“I can do, if you want,” Haven replied.
“You know what I’m trying to say. I don’t know if we should talk about this. I mean—”
“Of course we should talk about it.” She took a swig of wine, placed it on the coffee table and sat forward expectantly. “So, pretend he’s not my brother, except I don’t want to hear about his penis. Go.”
I slumped back into the sofa, relieved she was here and wasn’t mad. We were still us, despite what had happened with Luke. Now she was asking, there was no way I wasn’t talking about it. I mean Haven would pin me down and experiment with five different kinds of Chinese water torture if she had to, the mood she was in, but I wanted to talk to her about it.
Tears formed immediately and my forehead became tight. I hadn’t cried about this. I didn’t want to cry because if I did, I was accepting the possibility that Luke and I were over. While I managed to hold back my tears, I was in the world where Luke and I were only temporarily apart. That he would pick me. That we would be together.
“There’s nothing to cry about. You and Luke will happen,” Haven said, vocalizing my thoughts. “This is just, I don’t know, the prequel.” Her weird analogy was oddly comforting.
“How is he?” I asked in a voice so small I wasn’t convinced she’d hear me.
“Do you want to know?”
I slid my eyes across the room, away from Haven’s stare. Did I want to hear about him? Would it make me feel better or worse? I nodded. “Yeah.”
“He moved out.”
“He did?”
“Yup.” She reached for her glass and took another gulp of wine. That was it? Come the fuck on, I needed more details than that. I widened my eyes at her.
“Renting a swanky new pad in the City.”
“Wow, really? That was fast.” I wanted to hear all about it. I wanted to know why he’d chosen the city rather than West London. But I wanted to hear it from him. Still, it was good news, right?
“Yeah, I think he’s surprised himself. He just needed a push. So thank you. Jake and I can go back to shagging like bunnies all over the flat.”
“I’m so pleased I could help.”
“He’s trying to do what you want.” My stomach flipped again. At least he wasn’t angry with me. He hadn’t given up. But I needed him not to be doing things so I would take him back. I wanted him to experience other things and still pick me.
“I just don’t want to be the easy option.”
“I totally get it. He’s all for the status quo. I’m sorry if I put doubts in your head. Me and my big mouth.”
“Come on, Haven. It wasn’t you. Don’t think that. This is about me feeling worthy. I need to know Luke loves me the way I love him. That we’re not just together because it’s the path of least resistance.” I took a deep breath. “I always thought having him would be enough, but I need more.”
“I think it’s brave of you,” she said.
“I might regret it. He might think I’m not worth it, or that there’s someone else better.”
“Then he’s an idiot,” Haven said. “And I can say that because we came out of the same womb. An alternative way of looking at it is that if the worst happens—and I don’t think it will—then it wouldn’t have worked in the long run anyway.”
“And that is why we are friends,” I said and pulled her into a hug.
Luke
Haven had asked me repeatedly why I wouldn’t hire movers, and although I had insisted that real men didn’t need to employ help in these situations—we hired a van, put on our oldest jeans and got the job done ourselves—I was beginning to think she might be right. I was knackered. And my lower back was starting to make its presence felt. Jesus, I felt fifty and I’d barely entered my thirties.
“God, it’s so ugly,” I said as Jake, my old uni mate Adam and I stood staring at my beloved brown leather couch, still trying to catch our breath from lugging the thing up four flights of stairs.
I’d arranged with Emma to collect my stuff from the flat. To be fair, the only big piece of furniture was the sofa, but there seemed to be endless boxes of I-didn’t-know-what filling every inch of the hired van. Emma had packed everything then gone away for the weekend so we wouldn’t run into each other. I felt bad she was still so upset that she was avoiding seeing me. Even though it had only been a few weeks, I’d truly moved on. Not just because I’d slept with Ash—it was more than that. I got to start life again. I’d never have left Emma if she’d not forced marriage, and I would have wasted my life. Since the split, somehow everything tasted slightly sweeter, smelled slightly sweeter. The sun shone slightly brighter. I had choices and opportunities that I could take and make happen . . . or not. It was entirely up to me. I felt invigorated.
“Yeah, it looks like one of the Rolling Stones. Like it’s had a great life, had loads of fun and seen things that would make your toes curl—but it’s old and exhausted and ready to die,” Adam said thoughtfully.
“The Keith Richards of sofas,” Jake chimed in. “And I don’t give a shit about stuff like this, but it is very nineteen ninety-eight.”
I chuckled. They were right. It was old-fashioned and falling apart. No wonder Emma let me have it. She’d kept every other bit of furniture in our flat, and I hadn’t bothered to argue with her. I’d been more than happy to leave the evidence of our life together behind.
“It’s time to let go, mate,” Adam said. “You’re going to be a partner. You’ve moved into this great new pad. Why the fuck do you want some disgusting student sofa in your shiny new life?”
Adam was right. In the last few days, I’d had a new world forced upon me, whether or not I wanted it. And far from finding it scary and unsettling, I was enjoying it. “I think you’re right. I don’t need it or want it. But you know what that means, don’t you?” I asked. “We’ve got to take it back downstairs. We can leave it in that Dumpster on the curb.”
“You’re a fucking arsehole,” Adam replied. “And you’re paying for a curry and enough beer to knock me out after this.”
“On my count,” Jake said. “One, two, three.” We heaved the sofa up and began to retrace our steps.
Despite the fact that I’d clung to this sofa for years, unwilling to give it up, letting it go felt like the right thing to do. We carried it down the stairs, almost beheading Adam on several occasions. It was ridiculous thinking it was so great for so long. I’d had my blinkers firmly on around this sofa, around life in general. Jake was right—it was time to let go. This shift was exactly what Ashleigh had meant, and every moment I spent away from her, the more I understood. I was grateful—she’d forced me to take a wider, bigger look to the future.
Now I was just around the corner, I got into the office earlier. The clock on my computer said it was just gone eight, and I’d been at my desk in our open-plan office for about twenty minutes, Googling triathlon training. Lugging that sofa up and down the stairs had left me half dead. I wasn’t ready to descend into middle age quite yet. I needed some kind of goal to motivate me into getting back into regular gym sessions. Fuck me, the training looked tough. I liked to run, and I’d been on a few cycling holidays in my time, so a triathlon seemed like a good option. It would give me focus and something to do with my weekends when I wasn’t working. Now I wasn’t part of a couple, I found I had a lot more time on my hands than I’d expected. Time I didn’t want to just fritter away or give to my job. Completing a triathlon would be an achievement.
“Hey, Luke.”
Fiona hovered at the side of my desk. An environmental lawyer, she was up for partnership this year too. Her brain was as big as a planet, but she had a quiet manner that meant unless you really listened, she came across like a bit of a flake. She was anything but.