Page 51 of The Do-Over

‘Look,’ Rebecca says carefully, obviously aware that she’s on dangerous ground. ‘He’s a nice guy and I can see he’s very good looking, but I just don’t think he’d beenoughfor you.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Tell me about your last boyfriend.’

Shit. What am I supposed to do now? The closest thing to a boyfriend I’ve had recently would be Alasdair, but Mum andSaffy don’t know about him, and they’ll grill me from here to next week if it comes out.

‘Thea’s not good at boyfriends,’ Saffy tells her with a smile. ‘She frightens them.’

‘I don’t!’

‘You do. Who was that poor boy you dated briefly at uni? He was terrified of you.’

‘Harrison, and it’s not my fault he was spineless.’

‘What’s George’s spine like?’ Saffy asks Rebecca. ‘Up to the job, do you reckon?’

Rebecca eyes me thoughtfully for a moment. ‘I have my doubts,’ she murmurs. ‘Sorry, Thea. I think you need someone more robust, who’s not afraid to challenge you.’

For some reason, my mind takes me back to the breakfast I had with Alasdair when I was having my wobble before leaving Morton Lansdowne. He was never afraid to challenge me, but then we were purely friends with benefits so he didn’t really have skin in the game in the same way. Am I really that terrifying? I might have been once, but I’d like to think ‘new’ Thea is softer. I push Alasdair back into the ‘old’ Thea box in my mind. He doesn’t belong in my new life; nothing from my old life does.

‘We’re bored.’ My reverie is interrupted by the arrival of Rollo and Louis, looking disgruntled.

‘I thought you were watching TV,’ Rebecca says to them.

‘TV’s boring. It’s all stuff for babies. Can we have a water fight in the garden?’

‘No, because it’s pouring with rain and you’ll catch your death,’ Mum tells them firmly.

‘You could go and tidy your room,’ Rebecca tells Rollo. ‘That’s what I had to do if I was bored when I was little.’

‘Yeah, but you probably didn’t even have TV back then,’ Rollo quips, before turning to Louis. ‘She’ll start talking about dial-up internet in a minute, just you wait and see.’

‘What’s that?’ Louis’s eyes are wide.

‘I don’t know exactly, but it’s how they did internet in the olden days, apparently.’

‘I tell you what,’ I say to them before we can go too much further down the path of making me feel like some kind of dinosaur, as I clearly remember dial-up internet. ‘Why don’t we go to Drusillas? My treat. I’ll even buy lunch. Saffy? Rebecca? What do you say?’

‘I say you’re going to make a terrible parent,’ Saffy mumbles grumpily as the boys immediately start asking, ‘Can we? Please?’

‘You and Phil can come too, if you like,’ I tell Mum. ‘We could have a proper outing.’

‘I think,’ Mum replies with a smile, ‘this sounds like a trip for the younger generations, rather than those of us who are so old we can remember a time before the internet even existed.’

‘That’s not possible, Nanny,’ Louis tells her firmly.

‘Yeah,’ Rollo agrees. ‘How did you google stuff if you didn’t have the internet? Nobody would have known anything.’

‘Boys, go and find your raincoats while I look to see if I can magic up an extra treat for us,’ I tell them, keen to avoid going down this particular rabbit hole.

‘You may have been scary as a sister, but you’re useless with children,’ Saffy scolds after the boys have scampered off in search of their outdoor gear. ‘If you just give in to them every time they complain they’re bored, you’ll turn them into spoilt monsters.’

‘It’s not about giving in. I fancied a day out and it’ll be fun. Did you have other plans?’

‘No.’

‘So where’s the harm? I won’t do it every time, I promise.’

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