Page 78 of Actually Yours

As his bedroom door slams, reinforcing that he’s home for good and now a person I’m going to have to deal with daily, I turn off the TV, no longer in the mood to watch even my favourite show.

Switching off the living room lights, I pick up my phone, frowning when there are no new notifications, and walk to my bedroom. Once there, I sink gratefully onto my mattress, clutching my phone to my chest, closing my eyes and letting the events of the last twenty-four hours run through my mind. Amelia at the ball surrounded by admirers, Amelia swaying her body close to mine on the dancefloor, Amelia holding my hand as we walked along the moonlit beach, Amelia admitting she wished it was me she had let in, Amelia kissing me, leaving me, texting me. Me ignoring Amelia. And then to top things off, Robby. Back home and ready to cause more mischief.

If I thought things were bad just one hour ago, when I’d received Amelia’s text, well, they are so much worse now. And with her message sitting there, read but not responded to, and Robby’s presence looming like a dark shadow, for the first time in my life, I don’t have a clue what to do next.

Or even where to start.

CHAPTER 16

Amelia

He hasn’t messaged me back.

My ‘can we talk’ text message has been sitting on ‘read’ for a day now, just staring accusingly at me, like it’s my fault for sending something so utterly offensive.

Why hasn’t he messaged me back?

“It’s not the best thing to send to a man after you ran away from him. After he laid out his heart to you.”

This is from Andrea, who is firmly on Team Jake and is very cross at me for every action I took after the minutes our lips met.I really shouldn’t have gone into that much detail with her.

“I just want to talk to him,” I whine, combing my hair in front of my face, preparing to cut my own bangs.

“Don’t do it!” Andrea snatches the scissors out of my hands and spins my chair around. It is past closing time at the salon and my idle hands are itching to do something drastic. To my hair, it seems. “Emotional bangs are not the answer.”

I spin myself back around and glare at my reflection.If I can’t do bangs, then what colour can I change my hair to?It’s beenthis shade of blonde for over two weeks now, so I’m one week overdue for a new colour.

“Pink?” I ask my boss, twirling a strand in between my fingers. “Too much?”

She shakes her head at me. “I think you’re distracting yourself with these trivial things, when really you need to be focussed on what you’re going to do about Jake.”

I know this. I just wish I knew the answer.

“It’s up to him now, Drea. He needs to write back.”

“You need to write something less scary.” She points the scissors in her hand menacingly at me. “No one wants to have ‘the talk’ with a potential love interest. He probably thinks you’re gearing up to reject him. Again.”

That’s what I’ve been fearing for the past twenty-four hours, clutching my phone and begging for a text message notification. Instead, it stayed so silent, I had to get Bella to text me, just to make sure my phone wasn’t broken.

“I know, I know,” I huff at her, pulling my hair up into a ponytail, leaving the colour change for another day. “It’s just that I’m scared too.”

Her smile is sympathetic. “I know this is uncharted territory for you.” I’d told her about myLove, Actuallyepiphany, after which she’d laugh hysterically. Rude. “But it’s time for you to be brave. To put your heart on the line and hope that he looks after it.”

Said heart hisses at the thought of it. It’s been so badly mishandled by so many men in the past. In its battered and bruised state, it’s begging for some care.

“He’s a good man,” I tell her, trying to convince us both that this is true. Though I guess it’s a futile activity where Andrea is concerned. She doesn’t think he’s a ‘good man’, she thinks he’s the ‘best man’. For me.

“He is, so just call him.”

No sooner have the words left her mouth when my phone pings, both of us lunging for it at the same time.

“Is it him?” Andrea asks, holding the phone away from her face and squinting at the screen. I keep telling her she needs glasses, to which she responds that this is how everyone over the age of 45 reads their telephones.

I grab the phone off her, my posture deflating when I see who the text message is from.

“It’s from Mike the electrician.”

Andrea makes a face, like she’s sucking a sour lemon, and goes back to closing up the salon. “What does he want?”

---