She gives me a sheepish smile. ‘Sorry, it’s become a bit of a habit. Of course it should be just you and me.’
‘Relax. If Ash wants to join us, he can.’
‘Nope, we’ll have a girly night...then he can be our designated driver.’ She gives me a cheeky wink. ‘Got to be some perks to being married.’
‘Considering how well you look, I’d say there are many, many perks.’
‘We just need to find you an eligible bachelor and you can experience it for yourself.’
‘I’m quite all right single, thanks.’
She doesn’t hear me. I know it by her smile and the sudden faraway look in her eye as I hold the shop door open for her. ‘Whatever you’re thinking, you can quit it now.’
‘I’m not thinking anything,’ she says in wide-eyed innocence.
‘Liar.’
Her smile builds, her eyes lighting up. ‘How about a double date? Ash and me, you and—’
‘Coco!’
‘What? I haven’t even said who.’
‘I know exactly who you’re thinking of and no, just no.’
‘But we’re not just clients to him, not really; we’re friends. And you...’ she taps me teasingly on the chest ‘...you could be more.’
‘And you’re going to find yourself alone in this store if you carry on.’
I head for the accessories department, hearing the hurried clip of her Louboutins as she races to keep up.
‘There was a time you would have jumped at the chance to cross that line with him. What’s changed?’
I pretend I haven’t heard her. The memory alone is enough to stir up an overwhelming cocktail of shame, remorse, longing, disappointment, hurt... Above all, hurt.
‘Now I come to think of it, you weren’t so hot the day after the wedding either, and the last I saw you, you were on the dance floor with Jackson. Did something happen?’
I stop moving and take a breath. ‘I really don’t want to talk about it.’
‘But this is me, Cait.’ She puts her hand on my arm and I turn to look up at her. Her smile is soft, sincere, her worry obvious in the crease between her brows. ‘Tell me what’s going on.’
If I tell her then maybe she’ll understand and agree on going somewhere else for the evening. The idea has merit. And then I realise what it really means is that I’m running scared and, in a weird way, I’d be letting him win.
‘You remember we invited you both to dinner last month, and low and behold the day came around and you were both coincidentally sick?’
She’s right. We were.
Hell, maybe this has messed him up just as much as me. But I wasn’t the one who crept out in the middle of the night and avoided the other’s eye the next day.
Maybe it’ll be fun to turn up. Maybe it’ll be fun to be in the same room as him and watch him squirm. It’s the least he deserves. And if I get the opportunity to give him what for while I’m at it, all the better. I even have the perfect plan forming.
‘Let’s talk about it later, at Blacks, on one condition.’ I raise a finger to her, my brows lifting and I’m already grinning at what is to come, because Coco won’t say no to me, and this is going to be so...much...fun.
* * *
‘Hey, boss, can I get you a drink?’
I lift my head from the figures blurring on my laptop screen to see Bates, my head barman, giving me a strange look from the other side of the bar. I say strange, but it’s the same look I’ve witnessed on too many faces lately. They’re worrying about me—my staff, the clientele, the few friends I have.