Page 57 of If I Never Met You

If she got to the mags court before the hour, she could possibly intercept Jamie outside without anyone seeing. This conversation was too involved for WhatsApp. She timed it right as he was ten paces ahead of her on the pavement the whole way, talking into his phone for much of it.

‘Jamie,’ she said, pouncing on him as he put his phone in his pocket.

Laurie glanced around to check they weren’t being observed and motioned for him to duck round the side of the building with her.

Laurie was slightly out of breath, skin still warm with not only the exertion of tracking him, but prickling shame at Kerry’s cruelties.

‘It’s over,’ she said, urgently, under her breath. ‘Kerry is going round saying it’s obviously fake and a ploy to get back at Dan.’

Jamie shrugged. ‘And?’

‘And, we’ve been made. Or I have. They’re not going to buy the idea we’re together.’

‘This is to be expected, as they get their heads round it.’

‘Why would they change their minds?’

‘You keep saying they, plural. This is Kerry. Kerry gonna Kerry. Why do you care what she thinks?’

‘Uh, I thoughtwhat people thinkwas the whole point of this? Why else are we doing it?’

‘Kerry is one person, and someone everyone knows is about as reliable a news source as theDaily Star,’ Jamie said. ‘Let her say what she wants. It’s more fuel thrown on to the fire, which we have set.’

‘But if it’s out there, the idea that it’s not real and it’s for Dan’s sake, from now on I look stupid!’

‘Will you calm down?’ Jamie said. ‘You don’t look stupid. We carry on. The plan is the plan.’

Being told to calm down made Laurie feel even more foolish.

‘This has fallen at the first hurdle. It’s simply not plausible. God, the last thing I wanted was for people to think I am in such a mess over Dan I’d do this.’

‘Your sensitivity over his reaction is clouding your judgement,’ Jamie said, frowning. ‘Absolutely nothing’s changed. See it from the outside, beyond Salter & Rowson’s microclimate. The idea it’s impossible two single people in their thirties who work in the same office might be dating – it’s not “out there”, is it? It’s not “persuading people that 9/11 was an inside job” level of buy in?’

Laurie could see how exasperated Jamie was with her. Someone so ambitious and confident probably had low tolerance for what he perceived as weak nerves and cowardice.

‘You only want to press on because it might get you a juicy promotion!’

‘No shit, that’s why I’m doing this? Not much of a gotcha, is it? It doesn’t make my analysis wrong.’

Laurie was silent.

‘OK, look,’ Jamie rubbed the bridge of his nose, movinghis Clark Kent glasses upwards, and Laurie suspected he was regretting it too, whatever he said, ‘If you drop it now, Kerry has won, because if it stays a one-off then itwilllook like a stunt. Carry on, and she looks more and more wrong. Which’ll it be?’

Laurie had no comeback. He was right.

‘… OK,’ she shrugged, in defeat.

There was a pause as they prepared to part.

‘Do you wear glasses?’ Laurie adjusted the files she was carrying.

‘Uh?’ Jamie pointed at them, on his face.

‘I mean sometimes you’re in them and sometimes you’re not.’

‘Have you heard of long sighted and short sightedness?’

‘Yes, but I can’t work out which you have.’

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