Page 7 of Still Falling for You

‘You know he’s taken,’ Danielle interrupts.

My eyebrows furrow, and John elaborates. ‘He’s been hitting it off with Jane. I bet that’s why he got his new role. So he canassisther all the time.’ His eyebrows wiggle suggestively.

I feel a bit awkward with the conversation reaching an unprofessional and uncomfortable depth. I carry on listening politely because I don’t know how to change the topic without looking like a hopeless killjoy.

Becky interjects, ‘They’re just friends.’

‘Friends with benefits more like it.’ John throws me a meaningful look.

‘The old minx.’ Turning into a nine-year-old, Danielle titters.

Jane must be in her early thirties which makes her only a few years older than Alex and I. I’d hardly call it cradle-robbing. But a knife twists in my side at the idea, nevertheless.

After they leave, I spend the entire afternoon trying to sort out my logins, scraping a disconcertingly resistant brown substance from the bottom of the teacher cupboard and completing the safeguarding training. Compared to my morning, the rest of my day is almost boring in its uneventfulness.

Six hours later, I’m sitting in a café with my best friend, still mulling over my bad luck.

‘When did we stop going to the Slug & Lettuce for margaritas and start to meet in Coffee & Crayons for a spot of soft play?’ Lydia truncates my thoughts. Her gaze sardonicallyroams around the small café, homing in on the number of snotty toddlers crawling over brightly coloured padded obstructions in a designated soft play area only two tables away. Somehow, she still manages to makesoft playsound dirty. I refrain from telling her so because she’d take that as a compliment.

She’s got a point though. I wish, not for the first time, that the tall glass filled with a frothy latte in my hand was Irish coffee. I’ve never been an afternoon drinker, but after the day I’ve had, I might reconsider.

As soon as I processed the news of Alex being my mentor, I messaged my two best friends to meet for an emergency coffee. They both responded within a minute withon my way.

At that precise moment, my other best friend, Catherine, arrives at our table, half dragging a sour-looking three-year-old with slightly lopsided pigtails. ‘Since we found out they don’t allow three-year-olds into bars,’ she exclaims as a way of hello. Lydia nods in a sombre gesture that can be only interpreted asfair enough.

Catherine’s black corkscrew curls bounce around her cheeks as she unceremoniously unhooks her multiple bags. She takes an exaggerated leap over them like they’re contagious, dragging her slightly grumpy bundle of joy with her. She looks rushed off her feet, but as soon as she joins us, her expression turns into one of pure delight at being reunited with us. ‘Sorry, ladies.’ She apologises in a dignified way. ‘We’re late because we had an emergency poop.’ She pauses for effect before she finishes with, ‘In the car.’

Lydia makes a face before she takes a sip from her Virgin Bloody Mary.

‘Hi, Gabby.’ I simper at the mini version of Catherine. Immediately, a goofy grin follows. ‘I like your pigtails. I bet the piggies you’ve taken those tails off are really upset now.’ She giggles and almost topples over to give me a sloppy kiss on the cheek. Catherine mouthsthank youand slumps down next tome with a huff.

Then Gabby hugs Lydia, who smooches her little cheek when she thinks we’re not paying attention. Lydia is hard on the surface but a big softie on the inside. Like a walnut, minus the wrinkly shell and potential of one out of three people being allergic to her.

‘Off you trot, sprite.’ Catherine shoos Gabby towards the soft play area and wastes no time unpacking and placing a jar of pumpkin and sweet potato puree, apple and beet pouch, banana Frube and Babybel in a line on the table like she’s stacking dominoes.

Gabby rushes clumsily over a soft padding barrier with her purple boots still on. Like her mum, Gabby doesn’t dawdle and joins a little boy wearing cute dinosaur overalls. She gives him a mega-watt smile and without hesitation he surrenders all his toys and gawks at her like she’s invented Kinder Surprise.

‘That girl has some moves.’ Lydia echoes my thoughts.

I feel more depressed with every passing minute. Three-year-old Gabby only smiles at a boy and gets what she wants.

‘Yep. She does that to Richard, and he gives in every single time,’ Catherine complains in mock annoyance. But I know she loves her geek husband.

‘So, what’s the emergency?’ Catherine asks after she orders a double espresso with an extra shot on the side. It must be one of those days. She scans my face with her laser eyes. Even when Catherine and I went to school together, she always sensed when something was seriously wrong. She’s now staring at me with her signature worried look. She should have it trademarked; it’s that good.

I brief them on the Alex situation and finish with him turning the air con on just to gain the upper hand.

‘I was always convinced Alex was a wanker,’ Lydia exclaims without an ounce of surprise, and her sharp eyebrows knit together as she starts scrolling on her phone.

‘You’ve never met him,’ I point out. Lydia and I met at uni, post-Alex. I was still heartbroken when Lydia took me under her wing. I introduced her to Catherine, my best friend since we were five, and we immediately hit it off and became an inseparable trio.

Lydia shrugs, her sleek brown hair falling over her shoulder, still perusing her phone. ‘He was a penis to you ten years ago, Hols. He should have grovelled after what he did.’

‘I split up with him, you know,’ I interject, ignoring the anatomical descriptor of Alex. ‘We’re not in an episode ofEastEnders. We dated. We broke up. He fancied somebody else. We stopped talking to each other. We went our separate ways. The end.’

‘So, you’re telling me that there are no feelings and that you’re only shaken because you didn’t think you would meet him ever again, and not because you still think he’s seriously hot and you want to get into his pants because you didn’t get a chance the first time?’ She says this all in one breath.

Then, she practically rams her phone up my nose, Alex wearing a navy version of a power suit illuminating the phone screen. My stomach coils like a swarm of slippery eels, and I avert my eyes because there’s a risk they will burn holes into the screen if I don’t. It’s nice to know the website is working again.

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