Page 47 of The Happy Hour
‘Doubt it.’ Jess flung a screen-cleaning cloth at her friend, but it only just made it to the end of the bed.
‘Anyway, enough of that. I need to hear allabout Ash. I am so, so happy for you.’
‘We’re not even a thing,’ Jess said. They’d had one kiss. Two, if you counted the kite-flying moment (and Jesswascounting every moment, each one as precious as a priceless gold coin). ‘I’ve known him a month. We’ve had four hours together.’
‘But you like him? Who is he? This is all very important.’
‘Whyis it important? It’s not like I need a guy to be happy.’
‘You need people to share things with,’ Lola said. ‘People you’re close to, who you can trust, and you’re not a natural sharer. You have me, and Wendy, but youdon’thave your parents, because you’ve bottled up a whole mare’s nest of misinterpretations, and held grudges for far too long.’
‘Can we not,’ Jess said, because they’d been over this ground so many times it was nothing more than a muddy, churned-up puddle.
Lola made an exasperated noise. ‘They’re yourparents, Jess. And I know what you heard her say, but if you just takemyinterpretation of it—’
‘I know what she meant,’ Jess said. ‘It fits, OK? It all fits.’
‘With your warped, insecure sense of—’
‘Get back to the sharing thing,’ Jess said. She didn’t really want Lola to go on about this, either, but anything was preferable to talking about what Edie Peacock had said about her.
‘You’re impossible,’ Lola moaned. ‘I’m going to write you a long WhatsApp about your mum later, when you can’t cut me off. But Ash is important because you need another person to share with. Wendy and I, we’re not enough for you.’
‘I’ve never said that.’
‘No, of course you haven’t, because you’d rather stay in your tiny bubble where you think you only need your best friend and your boss. I’m saying it.Me.’ She sipped her wine. ‘I didn’t thinkIneeded anyone else either, until I went to collect my order from the McDonald’s counter and realised, horrifyingly, that I’d picked up a bag with a Filet-o-Fish in it. Malik had my double cheeseburger, they’d somehow got the order numbers wrong, and in doing so inadvertently created the greatest love story of this century – and that’sdespiteMalik liking Filet-o-Fish.’
‘Getting their Fitbit steps together until the end of time,’ Jess said dreamily. ‘Nothing more romantic than that.’ Lola threw one of Jess’s colourful, yeti-fur cushions at her, which was much more effective than a screen-cleaning cloth, and almost knocked her wine out of her hand.
‘It was fate, karma, magic – that’s what I’m saying. I didn’t know that being with Malik would change anything, but now I’ve got him, I can’t imagine being without him. How will you ever know if you need something, if you don’t give it a chance?’
Jess’s thoughts went immediately to Ash, pressed up against her, the cool wind coming off the river at her back, contrasting with the inferno she’d become the moment he had pushed her hat off her forehead. The raspberry baker-boy cap was hanging on her headboard. Lola hadn’t noticed it, or she would have commented on it.
‘I met Ash at the market four weeks ago,’ she told Lola. ‘It was completely by chance – we both went after a shoplifter – and he asked me for coffee.’
Lola held out her hand. ‘Picture?’
‘I don’t have one,’ Jess said. She hadn’t got a selfie with him, she was only now telling Lola about him, and yet she already thought of him as an integral part of her life.
Lola looked aghast. ‘Tell me about him, then.’
Jess closed her eyes and conjured him easily. He wasn’t by the river, now, but standing on the heath, holding the handle of the kite while she stared up at him and he looked down.
‘Flying isn’t as hardas it looks … Just make sure a part of youstays tethered to the ground.’
Had that been a prediction about spending time with him, because she was starting to feel more and more untethered in his presence?
‘You’re smitten,’ Lola said.
Jess opened her eyes. ‘What?’
‘You were grinning,’Lola told her. ‘Sappily. You have never done sappy in your life. Not even on that holiday in Suffolk, where you met Scott and spent a lot of time banging—’
‘He was a holiday fling,’ Jess cut in quickly. ‘We had an expiry date before we even said hello.’
‘And what about Ash?’
Jess shrugged. ‘He doesn’t live here. He’s got a flat in Holborn.’
