‘Baby girl!’ Gregory’s worried call hits me from behind, and I turn to see him jogging towards me in his combats and T-shirt, looking all muddy and grubby.
‘Hey.’ I fight against my body’s desire to fold in on itself at the prospect of another pep talk.
He catches me up and we start strolling to the bus stop together. ‘I’ve tried calling you a million times, Livy,’ he says, worried but annoyed.
‘My phone’s kaput.’
‘How?’
‘It doesn’t matter. You okay?’
‘No, I’m not.’ He scowls down at me. ‘I’m worried about you.’
‘Don’t be,’ I mutter, not giving anything else away. Just like Sylvie, he knows nothing of male escorts and hotel rooms, and he doesn’t need to. My best friend already hates Miller enough. There’s really no need to give him more ammunition. ‘I’m fine.’
‘Cocksucker!’ he spits.
I don’t humour him and instead change the subject. ‘Have you spoken to Benjamin yet?’
Gregory takes a long, weary breath. ‘Briefly. He took one of my calls to tell me to stay away. Your cocksucking coffee-hater has put the fear of God in him.’
‘Well, whose fault is that? You said you wouldn’t let anything happen to me that night, but when I needed you, you’d skulked off with Benjamin.’
‘I know,’ he mutters. ‘I wasn’t thinking, was I?’
‘No, you weren’t,’ I confirm, mentally scolding myself for my cheek.
‘And now Ben’s closed off from me completely,’ he says.
I look up to Gregory and see a hurt I don’t like. He’s falling for a man who’s pretending to be someone he’s not . . . a bit like Miller. Or was he pretending the whole time he was with me? ‘Completely?’ I ask. ‘No contact?’
Gregory sighs deeply. ‘He took a woman home that Saturday night and took great delight in telling me so.’
‘Oh,’ I breathe. ‘You never mentioned it before.’
He shrugs, playing it easy. ‘Kinda bruised my ego,’ he says, his forced indifferent expression turning to mine. ‘You look a little red-faced.’
Still? ‘I went to the gym this morning.’ I reach up and feel my brow. I’ve been hot all day.
‘You did?’ he asks, surprised. ‘That’s great. What did you do?’ He starts dancing around on the pavement. ‘A bit of circuit training? Some yoga?’ He bends into the most obscene pose and looks up at me with a grin. ‘Downward dog?’
I can’t help but return his smile, pulling him back upright. ‘I punched the crap out of a bag of rocks.’
‘Rocks?’ he laughs. ‘I think you’ll find those leather bags are full of sand.’
‘Felt like rocks,’ I grumble, looking down at my knuckles and seeing a row of red blisters on each.
‘Shit!’ Gregory grabs my hands. ‘You did go to town. Feel better for it?’
‘Yes,’ I admit. ‘Anyway, don’t let Ben mess you around.’
He chokes on a laugh. ‘Olivia, you’ll forgive me if I don’t take any notice of your advice. What about you? Have you heard from the coffee-hating prick?’
I resist the urge to defend Miller again or to tell Gregory about the text message and gym scene. It’ll get me nowhere, except lectured. ‘No,’ I lie. ‘My phone’s knackered, so no one can contact me.’ That thought suddenly thrills me, and it’s undoubtedly a good thing should Miller decide to text me again. ‘This is me.’ I point at the bus stop.
Gregory dips and kisses my forehead, giving me a sympathetic face. ‘I’m going to the parents’ for dinner tonight. Wanna come?’
‘No, thanks.’ Gregory’s parents are lovely people, but keeping up with conversation requires brainpower, and I have none to spare at the moment.
‘Tomorrow, then?’ he pleads. ‘Please, let’s do something tomorrow.’
‘Yes, tomorrow.’ I’ll find the enthusiasm for a full-on discussion within the next day, as long as the discussion remains on Gregory’s diabolical love life and not mine.
His happy smile makes me smile in return. ‘Catch ya later, baby girl.’ He roughs up my hair and jogs off, leaving me to wait for my bus, and as if the gods detect my gloomy mood, they open the heavens and let it pour down on me.
‘What?’ I exclaim, wriggling out of my jacket and covering my head, thinking it’s just typical that my bus stop is one with no damn shelter. And to rub it in, all of my fellow bus waiters have umbrellas and are looking at me like I’m stupid. I am stupid – for more reasons than not just carrying an umbrella. ‘Shit!’ I curse, looking around for a doorway, anywhere to escape the pounding rain.
I circle, hunched under my jacket, but I find no place that’ll protect me. A heavy, defeated sigh falls from my mouth while I stand hopelessly in the pouring rain, thinking that the day couldn’t possibly get any longer or worse.
I’m proven wrong. I suddenly can’t feel the rain pelting my body, and the loud pounding of it beating the pavement dulls out, leaving my hearing saturated with words. His words.
The black Mercedes slows and pulls up at the bus stop – Miller’s Mercedes. In an action based on pure impulse, because I know he won’t want to get his perfection wet, I turn and start jogging up the road, the chaos of London rush hour attacking my frenzied mind.
‘Livy!’ I barely hear him in the distance over the pounding rain. ‘Livy, wait!’