Page 57 of The Spark

‘So why is she calling you?’

‘I have no idea, Neve.’

‘Aren’t you curious?’

‘Not really.’

My insides bunched with frustration. What aspiring architect receives an unexpected call from the company they spent the summer with – a prestigious architectural firm – yet claims to be not in the least bit curious why? ‘What if they’re ringing to offer you a job?’

‘Heather’s not senior enough to offer me a job. And I wouldn’t be interested anyway. I don’t want to move to London. I told you that.’

He was so casual, so bemused by my apparent concern. But I simply couldn’t understand it – why she was in his phone, why she was calling, why he apparently didn’t care what she wanted. ‘Aren’t you going to ring her back?’

He groaned. ‘Neve. Maybe later. Come on, are we going to the pub or not?’

The thing was, I did trust him. He’d never given me reason not to. I knew how affairs looked – the way they sounded and smelt and felt. I would know if he had something to hide. So I resolved to put it to the back of my mind. Heather was his mentor, that was all there was to it. Heather was his mentor – but I was his girlfriend, and we were in love.

Chapter 26.

Now

Lara suggests dinner at a Thai place on Tombland. ‘I want to meet Ash. And you can get to know Felix better.’

Once again, my instinct is both to accept her invitation and reject it. I have no idea how to balance the simultaneous desires I have to love her, and deplore her.

But I agree, partly because I’ve always adored the restaurant’s building, next to the thirteenth-century gate on the south side of the cathedral. It’s Grade II listed and beloved by building nuts for its mansard roof and decorative tiling, dormer gables, mullion windows. There are lampposts on the cobblestones at the front of the building too, which always makes coming here feel a bit like stepping back in time. I suppose tonight, in lots of ways, it is.

Inside, it’s busy, but Lara raises a hand, so we spot her straight away. She stands up when we reach the table. Her angel-blonde curls are loose around her face, skimming her shoulders. She’s wearing the skinniest jeans I think I’ve ever seen.

A couple of nights ago, I told Ash why Lara and I fell out. He listened quietly, then said, ‘Well, I think it’s great you’ve been able to get past it.’

I didn’t know quite what to say to that.

‘Wine?’ Ash asks, once we’ve all said hello and sat down, and Lara’s complimented Ash’s shirt, and Felix has told us about their taxi driver, who jumped every red light on the way here before nearly rear-ending a bus. ‘Felix, Lara – red, white, rosé? Or beer?’

‘Actually,’ Felix says, ‘just sparkling water for us, I think. We’re detoxing.’

‘From what?’ I say, looking between him and Lara.

‘A touch too much fast living,’ he says smoothly, which though it answers my question, still feels like an evasion, a response prepared beforehand.

Back at uni, Lara used to sneer at people like Jamie’s mum, with her juicer and personal trainer and quarterly commitment to water fasting. Every time she does it I swear she shits out a little bit more personality, she’d say.

Still. I know it’s far from my right to judge a single thing about her lifestyle now. ‘We can stick to soft if you—’

‘Oh, no, please,’ Lara says, quickly. ‘No point all four of us suffering.’

So Ash and I order white wine, and Lara and Felix get sparkling water.

Ash asks Felix more about the company he founded. He tells us about the tech, which is something to do with AI-powered robots. Its primary application, he says, is infrastructure inspection within the mining and oil and gas industries. They were taken over by a multinational two years ago, but Felix stayed on as CEO, pocketing a hefty windfall in the process – though he’s far too classy to say how much, of course.

He really is California-handsome, I think, as he talks, with his designer smile and twenty-four-carat charm. Lara was never in a hurry to meet her soulmate, but I always felt sure that when she did, he would be a Felix.

‘But you played tennis professionally before that?’ Ash says.

‘I did. The two careers overlapped for a little while, actually.’

‘Do you ever miss it?’

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