Page 59 of Someone Like You

He’ll kill me if he finds out I spilled the beans

He didn’t want to tell you in case it didn’t work out

Abigail

Pun intended?

“Ach, fuck it.” Ian chuckled to himself, Kibble bouncing along with his chest. Cleverandfunny… It wasn’t fair.

You

Just when I thought you couldn’t be more perfect

Abigail

I can’t believe he didn’t tell me about the gym

You

He’s terrified of letting you down

I told him it’s bullshit but you know how he is

Just let him set his own pace, he’ll be fine

Abigail

Thank you, Ian

I don’t know what I’d do without you

Ian didn’t have the guts to reply to that. Anything he might say would be hypocritical.

Except maybe one thing.

You

Phil is lucky to have you

He meant it, but most of it was mere projecting. It was what he’d wished Iris or whatever her name was had told him instead of taking Jamie from him. It seemed so trivial now — Jamie, their story, their breakup… Now that he had Phil as a benchmark, none of that felt relevant. He’d suffered, he’d moved on, wound closed over, full stop. Moving on from Phil would be a whole different challenge.

After switching chats, he stared for a long while at the flickering line in the empty text box. It’d be a long day tomorrow, but the more he stalled, the harder it’d be for everyone. He understood why Phil was so conflicted, but one of them had to be the bigger man and make the ugly decisions before someone got hurt.

You

We need to talk

A couple of minutes later there was already a reply.

Handsome

That sounds ominous

What did I do?

You

You exist

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