Page 30 of Falling for You
‘You didn’t even get his name?’
I take the steaming mug off Tanya as she slips into bed beside me. Penny is folded by our feet like a faithful cat, the only one to turn down a morning cup of coffee, which I’m quite glad about. Her face needs to lose its green hue before she eats or drinks anything in my bedroom.
‘He literally answered his phone and ran out of the place. He didn’t even look back at me.’
‘Pig,’ mutters Penny.
‘All he left was this,’ I say, picking up the ring on my bedside table.
It took me a moment to realise he’d left it, otherwise I would have tried harder to follow him. It’s one thing to chase after a guy because you want his number (desperate, cringe, no thank you) but it’s another to do it to return their prized possession and thenhappento get their number at the same time (heroic, coincidental, yes please). But he was long gone before I noticed it glistening on the bench next to me.
‘That’s a woman’s ring,’ Tanya says, picking it up to examine it.
‘Pig,’ Penny says again. ‘I bet it’s his wife’s.’
‘Maybe that’s who called him,’ Tanya says. ‘Although, why would you wear your wife’s ring?’
‘Maybe she’s dead,’ Penny says, barely audible as her face is pressed against a cushion.
‘So, his wife was ringing him from beyond the grave?’ Tanya asks sceptically.
‘It was Halloween,’ Penny says. ‘And that would explain why he ran out so quickly.’
‘He said it belonged to his mum,’ I say, taking the ring off Tanya and putting it back beside my bed.
‘Maybe she’s dead.’
‘Stop thinking everyone is dead!’
‘I feel like I might be dead.’
Tanya laughs. ‘Well, I did try and stop you from ordering sambuca.’
‘You didn’t try hard enough,’ Penny groans, rolling onto her back. ‘You should have locked me in a toilet or told the barman that I was underage.’
She spots my raised eyebrows and thwacks me with her arm. ‘I was wearing a lot of make-up, I could have got away with being seventeen.’
‘That’s nearly half your age.’
‘Fuck off! I’m thirty-two!’
‘Guys!’ Tanya squeals, as Penny and I start kicking and pushing each other from across the bed. ‘Stop it! I’m going to spill my coffee!’
I put my arms in the air as a surrender and Penny drops back onto the bed.
‘So, he just left?’ Tanya says. ‘You didn’t get his phone number?’
I shake my head, my heart turning over. ‘All I got was that he was an American writer.’
‘Ah,’ Penny says sarcastically. ‘A real one of a kind, then.’
I shrug at Tanya. ‘I guess it just wasn’t meant to be.’
‘Well,’ she says, reorganising my pillows, ‘it was a good night. I think everyone had a good time, there were loads of people dancing by the end.’
I nod. ‘It was fun.’
‘I’m sorry about your runaway guy, though,’ she says, hooking her arm in mine.
