Page 37 of Asking For a Friend

“Nope, neither. I’m on your doorstep with breakfast and coffee. Well, coffee for me, some shit that smells like grass a dog’s peed on for you. So be a sweetie and let me in. Unless you’re not alone. In which case, I’ll gorge on all this yummy food by myself,” Connor’s melodic voice sings.

Why would he think someone was here? Oh, Hesketh. Connor thinks we may have made up. Yeah, right. I’m too much of a dumb shmuck to let that happen. “You’re not going to go away, are you?”

“Nope, and I’ll start ringing the doorbell soon. Annnd,” he drawls, “the food is getting cold.”

I pull my head out from under the covers just as the doorbell chimes. “God, you’re a pest.”

“And yet you love me.” He laughs and ends the call.

“Not this very minute, I don’t.” I untangle myself from my quilt, get out of bed, and pull on my thick, fluffy bathrobe.

When I open the door, Connor is posing for a kiss, his lip gloss-slick lips puckered. “Get in here, you fool.”

He gives me a full once-over and shakes his head. “You didn’t talk to him, did you?”

“Nope, and I don’t want to talk about it with you either, so hand over the food and pick another subject.”

“You’re both stubborn idiots. It was obvious he was reaching out to you. Why else would he offer us a lift home?” Connor unpacks cardboard boxes filled with pastries, croissants, and bagels with cream cheese and smoked salmon.

“That’s not true. He thought we were together.” I take a sip of the tea he brought me and sigh. “Mmm, that’s so good.”

Connor bites into one of the pastries and chews. I can see the cogs whirring in his brain. Where’s he going to go next? He swallows and chases it with coffee. “Just say what you need to say, Conn.”

“Will you tell me what happened? Maybe I can help you decide whether it’s worth getting over or something you should work out together.”

Instead of answering, I procrastinate and pick up a bagel. Avoidance is always one of my go-to reactions to someone confronting me. No harm in telling him, is it? Apart from the fact that he’ll call me out on all the ways I’ve overreacted. Because doubt has been creeping into my head lately, the ‘lie in bed and try to sleep’ kind of doubt. My brain fizzes with reasons why I didn’t see the truth that Hesketh swore he never cheats. That he loves me. None of the past arseholes said those words to me.

“As you are well aware, he didn’t show up for my signing and didn’t answer my calls or texts. Then on Monday, I saw him hugging and being kissed by someone else.” My voice is flat as I try to keep my face as neutral as possible when all I want to do is scream that it’s not fair, that he’s supposed to love me.

Connor blinks a couple of times, his half-eaten pastry halfway to his mouth. He puts the food down and narrows his eyes. “You’re kidding me? Of course you’re not, or you wouldn’t be here without him. But you didn’t speak to him about it? What sort of kiss?”

“Does it matter? They were laughing together, and they were hugging. The other man—who was totally hot—kissed his forehead. Then after another hug, they separated. Hesketh walked in the direction of his office, and the other man went off the other way. I was waiting to cross the road and could see them as clear as day. Hesketh knows about my exes and how they treated me. He knows cheating is a deal-breaker for me.”

“Don’t you think that makes it suspect?” He’s got to be kidding me. Is he taking Hesketh’s side? “I mean, don’t you think if he were cheating, he’d be sneakier about it?”

“I don’t believe you. Jesus, Connor. He goes completely silent for two days. His phone was on, but he ignored it, and then I see that. Put yourself in my shoes. What would you think? The guy who told you he’s fallen for you goes and does that? In broad daylight, for fuck’s sake.” The words stick in my throat, and my eyes burn with tears as my heart shatters again.

“Oh, Lando, sweetheart, come here.” Connor wraps his arms around me and holds me tight, swaying slightly as he comforts me. “It’ll be okay. I promise you’ll be okay. Give it time.”

I nod against his chest, letting him hold me for another minute. “Do you think it was all too much too soon for him? We’d become very serious in such a short time. Maybe he realised he was in too deep.”

He shakes his head. “There’s no right or wrong time to fall in love. For some, it’s a slow burn. Others know they’ve found the one on the first date. You write romance. You know how it goes.”

“That’s make-believe. It’s what people want to read, to believe. It doesn’t make it real.”

“You don’t believe that, Lando. And what you had was love. Look at the way you were together. We never saw you. You only had time for each other. Don’t pull that face. It’s true.”

Were we that bad? We spent many evenings in each other’s homes, with the telly on, but I can’t remember anything we watched. But I do recall our conversations. He told me about his family, how they loved each other, but thinking back on it, it was disjointed. Like he’s left out a piece that had held them all together. I never asked, just as he never spoke about my parents. We talked of our dreams for the future, plans and ideas, of the funny parts of our lives. The pranks he and Ellis would get up to at boarding school and the raucous way they behaved at uni. And I told him about my life with Connor, Scottie, and Thom. Our time together was never boring, nor did we feel the need to be anywhere else. We had all we wanted with each other.

“Yeah, you’re right. It was never a conscious decision to leave all of you out. We were happy together, just us. We didn’t see any of his friends either.”

My body slumps, like clothes hitting the floor, all messy and in a heap. All the anger, the fight, the disappointment, and the sadness have gone. All I feel now is empty, with no clue what or how to put myself together again. As I drop onto a chair, Connor gives my shoulder a squeeze.

“It will get better, easier, Lando. You know it will. It has done in the past. I wish you’d told me earlier. You would’ve got it off your chest so much sooner.”

As if it’s that easy.

After dropping Lando off, I drive home to finally open the bottle of gin, but instead, I end up outside Ellis’s house. Light shines through the narrow gap in the living room curtains. They are back from their party.

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