Page 23 of Unworthy
“Honestly, Aubrey,” he said. That he used my dad’s first name just highlighted how much of an adult he was and made me feel even more like a stupid kid. “It’s no trouble. You two go out and have some alone time. Midge will be good with us.”
After a bit more half-hearted protesting from my parents, they eventually left. I wanted the ground to swallow me up. Max was scowling at me. He muttered something that may have beencock-blocking little shitunder his breath before he stalked into the kitchen to retrieve a beer. Verity was still lounging in her chair like it was all the same to her, whatever they did, and Heath was looking at me and my red face with an expression that looked suspiciously like pity.
“You don’t have to stay here, you know,” I told them all once Max had returned with his beer, pointedly not bringing Heath or V a drink. “I’m not a baby. I’ll be fine on my own.” I’d given up the idea that I might be able to go out with them tonight. My earlier confidence had been totally decimated.
“Mam would skin me alive,” Max muttered, flopping down in the chair next to Verity.
“I wouldn’t say anything.”
Max snorted. “A likely story. You’ve a wider mouth than the Dartford Tunnel.” I could tell that Max was already a couple of beers into his night, given that his accent had thickened. It was just one more thing that separated us: Max had a northern accent like Mum, having lived in Yorkshire until he was ten and only moved to the south after Mum left his dad and married mine. He was hardened in a way I wasn’t, given that his dad had been abusive while mine was anything but. Max was also practical, almost to a fault, whilst I had my head in the clouds. I knew Max loved me, but I also knew he resented the fact that my life had been comparatively easy. I felt a wave of guilt now that his spoilt little sister had stopped him from having a good time.
“Listen, Midge,” Heath said, ignoring Max’s grumpiness to look at me. “I can’t be arsed to go out anyway. We’ll all have a far superior time vegging out and playing Monopoly.” Max snorted again and Heath looked at me, gave me a wink and rolled his eyes.
“You’ve nevervegged outin your life. Or eaten takeaway,” Verity put in.
“Well, it’s lucky then that our parents have a stock of very good Rioja in the cellar and that I’m mates with the owner of the Michelin-starred restaurant round the corner, isn’t it?”
And then, with all his charm and easy company, the good food he ordered and the wine he dug out of the cellar, he thawed out Max’s attitude to the point that we did all play Monopoly together. Max even muttered a slightly forced “Sorry I was a dick”to me later, after reluctantly admitting how much fun he’d had. At the end of the night, I plucked up the courage to apologise to Heath. He’d turned to me in the corridor and looked down at me with that movie star smile that took my breath away.
“I had much more fun with you, Midge, than I would have had with any of those French birds.” Then he ruffled my hair before leaning down to kiss my cheek. I was still standing in the corridor, face hot with my hand on my cheek, when my parents came bustling in through the door a few minutes later.
Present
Yaz
As I lay face down on my bed, sobbing into my pillow, I realised that that had been it for me back then. I’d fallen in love. Hopelessly and completely in love. And no boy since had ever measured up to Heath giving me that light kiss on my cheek all those years ago. Not until this afternoon. I sat up in bed and scrubbed away the tears that I didn’t seem to be able to force down. Okay, so Heath had been kind to me as a child and that had led to this abnormal fixation on him. But I had to accept that either the man I’d fallen for had changed beyond recognition, or maybe he’d never really existed. Enough was enough. I needed some self-respect.
Never in my plan.
Not really the type of woman I’m looking for.
Coming around to the idea of ‘us’.
Heath’s words floated through my brain, and I had to stifle another sob. Years of dreams about this man declaring his undying love for me had been shattered by the awful reality of him sounding casually resigned to a relationshipdespite his better judgement,purely because he was too attracted to me to stay away. Saying he had too much respect for Max to leave me high and dry after a one-night stand. Well, at least he has respect for one member of my family, because it was certainly in short supply when he was speaking tome. And there was no point him worrying about Max. I was never telling Max about this. I was telling no one about this. And Heath could take his self-sacrificing arse off to find the type of woman he was actually looking for, because this woman was never speaking to him again.
Chapter 12
Haven’t you ever been blocked before?
Heath
“What does it mean when you send a text, but it doesn’t say delivered underneath it?”
I had just interrupted Josh explaining his latest anxiety-riddled reflective entry in his portfolio. He looked up from his notes and frowned at me.
“Er–”
“I think my bloody phone’s playing up,” I muttered as I looked back down at the screen, which was filled with a string of texts to Yaz, all of which did not have the delivered message after them. Josh let out a nervous, quickly muffled snort of laughter and I abandoned gazing at my phone to narrow my eyes at him.
“The phone’s fine,” he said, his lips twitching for some reason.
“Then why can’t I get any messages to go through?”
“Haven’t you ever been blocked before?”
“Blocked? What the bloody hell do you meanblocked?”
Josh shrugged. “I mean that when a text won’t deliver to someone’s phone, it’s because they’ve blocked you. What happens when you ring the number? Does it like just ring once and then go to voicemail?”
