Page 5 of The Island of Hopes and Dreams

‘Yeah,’ he said, trying to push past.

Gareth gripped his shoulder. Beer sloshed around his nearly empty pint glass. ‘You realise I’m only across the bridge in Cardiff.’ Gareth’s eyelids were droopy, his heavily Welsh-accented words slurred. The few times they’d gone out together at uni he’d always been a heavy drinker, and slightly obnoxious with it. Perhaps little had changed, although Rhys didn’t know him well enough for that to be a fair judgement. ‘Isn’t your family in Wales?’ Gareth continued.

‘Yeah, Mam and Dad are in Caerphilly.’

‘We should go out. You, me, Barnaby. Freddie and Zoe too since she’s moved in with him – Worcester’s not too far. Maybe we could do a whole weekend.’

Rhys’s insides clenched. ‘He just told me they were together, but he didn’t say anything about them living together.’

Gareth raised his eyebrows. ‘Yup. I’m surprised as fuck it took them this long to get together.’

Rhys frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Wasn’t it common knowledge they had a thing for each other at uni?’ Gareth said. ‘They were the definition of friends with benefits.’

The chatter from outside faded away as Rhys focused on Gareth; his heart beat faster and sweat beaded his top lip as the words played over.

‘Me and Zoe were together at uni,’ Rhys said slowly. ‘During most of our first and second year before she did her year abroad.’

‘Were you? I did not realise that.’ Gareth slapped him on the shoulder. ‘Maybe I got it wrong then.’ He lifted his nearly empty pint glass. ‘Need another drink.’

He shot off, making a beeline for the crowded outside bar before Rhys could answer.

Rhys stepped into the pub and drained his lager. It left a bitter taste on his tongue. What did Gareth know? They’d had separate social circles while at university and had been on different courses and in different halls of residence, although they’d known each other through Fabs, which meant he would have known Zoe then as well. What if there was truth to what he’d said? Rhys and Zoe hadn’t survived her going abroad although they’d remained friends, and by the time she returned to Bristol for her final year of her degree, Rhys had changed his mind about pursuing a career in law and had started a teacher training course with a placement teaching English in Tuscany.

Rhys put his empty bottle on a table and navigated his way through the bar to the toilets. He shut himself in a cubicle. Eight years after he’d graduated and they’d gone their separate ways, he and Zoe had reconnected romantically and had stayed together for more than three years, with her eventually moving in with him back in Bristol. He’d never once had an inkling that she’d been unfaithful to him during that time, but when they’d been at university?

The thump thump of pop music played over the speaker in the men’s toilets. Rhys put the toilet lid down and sat with his head in his hands. Those anxious thoughts that had kept him company on the taxi ride once again returned with horrible clarity. Only a few weeks before Zoe had announced she was leaving him for a new job in another city, Rhys had been looking at engagement rings. They’d lived together and he’d loved her, yet sometimes he’d questioned if they were right for each other when they seemed to want different things. Gareth might just have proved that Rhys’s gut instinct had been right, not that it made him feel any better.

3

Rhys’s fear about revisiting the past and spending time with his friends and Zoe had come true, albeit in a way he hadn’t anticipated.

They moved on from the pub terrace to The Ivy, a restaurant housed in an impressive Georgian building in chic Clifton Village, where Freddie and Zoe sat next to each other, their easy intimacy making Rhys wonder how their relationship hadn’t been obvious before.

When they reached Barnaby’s house, it was much harder to avoid them and even more obvious how Zoe and Freddie radiated towards each other. It shouldn’t matter when he and Zoe were no longer an item, but she’d broken his heart, had seemingly cheated on him when they’d first been together at uni and was now with one of his friends. Had everyone else known? Rhys tried to force down his resentment as a beer was handed to him and the music was turned up.

Almost everyone was gathered on the ground floor of the Georgian townhouse, where the front living room seamlessly transitioned into the kitchen, and the patio doors were thrown open onto the terraced garden. Barnaby had done incredibly well for himself with a house that had to be worth seven figures, its sash windows, striped floorboards and dado rails working beautifully with the modern touches. They must have spent a fortune on builders to renovate it, managing to get the place liveable in a fraction of the time it had taken Rhys to finish his three-bed Victorian terrace. He shouldn’t compare himself to Barnaby, not when it would only make him feel even worse about himself.

So Rhys went through the motions of pretending he was having a good time – easy enough to do with copious amounts of alcohol. He drifted between people, chatting absent-mindedly while nursing a beer, making a concerted effort to chat with Fabs’s London friends, who didn’t know anything about him and his past relationships.

But despite his intentions to not let the truth about Freddie and Zoe get the better of him, Rhys kept catching sight of them. He couldn’t tear his eyes away, noticing the way Zoe would laugh at something Freddie said and how she’d throw her head back in a full throaty chuckle. His eyes were drawn to the milky skin of her throat and down to her cleavage, which was pushed up in that little red dress. And the way her hand brushed Freddie’s arm – his solid, muscled, gym-honed arm.

A fire burned in his core, intent on flaring up and joining forces with that little jabbing voice in his head that made him want to spit and shout and scream, to release all those feelings of hurt and worthlessness that had been building in the year since Zoe had left. What he needed was closure, which Zoe being with someone else should have given him, but not when she’d moved on withhis friend. Seeing them so comfortable and perfect together made him question everything, particularly their student years and the lies she must have spun. The fact that Freddie – one of his closest friends – had been complicit felt like a huge betrayal.

A juddering thought slammed into him: had Fabs known about Freddie and Zoe back then too? Tuning out of the conversation about London politics, Rhys swivelled, feeling dizzy as he searched for Fabs, but there was no sign of him and it was difficult to make out who was chatting together in the fairy-light-lit garden.

He did spot Zoe extracting herself from beneath Freddie’s arm and heading towards the kitchen. With his sights on Freddie, Rhys made his move. Gripping the neck of his beer bottle, and fuelled by alcohol and adrenaline, he closed the distance between them.

Freddie noticed him too late to move away and Rhys nearly stumbled into him.

‘Are you two going to Sardinia together?’ he blurted out, inwardly grimacing that he sounded like a petulant child.

Freddie looked at him warily. ‘Yeah, that’s why I wanted to give you a heads-up earlier.’

‘Out of the goodness of your heart, I suppose,’ Rhys said, unable to stop the sarcasm in his voice.

‘Well, yeah. What the hell’s with the tone, mate?’ Freddie shuffled uncomfortably. ‘I know this is a bit of a weird situation, what with you being Zoe’s ex and all, but?—’

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