My plan is to go to bed as soon as we’re back home and through the door, but he calls me on through to the kitchen with a smile.
“Lighten up and have a drink with us, lover boy. You need it.”
I’d usually say no, but I’m drunk enough that it’s Cass my eyes are on. How incredible she looks in that dress. It’s Cass I want to have a drink with.
I shrug with a yeah, cool, go for it, and sit down at the dining table. I get a whole new pang inside as Cass chooses the seat next to me, pulling her chair up close to mine. Her smile is simply beautiful.
“Really, it’s ok,” she tells me as Ant pops a De Chante cork at the breakfast bar. “If you don’t feel it for Janie, you don’t feel it.”
“Thanks. I just feel crap for turning her away.”
Cass takes my hand and gives it a squeeze on the tabletop.
“Don’t feel crap. I was the one who encouraged her to go for it and follow you outside. I shouldn’t have. It wasn’t my place.”
I love her honesty and her willingness to take responsibility, but she didn’t do anything wrong. She meant the best for both me and Janie.
I’m sick to death of my churning feelings, so I swig back more champagne when Ant presents our glasses at the table. Fuck it. One more glass won’t hurt.
One more glass will hurt less.
“Cheers to you both on your engagement,” I say yet again when Ant takes his seat opposite.
“Just a shame it’s not a cheers to you as well,” he says. “Would have been great to see you with Janie. Would be great to see you with someone.”
“Yeah,” Cass says, her hand still gripping mine. “We want you to be happy, you know? And you will be. You really will be. You’re too amazing not to end up with the girl of your dreams, don’t worry about that.”
She’s as drunk as I am, but her gaze is so true and real that it gives me another one of those damn stomach lurches.
Ant looks from me to Cass and back again, and there’s an expression on his face I can’t read. Is it pity? Affection? A mixture of both? Is it really that obvious my insides are chewed up and I’m out at sea without a paddle?
Probably.
I’d likely be able to hide my discomfort a lot better if I hadn’t been guzzling down the De Chante like mineral water, but it’s too late for that now.
“Ger, listen, we really do mean it,” Ant tells me, and the warmth in his tone hits me from nowhere.
He reaches over the table to take hold of my other hand in a statement display of affection. Not one I’ve seen from him in years.
“We really want you to be happy. Both of us. You’ve been alone a long time, and everyone needs love. Everyone needs closeness. Everyone needs a light in the dark sometimes. You desperately need a light right fucking now, and the sooner you face it the better. I was hoping that light could be Janie, but obviously not.”
The touch of his hand takes me back to the long nights we sat here together when Jo first left me. I remember the concern in his eyes as he helped me through it, picking me up off the floor. We drank together, and talked together, and he got me back up on my feet when I didn’t think my legs could take it, with faith in me every step of the way.
He pours me another drink.
“You know we both care about you. Cass thinks an awful lot of you now, as well as me.”
“I know that,” I say back. “Thank you.”
I don’t know if Cass is picking up on Ant’s concern and pity, but she gives me a smile, with enough affection that it almost moves me to tears. Ant’s staring at her along with me, and he must be so proud of the warmth in her eyes.
“You’ll meet your Mrs Right,” she says. “Who knows, maybe she’ll even be at the swimming pool next week?”
Yes. She will be. She’s sitting right next to me at the goddamn table right now and I need to get away from her before the hurt in my guts makes me puke.
Time to go. I take my cigarettes from my pocket and rise from my seat.
“A quick smoke, then it’s bedtime for me.”
“Wait,” Ant says, just like that. “Sit down, Ger. I have an idea for you.”
His tone is familiar again now. Analytical, like it is when he’s come up with a new strategy at the office.
“What kind of an idea?”
“Sit down and I’ll tell you.”
“Sure, go for it.” I laugh a fake laugh as I sit back down. “I’m all ears.”