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‘You work over Christmas?’ Paige looked horrified. Then took a drink. Then looked horrified again.
‘No, it’s fine,’ Amy said, waving her hands and her wine around in the air. ‘Tess isn’t normal. Tess is a martyr. She’s happiest when she’s miserable.’
Paige nodded. ‘That explains why she went for Nick.’
‘I’m happiest when I’m busy,’ I said before Amy could pounce on the mention of his name. ‘There’s a difference.’
For the want of a better plan, I picked up an empty glass and poured in a couple of slugs of wine. I was not a big drinker for good reason. More than three drinks and I could not be held responsible for my actions. More than four and I couldn’t remember them anyway. But this definitely felt like a legitimate wine-to-the-rescue moment. Amy took hold of my wrist, raising the glass to my mouth, and I drank obediently, disappointed in my appalling lack of willpower.
‘How do you feel right now?’ Paige asked. ‘If you had to make the decision right now, pick one and never do the other ever again, which would it be?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said, wishing I didn’t see Nick and Charlie in my head when she asked that question. ‘I had a plan, you know? I knew where I was going and I knew what I wanted. And now it’s like, boom! decision time. But if I make the wrong decision, what happens then? I’m buggered. Completely buggered and miserable and I die alone with seventeen cats all called Steve. It’s too hard.’
‘Have I missed something? How does picking the wrong job leave you as a crazy cat lady?’ Paige looked swiftly from me to Amy and back again. ‘Were you drinking before you got here?’
‘She’s not drunk,’ Amy said, patting my hand as though I was a deranged nana. ‘She’s just not really thinking about the jobs, are you?’
‘Oh, bloody hell.’ Paige rolled her eyes. ‘And we were doing so well at avoiding the subject of cock. OK. Hang on a sec, I just need to set up this last shot and then we can get trashed and talk about this properly.’
Trashed? I looked at my watch. It was barely even three o’clock.
Amy looked at me with a ‘well?’ expression, an already empty wine glass in her hand. I genuinely didn’t know where she put it; the woman was miniscule and drank more than Lindsay Lohan on the average Thursday.
‘What?’ I picked up my glass and gave my wine one more sip. ‘Spit it out.’
‘Have you explained it all to Charlie?’ she asked.
‘No.’
‘Have you heard from the other one?’
‘No.’
Just then, my text message alert sounded loudly in the bottom of my handbag and every internal organ jumped. Even my spleen wanted to know who was it was from. It was Charlie.
One by one, my organs settled back into their usual positions, consoling each other on their way down. I didn’t know why I was surprised. Nick wasn’t going to call. Nick wasn’t going to call. Nick wasn’t going to call. And no matter how many times I told myself that, it did not feel any better.
‘Speak of the devil,’ I said, my voice unexpectedly scratchy. ‘Charlie wants to know where we are.’
‘Tell him to fuck the fuck off, we’re talking about him, not to him,’ Amy replied. ‘You thought it was Nick, didn’t you?’
‘It’s fine,’ I said for the millionth time, tapping out a quick message to Charlie. ‘Everything is fine.’
‘So,’ Paige reappeared at the top of the stairs with her hands on her annoyingly slim hips, ‘can we please get to the bottom of this?’
‘Yes please.’ Amy cocked her head to one side and squinted at me. ‘But we’ve been going too easy on her. Tess, quick-fire decision time: Charlie or Nick?’
‘There is no decision to make.’ I could hear my voice rising along with my blood pressure as I spoke every syllable. ‘You know we’re not talking about him.’
‘The name Nick is verboten,’ Amy explained to Paige. ‘I’m not allowed to mention him, even though she’s been checking her phone to see if he’s called every other second since Monday night.’
‘Well, I haven’t agreed to that,’ Paige replied. ‘So she’s going to have to talk about it, isn’t she?’
‘Can I have another drink, please?’ I asked, holding out my suddenly empty glass.
‘What do you want?’ She reached over to the small fridge beside her. ‘Wine, champagne, beer, Pimm’s in a can – ick – or I think there’s some vodka in the freezer? I bet one of the models is holding, if you want anything else.’
‘Holding what?’ I asked.
‘Bless her, she’s very naïve,’ Amy said, rolling off the settee and crawling into the fridge to grab the other bottle of white. ‘So, Nick or Charlie? If you had to marry one and throw the other off the side of a boat?’
‘Why are we having this conversation when there is no Nick in the equation?’ I asked. I hated myself for it but even saying his name out loud made me want to do a little cry. The sharp ‘k’ sound at the end of his name seemed to hang in the air forever and I felt like I’d been punched. ‘There is only Charlie.’
‘And if this was three weeks ago, you would be jumping up and down and picking out Tiffany engagement rings by now,’ Amy replied. ‘So how come you’re sitting here, drinking Paige’s wine with a face like an arse instead of at Charlie’s, drinking his wine and throwing out all his porn?’
All four of the male models looked up at us with their blank, handsome faces. The female model didn’t even blink.
I blinked. I refilled my glass. I sighed. My daydreams of being in love with Charlie and Charlie being in love with me rarely got as far as domesticity and I felt like a dog that had been chasing a car – I finally had what I’d always wanted and now what was I supposed to do with it?
‘I know I should be stashing my pink toothbrush next to Charlie’s toothbrush and doing a happy dance,’ I said. ‘I don’t know what’s going on with me.’
‘You’re such a liar.’ Was it just me or did Paige look a little bit annoyed? ‘Just admit it.’
‘I need time to think about things.’ I was not going to say it. ‘Charlie was totally cool about it.’
‘Good for Charlie,’ she replied. ‘I don’t want to be biased or anything, but I’ve got to be honest, I really don’t see any competition. I know Nick is hot and everything but Tess, he’s such a twat.’
‘I know,’ I nodded. There was that sick feeling again. Why did I want to defend him? She was right, after all.
‘And Charlie fucked up, he did, but he’s only a man,’ she went on. ‘Vanessa is hot and we’ve only got to look at Angelina Jolie to know that men have no control over themselves when it comes to hot women. Brad cheated on Jen because of a hot woman. On Jen, Tess, Rachel from Friends. Do you see what I’m saying?’
‘Sort of …’ I frowned.
‘You weren’t together when it happened, you know. You can’t hold this against him forever.’
‘I bet I could,’ Amy said. ‘Charlie’s not good enough for you.’
‘And what’s not good enough?’ I asked, coming over all spikey and defensive on Charlie’s behalf. I was giving myself emotional whiplash. ‘The fact that he’s sweet and caring and funny? That he’s always been there for you and me whenever we’ve really needed him? That he comes home with me so I don’t have to deal with my mum on my own? Shit, the fact that he’s met my mum and still wants to be with me should be reason enough to put a bloody ring on it.’
‘Fine, I’m convinced,’ she replied. ‘After ten years of you giving him the puppy dog eyes, Charlie Wilder is the world’s most amazing man, apart from when he’s being a thoughtless shithead, and has finally woken up and realized that you are the absolute dog’s bollocks and that he wants to make an honest woman out of you, conveniently at the exact time you’re looking elsewhere. He wants what he suddenly might not be able to have. Awesome.’
‘It’s not like that,’ I said, wondering whether or not it might not be a little bit like that.
But Amy wasn’t finished. ‘And regardless of how you feel about Charlie and regardless of how many phone calls or emails you have not received, you cannot sit there and tell me you don’t have feelings for Nick which, at the very least, says something about your feelings for Charlie.’
It was altogether too close to home.
‘What have I told you about using the “N” word?’ I pulled my feet up underneath me, burrowing into the settee.
‘And you can’t keep referring to him as “the N word”,’ she said. ‘People really aren’t going to be OK with that.’
‘What’s happening with him anyway? You called him and he hasn’t called you back?’ Paige was trying to look supportive but I knew it was a strain. After all, she had history with Nick and much more of a history than I did, even if it was a history of rejection.
‘Pretty much.’ I shook my head. ‘But what’s the point anyway? It was a holiday fling. He didn’t even know my real name, for God’s sake. This is real life: Charlie and the agency and chicken cook-in sauces. Maybe that doesn’t seem as glamorous and exciting to everyone as Milan and photoshoots, but it’s exciting to me. And the Charlie thing … It’s throwing me because I’ve wanted this for so long and now maybe I have it. How would that not be confusing? To anyone?’
‘That’s how I felt when I got my first Chanel 2.55 bag,’ Paige nodded with genuine sympathy this time. ‘It was like “can I actually take this out? Can I actually use this?” It’s hard.’
‘You’re both fucking mental.’ Amy was not big on Chanel bags or metaphors. ‘And Tess, I know how long you’ve been in love with that cockwomble, but you’re not the kind of girl who only wants what she can’t have. I should know, because I am. So if you’re not champing at the bit to shack up with Mr Wonderful, there’s a good reason for it and I don’t believe it’s just nerves. I think you’ve got real feelings for Nick and I don’t think you can ignore that.’
‘How can I have real feelings for him?’ I asked, burning up. ‘I only knew him for a week. And he didn’t really know me at all.’
It was a question I’d been asking myself a lot, only Amy and Paige didn’t realize it was rhetorical. I did have feelings for him – big, scary feelings that I didn’t understand and, in all honesty, did not want to. I’d always been so safe and secure in my feelings for Charlie but every time I thought about Nick, my stomach clenched and my hands made tiny fists and I wanted to hit something. Preferably him. I wanted to go to sleep and wake up with nothing but my über-crush on Charlie back the way it was. Everything would be so much simpler.
‘To be fair, you did lie to the man about your entire existence while merrily shagging him senseless,’ Amy said. ‘Even after he bared his soul to you. I might take a few days to call you back for a chat, to be fair.’
‘He bared his soul?’ Paige looked less than impressed. ‘You mean, he pulled out some of his cheesy old lines?’
‘There were cheesy lines in the beginning,’ I admitted, not wanting to come to his defence but entirely incapable of stopping myself, ‘but there was a certain degree of soul-baring after a bit. Maybe not baring, maybe it was more like soul-flashing.’
‘What a knob,’ she breathed, taking a big deep drink of her wine. ‘Him, not you.’
‘It’s starting to feel like it never happened.’ I flipped to the sent messages in my phone and saw his name over and over. I wondered what would give out first, his refusal to reply or my dignity. ‘Every morning when I wake up, it feels more and more like I was never in Hawaii, like he never existed.’
‘Don’t upset yourself over it,’ Paige said, shifting in her seat. ‘I’m sure it was all bullshit. I don’t know if that man is capable of anything other than trying to get into a woman’s pants.’
Paige had known Nick a lot longer than I had and I was fully aware that she had tried very hard to get into his pants, and not the other way around. And that didn’t make this conversation awkward at all.
‘Bottom line is,’ Amy shrugged and emptied her second glass of wine, ‘something is stopping you from moving on with Charlie. Something’s got you stuck. That something is Nick.’
‘Paige, can you come and check these shots?’ the photographer bellowed from the set below. With a very grumpy look on her face, Paige dutifully stood up and marched down the stairs.
‘Shout if the models need oiling. The male models,’ Amy yelled as she went before turning her attention back to me. ‘I know I haven’t been entirely Team Charlie when it comes to you two being together-together but if you tell me this is what you really, really want, I will shut my mouth, buy you a shit housewarming present and never say the “N” word again. But you have to be entirely honest before you get yourself into something you might regret.’
‘You really have got to stop calling him that,’ I sighed.
There it was again. What did I want? ‘I don’t want to ruin everything because of a holiday romance hangover.
‘Life isn’t a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book, Amy,’ I said. ‘If I cock this up, I can’t just go back to the end of the last chapter and try something else.’
‘Oh, Tess,’ She smiled and hugged me, squeezing my shoulders tightly. ‘That’s exactly what life is: nothing is set in stone, nothing has already been decided. That’s where you’ve been going wrong all these years.’
‘Am I interrupting something beautiful?’ Charlie’s voice broke through our Kodak moment, making Amy jump and spill my wine before I could drink it. Which was probably best. ‘Don’t let me stop you, I always knew there was something going on with you two.’
‘Didn’t I tell you not to tell him where we were?’ Amy jumped to her feet, kissed him on the cheek and bounced off downstairs to the set. ‘Just because she’d rather be in bed with me than you. No need to be jealous, Wilder.’
‘Amy,’ Charlie nodded. ‘Always a pleasure.’
He clambered onto the settee, all arms and legs and coppery curls, looking like a sexy hipster Bambi man.
‘I see she’s taking this well?’ he said, pulling the strap of his man-bag over his head and setting it carefully on the cushion between us. ‘Everything all right?’
‘Everything’s fine.’ I nodded with too much enthusiasm, not sure what to do. Normally we’d have hugged by now or I’d have taken the piss out of him for his jeans being too skinny or unfastened the second button of his T-shirt because one wasn’t enough and three would be too many. Instead, I put my wine glass down and sat on my hands. ‘You had a busy day?’
‘I played football manager for about three hours and then I remembered outside existed so I went out and got you this.’ He pulled a blue carrier bag out of his messenger bag and handed it to me with a flourish. ‘Sorry it’s not wrapped.’
‘What is it?’ I asked. I bloody loved presents. Surprises not so much, but presents? Yes, please.
‘Open it,’ he said, his smile almost bigger than mine. ‘I hope it’s right.’
Inside the bag was a box and inside that box, was a camera.
‘Oh, Charlie, you didn’t!’ I tore away the packaging as carefully as I could and pulled out a brand-new Canon camera. It was almost identical to my old one, lighter and shinier and with fewer bumps and bruises on the body, but the buttons were all in the same places and she fell into my hands as though I’d known her forever. ‘You can’t have!’
He inched over on the sofa and squeezed my knee, his huge hand covering half my thigh in the process. ‘I can and I did,’ he said in a low voice that made every inch of my skin prickle. ‘And you’re going to go to Milan and take amazing photos of Mr – I forget his first name – Bennett and his clothes and whatever else you want to take amazing photos of and you’re going to be amazing at it.’
‘But the pitch?’ I looked up at him and then at my camera, my beautiful camera; beautiful, beautiful Charlie. ‘It’s only a week away.’
‘Yes it is,’ he said as I reached out to unfasten his second button; I couldn’t look at it for a moment longer. Charlie covered my hand with his and I felt a warmth wash over my entire body. ‘But I don’t want to wake up next to you every morning, not knowing whether or not you’re wondering “what if?” because I know you’d never say anything. So I’m not giving you the chance to regret this. OK?’
Just when you thought you knew everything about someone, they had to go one better.
‘This is amazing,’ I said, cradling the camera in my lap and leaning over to give Charlie the biggest hug I could muster. ‘You’re amazing.’
‘I’m all right,’ he replied. ‘And let’s be honest, I’m just trying to warm you up for later.’
I looked away so he wouldn’t see me blush. We’d always flirted with each other but now I knew I was going to have to follow through, I couldn’t seem to keep the colour out of my cheeks.
‘I talked to my mate at Perito’s this morning,’ he said, squeezing my knee. ‘He’s going over to Portugal with his team on Monday and he asked if we wanted to go along, meet the founders of the company and all that.’
‘But Milan?’ I held my camera tightly. ‘And you hate flying?’
‘I told him you were already otherwise engaged,’ he said, fiddling with his newly opened button. ‘But I said I’d go. Double scotch and some positive thinking and I’ll be OK. It’s got to be a good sign, hasn’t it?’
‘It’s an amazing sign,’ I agreed, a twinge of jealousy in my chest that I wouldn’t get to go along. Not that I didn’t have an adventure of my own to worry about. ‘I’m really excited.’
Admittedly, I didn’t sound that excited but I was somewhat distracted by what was happening below us in the studio.
‘Is there any point in asking what’s going on down there?’ Charlie asked, nodding at the set downstairs.
Amy had done a fine job of making herself useful. I watched as she merrily rubbed moisturizer into the chest of one of the male models, bouncing from foot to foot, while Paige was on all fours on the bed, demonstrating a particularly uncomfortable-looking pose for the female model, who still looked bored. Gorgeous, but bored.
‘There is not,’ I replied, turning my back on it all and looking back down at my lovely camera again. ‘This really is amazing, you know.’
‘Doesn’t really feel like the right time to get all heavy …’ He gestured over to where Amy was now rubbing lotion into the chests of two men at once with her eyes closed. ‘But I wanted you to know I’m serious about this. And that I’m going to do whatever I can do to make you happy. It’s all I can think about, that we should be together. You’re what I care about.’
I still couldn’t quite believe what I was hearing. ‘More than Arsenal?’ I asked, doubtful.
‘Let’s not go completely crazy.’ He ran his hand through his already messy hair and grinned. It was so fucking adorable, my heart almost exploded. ‘But getting there, at the very least. So, can we go?’
