her chin, pouting at her own reflection.

Laurie returned with heavy dread to her seat, only to see with joy that Emily was in it, and everyone else had clustered round the other side of the table to screech at something on one of the girl’s phones. Blessed release. Given the volume of the music, at this distance, they might as well have gone to Iran.

‘I am flying a humanitarian mission. Did you get Suzanne-ed?’ Emily said, as Laurie took Suzanne’s former position next to her.

‘Yep.’

‘She’s a complete fucking twat, isn’t she?’

Laurie’s Old Fashioned went down the wrong way as she coughed in delighted surprise and Emily slapped her heartily on the back.

When Laurie had her voice back, she said: ‘She let me know I was an old maid and weird nun for my uneventful romantic history.’

‘What a bleak cow. Last I heard she was hopping on Marcus from KPMG and he has a community dick, so no one’s taking her advice.’

Laurie coughed on her drink again. ‘A what?’

‘You know, used freely by everyone. Open access. A civic resource.’

Laurie managed to stop laughing long enough to add: ‘And she and Carly asked me where I was from.’

Emily did a grit-teeth face.

‘I said Yorkshire and they said …’

Emily put a hand on Laurie’s arm and tilted her head. ‘No, I meant where are youfrom?’

Emily had been spectator to this enough times to know how it went. In lairy younger years, it was usually Emily who jumped in with a: ‘First of all, how done you …’ while Laurie shushed her.

Oh Loz, I am sorry. Clients love them, so I’m scunnered. Why do bad people have to be good at their jobs?’

Laurie laughed, and remembered why she so often said yes to Emily. She thought there was a lot of truth in the closest friendships being unconsummated romances. Emily was a high-flying executive, Tinder adventuress and queen of the casual hook up, Laurie was serious and settled and steady, yet their differences only made them endlessly fascinated with the other.

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