Page 83 of Love or Your Money Back

‘Darling? EVERYONE BACK OFF. Right. I’m going to call an ambulance.’

‘Nooo,’ I slur, and more tears come. The last thing I need right now is the side-show of anxious onlookers that comes with medical assistance. ‘Hotel!Please.Take me back. No more watching!’

CHAPTER60

‘Don’t try to do anything.’ Freddy places another hot water bottle over me, making five in total.

I’m on my hotel bed, gently thawing under a giant rubber radiator of heat.

‘I have to do something,’ I insist. ‘I need to message Penguin Random House and tell them I’m not a drunk. I may be more hot water bottle than human being, but my fingers still work.’

‘I’ll get you another meeting with Penguin Random House,’ says Freddy. ‘Now. About the award ceremony tonight –’

‘I can’t go.’ My bottom lip becomes a squiggle.

‘Don’t start crying again.’ Freddy holds up a hand. ‘Of course you’re going to the award ceremony. You’ve been nominated for Small Press of the Year.’

‘A nomination isn’t a win –’

‘I think you will win.’

‘Because you know nothing about publishing.’

‘I know business,’ says Freddy. ‘Little Voice had a 500% profit increase this year and a potential partnership deal with Penguin Random House. Have you seen the other nominees? They barely have a handful of bestsellers between them. Now, you’ll need your cane –’

‘You’re assuming I can walk with my cane.’

‘Well, can’t you?’

‘I don’t know. My hand isn’t working well. I could lose my grip. And I’d rather not find that out in a crowded ceremony room with everyone watching me.’

‘Right. Okay.’ Freddy nods. ‘So what about a wheelchair?’

‘There is no way –’

‘Come on, Kat. MS is part of your life, right? And your indifference to popular opinion is one of my favourite things about you.’

I struggle to sit up on the hotel bed. ‘There’s a certain line of humiliation even I won’t cross. I can cope with legs that jump all over the place. And a mild amount of voice tremor. But turning up in front of my industry peers as a wheelchair-bound, slurring wreck lacks dignity.’

‘They’re not going to think any less of you –’

‘Of course they’ll think less of me,’ I say. ‘Society thinks less of everyone who comes last in the sport’s day race. It’s sad but true.’

‘Has it occurred to you that people might think more of you for braving the award ceremony in a wheelchair?’

‘No.’ I arrange my back against pillows.

‘There’s strength in vulnerability, you know.’

‘Oh, fuck off. You hide your vulnerabilities too, Freddy Stark. You don’t talk about your mother leaving you. Or why you’re too scared to settle down.’

‘Well, we’re both frightened idiots, darling.’ Freddy gives me a half smile. ‘But I always thought you were the stronger of the two of us.’

‘I cry quite a bit behind closed doors.’ I rearrange hot water bottles. ‘So what are your other favourite things about me?’

‘What?’

‘You said you had favouritethingsabout me. Things. Plural.’

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