Page 12 of Is She Really Going Out with Him?
“Um, excuse me,” I say, holding out my hand.
“Mum, these guys in your favorites file are all totally beige.”
“That is private, thank you,” I say, swiping the mobile from her.
Jess shrugs. “So you’re dating now?” she asks, trying to sound casual, but I can see she wants to know.
“Are you looking for a boyfriend?” Ethan asks,pulling his Ninjago dressing gown around him, then clambering up onto the barstool next to Jess. Lottie hands him a hot chocolate with far too much cream for this time of night, and I lean over to scoop some off with my finger.
“No. I have everything I need right here,” I tell them, wrapping an arm around them both. “It’s just something I’m doing for work, research.”
“She just wants a new friend,” Lottie says, “to do things with.”
I glare at Lottie, nervous about where she’s going with this.
“How do you want your hot chocolate, Mum?” Jess asks me.
“Oh, just however it comes.”
“Kieran’s mum and dad are getting divorced. You could be friends with his mum?” Ethan offers.
“Or his dad,” Lottie says, hiding a smile behind her mug.
“Kieran’s dad loves BMX, though, and Mum hates bikes,” Ethan tells Lottie.
“I don’thatebikes,” I say, irritated at this narrative of Dan’s.
When people ask why your marriage failed, they often want a simple explanation. Was there someone else? Did you have financial problems? But the truth is usually a million little things. One of our million little things was Dan’s sudden, all-consuming interest in road bikes.
The year before we separated, he became obsessed. Every evening, he would scroll biking websites, looking at kit he might need, spending money we didn’t have. He became evangelical about a “high-protein diet” and critical of me for choosing cornflakes for breakfast. Every weekend he would be off doing events with his triathlon club, and every evening he would disappear into the garage to train or tinker with parts. I know you shouldn’t argue in front of your children, and we tried not to, but they must have overheard a few clashes about the time and money he was spending on his new hobby. At the ages of five and ten, they concluded that we were separating because Mum hated bikes. I do hate bikes, but I don’t want them thinking that’s the reason our family fell apart.
“Tilly’s dad is divorced, and he hates bikes too!” Ethan says, bouncing up and down on the barstool.
“I am not looking for someone who hates bikes,” I say, rolling my eyes.
“You should let these two pick your dates for you,” Lottie suggests. “They probably know you better than the algorithm.”
This makes me laugh out loud. “Right.”
“I can find you someone to date if you need me to,” Jess offers. “Someone way cooler than Sylvie.”
“I don’t need someone ‘cooler than Sylvie,’ it’s not a competition.”
“Her legs are longer than my whole body,” Ethan tells Lottie.
“No, they’re not. That would be impossible,” Jess says, pulling Ethan onto her lap to cuddle him like a little-brother hot-water bottle.
“They are,” he says, “I saw her in her underwear. They were up to my neck.”
And there it is, the cherry on my cake of a day: hearing about the length of Dan’s twenty-five-year-old girlfriend’s legs—from my children.
“Why are you seeing this woman half-naked?” Lottie asks.
“She moved in with Dad. She’s there all the time now,” Jess says with a shrug.
“What?” I say, unable to hide my surprise. Jess shifts uncomfortably, perhaps worried she’s said something wrong.
“He said he was going to tell you,” she says cautiously, and I try to regain my composure.
