Page 61 of The Polly Principle (The Laws of Love 2)

“Yes,” Polly supplied. “Apparently he didn’t turn up at the hostel I organised for him. He was found on the nineteenth floor of the Queen’s building, insisting he was Spider-Man.”

Pritchard sighed and ran a hand through his thinning hair. “Ah, Bernie. What on earth are we going to do with him?”

Everyone sat around, frowning and clicking their pen tops. They were definitely running out of solutions when it came to Bernie. He was outwitting all of them.

Finally, the ward round over, Solo exited the room and strode along the corridor making conversation with Leon. The more he got to know Leon, the more he liked the guy. His morose façade was just that, a façade, beneath which he was big-hearted, and infinitely kind to the patients. He was laid-back to the point of being almost horizontal, except in an emergency, when he fired on all cylinders.

“Been hearing about your knitting prowess.” Leon grinned.

“Ha.” Solo barked out a laugh. “News travels fast.”

“Esme is calling for a Solo Jakoby knitting circle every Friday.”

Solo couldn’t help a smirk, especially as Polly and Judith were gaining on them. He wanted Polly to be impressed; it was stupidly childish, but there it was.

Deep in his pocket his phone rang. He stopped and drew it out.

Emma. His heart lurched in his chest.

He took it and said, louder than he needed to, “Hi, Em.”

He felt Polly’s attention on him as she came level; it was almost imperceptible, unless you happened to know how her ears could flap.

“Solo, I didn’t really expect you’d pick up.” A month or so back Emma’s voice would still have caused pain, but now he was far more aware of a fleeting impression of wide green eyes as Polly shot past, followed by a toss of her head.

His stomach tightened as that curly head bobbed off into the distance. He pressed the phone to his ear. “How are you?”

“I’m good.”

He forced out, “How’s Drew?”

A long pause. “He’s finally responding to the medication regime, they think.” He could hear the tightness in Em’s voice, like a stretched rubber band.

“I thought as much.”

“How did you know?”

“He’s stopped sending me hate messages.”

“Oh no, Solo. Was he doing that? I had no idea.”

No, because I chose not to worry you with it.“Private hospitals don’t tend to take celebrity’s phones away from them, so…”

“Were they really bad?”

No point sugar-coating the pill now. “Yep.”

“I’m so sorry,” Emma’s voice was nearly a whisper.

“It’s not your fault.”

Another awkward silence

“Look, um, the reason I’m phoning is I have a modelling job in Perth in a few weeks. Could we, I mean, would you be up to meeting me?”

Solo’s jaw clenched. Was he ready to see Emma again? He wasn’t sure. It was like his brain had been scrambled with Polly and now nothing seemed the same anymore.

“Okay,” he said, injecting warmth into his voice. “That would be good.”

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