Page 58 of The Love of Our Lives
So, what did she do the first time at this juncture?
What did she actually want?
I’m searching my mind for more images, more sensations. But it’s all stopped again.
‘Say something, Emily,’ Simon says, and I look up sharply, see him gazing down at me. And I know I can’t leave it here.
For her sake.
‘Let’s keep talking,’ I say finally, firmly, ‘if that suits you.’
Then he smiles the biggest of smiles. ‘That suits me great.’
We talk for the next couple of hours over a bottle of wine about everything and nothing – about what the rest of the gang is up to, how Phoebe and Hector just had their second kid who Simon will be godfather to, how he went to Tristan and Layla’s wedding in Cornwall and it was the most elaborate spectacle he’d ever seen. Business is going well with his dad, and his mum says hello to me, and I get another glimmer of a tall, elegant woman who spent a lot of time in spas. Simon is funny and confident and intriguing in this way that fascinates me, and I’m not sure I’ve met anyone like him before. But he’s warm too, and I feel immediately at ease with him in the same way I did with Fran. Then before I know it, Zoe is shutting up shop around us and we slip back outside into the cold. Standing in front of my building, Simon gazes down at me with his deep blue eyes, and I knowinstinctively we’re not done here – I know Emily was not done here.
‘Can we keep talking then?’ Simon says hopefully.
‘Yes,’ I agree, realising I actually do want to, and he grins.
After a quick kiss on his cheek, I head back into the building, and run back up the stairs. Standing uncertainly at the top, I glance only briefly towards Adam’s door, a pain pulling at my heart, before turning left and heading into my own.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
‘Now move back into a parallel park here please.’
Clutching the wheel of the instructor’s car, I glance at the woman beside me with her curly black hair and poker face. As smoothly as I can, I pull the car into the space behind us, even as my legs are shaking above the pedals.
I’m almost too scared to check if I’ve done it right, but when I turn around to the examiner again, I know from the curt little nod that I nailed it.
As the examiner starts making notes on her screen, I look out the window past her to where Charlie is standing. She gives me two thumbs up.
All the same, when the examiner puts her hands on her lap and turns to me, I can’t help but gulp air down.
Please, please, please.
‘Well,’ she says, ‘you’ll be happy to know that you passed with flying colours, Emily. Congratulations.’
I immediately grin, reach in to hug the lady who lets out a yelp of surprise, until her shoulders soften slightly.
‘Well done,’ she says again into my shoulder, before pulling briskly back. ‘Now go tell that friend of yours out there.’ She cocks her eyebrow. ‘She’s starting to creep me out standing at the window like that.’
As soon as I’m out the car, Charlie rushes up to hug me. ‘I knew you could do it,’ she says, squeezing me tight.
‘But then I did have a pretty great instructor.’
She shakes her head of blonde curls.
‘It was all you, Emily,’ she says, ‘I could never have passed it in a bloody month. So, what now? What are you planning to do with this new freedom?’
‘Drive,’ I say, ‘to our ski trip this weekend.’
We’re almost at the end of the ski season already, and I know this is what Emily wanted to do from the flyers I found, so it’s now or never. I’ll be sad to miss the dance class with William on Friday though, and I suspect he will be too, post-dance dinner included. It’s become something of a routine with him these days, and he’s really coming out of his shell; staying out later and wanting to go new places. Just like me. But when I suggested he reach out to his brother and family again, he shook his head; told me it really had been too long.
‘How are you feeling about seeing Adam?’ Charlie says carefully.
‘A little confused,’ I say, because of course it will be strange to see him up there. Particularly after Simon’s visit and all the emotions that’s raised in me.
Charlie bites her lip, like she’s got something on her mind.
