Page 1 of Joker in the Pack

CHAPTER 1

“WOULD YOU HURRY up?”

I stood holding the ladder with sweaty hands as Maddie balanced on top. We’d been best friends since she gave me one of her sandwiches and half of her crisps on the day I forgot my lunch in primary school.

“Why are you whispering, Liv? He’s not here.”

She leaned to the side, and the ladder wobbled. I clung on tighter as my grip on sanity loosened.

“But he’ll be back any minute!”

“Almost done. Just pass me the pink, would you?”

I handed over one final tube of glitter and tapped my foot as she carefully sprinkled the contents along the fourth blade of my ex-boyfriend’s ceiling fan. His professionally decorated cream-and-grey lounge would look wonderful covered in a hail of rainbow sparkles.

I glanced at my watch—almost seven o’clock. Please, say Edward hadn’t left work early today. We should have had time to spare, but we’d got delayed taking down the curtain poles to put the hard-boiled eggs inside. Some of the screws were really sticky. Not only that, mixing his hideously expensive conditioner with hair removal cream and squishing it all back into both the bottle in the shower and the spare in the cupboard had taken longer than anticipated.

But we’d managed in the end, and now I was torn between shrieking with glee or backpedalling and putting everything back how it was.

I wasn’t normally vindictive like that, you understand, but buoyed as I was by the glass of wine I’d drunk with lunch and the vivid memory of Edward boinking his personal assistant over his dining room table, it hadn’t taken much for Maddie to persuade me. I’d chosen that table with him, for goodness’ sake. When he’d asked the assistant in John Lewis how sturdy it was, I’d had no idea what he had in mind. How stupid did I feel?

Maddie clambered down the ladder, grinning. “Grab that screwdriver, would you? We don’t want to give the game away by leaving evidence behind.”

No, we didn’t. I stuck it in my pocket and grabbed one end of the ladder, which we carried back to Edward’s garage. Inside, I took one last look at his new Mercedes. We’d chosen the colour together, and he’d even ordered the heated seats because I didn’t like getting cold. Six weeks he’d owned it, and we’d only taken a handful of trips before that awful day.

“Ready to go?” Maddie asked, hovering by the door.

“Yes. Yes, I am.” Out of my old life and into the new.

We giggled like schoolgirls as we ran towards the Tube station, but it wasn’t until we were sitting on the train that the guilt really hit. What had we done?

“Do you think the hair remover was a bit much?”

“No, I bloody don’t. She was wearingyourJimmy Choos when you caught them, remember?”

I did, but I didn’t want to.

“And look on the bright side, his little slut might borrow some of it for her own tresses.”

There was that, but still… “He’s going to know it was me.”

Maddie didn’t hold back with her filthy laugh. “No, he’s going to know it wasme. When’s he coming round to your place to pick up the rest of his stuff?”

“Tomorrow evening.” I knew that from the claws squeezing my guts harder with every passing second. “Perhaps we should have waited.”

“Nah. Carpe diem, remember? Seize the day. Do you want me to be there tomorrow?”

“Isn’t Tuesday your date night with Dave?”

Maddie and Dave had been seeing each other for two years, and although he’d never surprised her with a trip to Antigua like Edward did for me one day, Dave also didn’t cancel date night at the last minute because a “meeting” came up.Meeting. I knew better now.

“Yes, but Dave and I go out every week. If you want me there, I’ll come.”

I’d have loved the moral support, but with Maddie working shifts as a nurse and Dave’s overtime as an electrician, I understood how much they valued their evenings out.

“Honestly, I’ll be fine. I know Edward hasn’t been very nice to me since…since the…incident, but I can cope with being in the same room as him for a couple more hours.”

Okay, that wasn’t entirely true. Last time we’d spoken, I’d gone through an entire box of tissues, a tub of chocolate ice cream, and a bottle of wine afterwards. I couldn’t cope with being in the same building as him, let alone the same room. Every time he got within touching distance, I couldn’t decide whether to stick pins in him or cry.

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