Page 20 of Not Your Shoe Size

Ty frowned. She sounded like she was hiding inside a rubbish bin, which with Georgie was entirely possible. She always said if she hadn’t gone into medicine, she’d have become a private detective. “No one’s at work except me. Where are you? Are you following someone fromHome and Awayagain?”

Georgie didn’t laugh. “Where’s Kate?”

“In Brunswick with her derby friends. She’s meeting me for a work thing later. Why?”

“I just saw her and she’s not with her derby friends.”

“Huh? Who’s she with?”

Georgie let out a long shaky breath. “A man.”

Ty felt like his brain had just gotten fifty emails. “A man? What man?” There was a long silence and his pulse cranked up to heart attack levels. “Georgie, where the fuck are you? Are you following Kate?”

A loud banging sound.

“Sorry,” Georgie whispered. “I had to move out of the doorway I was in. Of course I haven’t been following Kate.”

“You followed Veronica.”

“That was different! Iknewshe was cheating on you. This was pure coincidence. I’m in Brunswick looking for a yellow cardigan, and I passed Kate and this guy in the street. And I swear I wouldn’t have called if it was just somerandom, but this guy is really…”

Ty’s guts twisted like a wet rag. “What? He’s what?”

“Hot. Hot the way you’re hot.”

“The fuck does that mean?”

It was a mark of how serious the situation was that Georgie didn’t accuse him of fishing. “You know, tall. Butch. Older.”

White hot jealously throbbed through Ty like poison. “How much older?”

“I dunno. Late forties? Mid-fifties? It’s hard to tell because he’s all tanned and jacked.”

Cold sweat prickled in Ty’s armpits.Not again.Not Katie. I couldn’t handle it. I wouldn’t fucking survive.

He was on his feet, though he couldn’t remember standing. “Where’s she now?”

“They’re still walking, I’m following them. Discretely.”

Ty pressed a hand to his forehead. “Fuck’s sake.”

“What? You don’t want to know who this guy is?”

“Yeah, but—”

“So I’m following her. Don’t freak out, it’s probably nothing.”

“That’s fucking reassuring. Where are you?”

“Sydney Road. I just went past that big Savers.”

Ty snatched up his phone and turned off loudspeaker as though he might give Georgie’s game away. “What are they doing?”

“Talking. Laughing.”

“Holding hands?”

“No, but it seems like they know each other. Like, they don’t seem like strangers.” A short pause. “This seems really out of character. Are you sure she didn’t tell you she was meeting someone for work?”

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