Page 89 of The Happy Hour
‘Roger is an ex-cop,’ Spade said. ‘Roger, mate, you can pull some strings, can’t you? Get his address?’
‘You think I should just turn up at hisdoor?’ Jess said.
‘That would be highly immoral, not to mention illegal.’ Roger frowned at Spade.
‘Address?’ Lola’s shout cut through the chatter. ‘You need his address, right?’
‘That seems a bit desperate,’ Jess admitted.
‘Things done in pursuit of true love are never considered desperate,’ Wendy said. ‘They’re charming and romantic, but never desperate.’
‘Surely that depends on the outcome,’ Susie said.
‘I have his address!’ Lola slammed her palm on the table. ‘I have Ash’s address!’
‘You do?’
‘Youdo?’ Jess echoed.
‘Yup. That day in the market, outside the pub. I asked Ash and Felicity for their release forms, remember? In case they ended up in the video.’
‘Woah,’ Spade said. ‘The best friend comes to the rescue.’
‘I don’ttechnicallythink this is an appropriate use of the private information he’s given you on his video release form,’ Roger said.
‘It’s in pursuit of true love,’ Felicity reminded him. ‘Nothing is considered either desperate or illegal.’
‘I’m not sure the Met’s finest would agree with you—’
‘I can’t just go to Ash’s flat and knock on the door, tell him I’m sorry for pushing him away and ask him to give me a second chance.’ Jess laughed, expecting her best friend and her work mum, and all the other people she’d got close to despite her best intentions, to laugh along with her.
Instead, she got expectant, hopeful gazes.
‘Why not?’ Lola asked.
Jess looked at the table. She missed Ash, more than she had admitted to anyone. She missed their Sunday mornings, talking about ghosts and pigeons, flying kites. She missed him asking her for motivational quotes, then offering examples himself. Whenever she’d come up with a new idea for the shop, she’d sent it to him and asked him what he thought. Since Thursday, she hadn’t even sat at her desk.
He had left her floundering, with too many thoughts and without access to the person she wanted to tell them to. She missed his warm skin pressed against hers, the pressure and taste of his kisses. If she’d known that night and morning they’d had together in her flat would be the last – the only – one, she would have held on more tightly. She thought they were at the beginning, that it was the first fumbling, deliciously imperfect time they’d be with each other, learning how they fitted together. She had thought it would be the first of many.
Now the people around this table were taking her fatalist approach – the one she’d always used that ensured her connections were temporary and all the better for it, so she didn’t end up getting her heart pulverised – and they were telling her it wasn’t the only way.
‘Why not, Jess?’ Lola repeated. ‘Why can’t you go up there, knock on his door and just be honest with him?’
Jess shrugged, her insides knotting tighter, making her restless. But it wasn’t sadness this time; it wasn’t the grief or guilt of losing him, of saying those things to him and telling him he had to go. It was the restlessness of possibility, the anxiety and anticipation that came with putting herself out there – fighting for someone, accepting she still wanted what they had. It was the panic that came with admitting love was sometimes worth the pain it caused, and Jess couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt, so strongly, that that was true. Now she wanted to put it on one of her prints and sell it in its thousands across the country, brand it onto her skin. But first, she had to go and get Ash back. Or, at the very least, she had to try.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Jess caught the Clipper late in the afternoon, the sky a bright blue canvas peppered with puffy white brushstrokes, yesterday’s autumn-like chill entirely forgotten. She had spent the day in a state of fidgety irritation, almost wishing Wendy had let her work on her day off, to keep her mind on something other than the scenarios playing on a loop in her head.
On the way home the night before, she had gone to Lola’s flat and waited while she burrowed through her release forms for the one Ash had filled in. His handwriting was bold, slightly spiky. There was his name, signature and, in the middle, his address. She and Lola had been silent while she’d typed it into her phone, and she knew her friend felt guilty. But Jess had also known that, if at any point while they were spending time together she had asked for his address, Ash would have told her. He’d been to her flat. On the second occasion, he’d turned up announced, so she was just going to have to do the same. What other choice did she have, if he was still refusing to answer her calls?
‘This’ll be a funny story to tell your grandchildren,’ Lola had said, as she walked her to the door.
‘I promise I won’t tell him you helped me,’ Jess had replied. ‘I’ll say I saw the stack of forms when I was here for dinner.’
‘It doesn’t really hold up, considering I announced to all your friends that I had the means to track him down.’
‘They’re all behind... this,’ Jess had said.
