The Plus One Pact

by MacIntosh, Portia

  I smile.

  ‘You will.’

  For a few seconds we just exchange glances. It almost feels as if we’re having a moment. A moment I am far too self-conscious for.

  ‘Right, OK, well,’ I babble. ‘You book us a taxi, I’ll go back in and return these items to their owners and then we’ll get you home, and you can get your pants off.’

  The second the words leave my lips I realise how dodgy they sound. Millsy just laughs. There’s something kind of nice about how easy-going he is. It’s infuriating when he does something insane like flirt with a bride at a wedding but doesn’t freak out over the consequences. But it’s quite nice, like now, when he doesn’t care about much more than the smile on his face. If I’m going to enjoy a gender reveal with anyone, it’s going to be Millsy. More than anything though, I’m just really intrigued to meet his family…

  11

  There’s something about Millsy that is a little… I don’t know. I can’t quite put my finger on it. He’s kind of elusive. He seems to know so many people, but from nights out, not from work. And then there’s the matter of how he makes a living. He owns a swanky flat, dresses well, goes on lots of nights out. And he’s so generous too. But while I've been living with him I haven’t seen him do a scrap of work yet. I’ve been doing loads, now that I’m living peacefully by the river, rather than in La La Land. I feel so settled there already, making myself at home in the spare room, utilising the kitchen as much as my skills allow. It’s just so easy to get so much work done, before chilling, then enjoying a peaceful night’s sleep.

  Millsy never works though, as far as I can tell, which makes me wonder where his money comes from…

  I’ve been floating a few ideas with my wild imagination. I quickly dismissed any thoughts of him being something bad, like a drug dealer, because I really, truly haven’t seen him do anything resembling work at all. Even drug dealers have to put some graft in.

  Then I thought that maybe his family have money, but now that I’m walking down the driveway to his dad’s house – the house that Millsy grew up in – I can immediately tell that his upbringing must have been similar to mine, and there’s no way my parents are buying me swanky flats and funding my lifestyle.

  The houses on this street are nice. Really nice. Detached, but not mansions or anything. I can’t help but notice how perfect everyone’s garden is – and I mean perfect. Perfectly cut grass, neatly trimmed hedges. There are no footballs knocking around, no bikes. I’m getting mad Wisteria Lane vibes, and we all know what that picture of perfection had going on behind the scenes.

  I’m so glad I made an effort, in a floral floor-length summer dress. I’m getting pretty good at styling my fake hair now and I’m even nailing my make-up. It all feels like second nature now.

  ‘I really appreciate you coming with me to this thing,’ Millsy says as we approach the front door. ‘Ruby will be here, but she’ll have her fiancé, Nick, with her and… well, he isn’t my biggest fan. Ruby’s parents live next door, so they’ve known my sister all her life.’

  ‘Your sister is Fran?’ I double-check.

  ‘Yes. Quick refresher: my sister is Fran, Dad is Rod – short for Rodger, but only my stepmother, Mhairi, calls him that.’

  ‘Do you get on with her?’ I ask curiously.

  ‘Yeah, she’s all right. I would have preferred my mum and dad to stay together but, you know. Mum lives in Australia now, so she won’t be here. She’s coming over for the birth instead. Mhairi is from Scotland, but she’s lived in England since she was in her twenties. She’s got a pretty heavy Glaswegian accent still, so good luck with that if you’re not used to hearing them. I’m decent at translating now, unless I’ve upset her…’

  I do wonder if there might be a story there, but before we have the chance to say another word, the front door opens.

  ‘Joe, I thought I heard voices,’ a man who looks just like an older version of Millsy says as he pulls him in for, what I’d call, a manly hug. It’s stiff, and almost reluctant, but you can tell there are affectionate intentions behind it.

  ‘All right, Dad,’ Millsy replies.

  As his dad releases Millsy he notices me standing behind him. I’m carrying a reasonably big white box with a red velvet cake inside it. Millsy volunteered to bring a cake to the party, as a gift to his sister, and he had arranged it a while ago, so it was just to pick up today. Not only a very sweet gesture but exactly the cake I would have chosen myself.

  ‘Oh, who’s this?’ his dad asks. ‘I didn’t realise you were bringing anyone.’

  ‘Dad, this is Cara. Cara, this is my dad, Rod.’

  ‘Hi,’ I say brightly, but I feel awkward as hell. As if he didn’t tell them I was coming with him. I feel like an intruder. ‘Can you hold this, please, Joe?’

  I hand him the cake box to offer his dad a hand to shake, to show him that I am a polite human and I’m not just one of Millsy’s bimbos that it sounds as if everyone has grown tired of meeting.

  ‘So lovely to meet you,’ I say, offering him my hand. Rod isn’t interested in shaking my hand though, instead he pulls me in for a hug, wrapping me up in his arms, giving me a squeeze.

  ‘And it’s lovely to meet you, Cara,’ he says. ‘Come on, let’s head outside. We’re having the party in the garden.’

  As we pass through the hall I can’t help but notice baby and childhood photos in frames on the walls. Some of them must be of Millsy, which I’d love to see. I make a mental note to have a good look at them later.

  We reach the kitchen where a petite blonde woman, who I'd guess is in her fifties, is loading ice into a cool box full of bottles of beer.

  ‘Mhairi, Joe has brought a girl with him,’ Rod says. ‘Well, not a girl, a lady.’

  I’m not sure anyone has ever called me a lady before. It really does make me wonder about the kind of girls he usually dates.

  ‘Hello, hen, it’s nice to meet you,’ she says.

  Mhairi shakes my hand. Hers is freezing from the ice but it’s welcomed on a hot day like today.

  ‘Joe, is that the cake?’ she asks excitedly.

  ‘Yes,’ he replies. ‘Where do you want it?’

  Mhairi glances around the messy kitchen. It seems to be in a state of temporary chaos thanks to the party. It looks as if she’s making all the food herself, so every inch of worktop space is currently occupied.

  ‘Just outside the back door there’s a table with presents on it – can you pop it on there for now, please? It’s in the shade, at the side of the house. I’ll make some space and be right out for it. All the action is in the back garden.’

  ‘No worries,’ he says before turning to me. ‘OK, let’s ditch this and go introduce you to everyone, shall we?’

  ‘OK, sure,’ I reply, hoping my nerves aren’t obvious. Why do I feel as if I’m ‘meeting the family’? I mean, yes, obviously I’m meeting Millsy’s family, but we’re just friends. I feel about as nervous as I would if I were meeting a boyfriend’s family for the first time.

  We walk out of the kitchen side door where, sure enough, there is a table, hiding in the shade, covered with presents.

  ‘Oh, wow, there are a lot of people here,’ I say quietly.

  ‘Most people are all right. There are only one or two you need to worry about.’

  I’m almost certain he’s joking.

  I don’t know nearly enough about plants and flowers to identify them, but there is one, or a combination of a few, in Millsy’s dad’s back garden that give off the most amazing smell. I don’t quite know how to describe it, but it smells like summer out here. The plants, the barbecue – I can even smell the creosote on the fences, which for some reason reminds me of the long six-week holidays as a child. It makes me think of playing out in the garden at home, playing Swingball with my brother, watching the steam trains pass by at the bottom of the garden.

  There really are quite a lot of people here – at least fifty. I don’t even think I would know fifty people to invite to a
thing. My parents, my brother – Millsy now, I guess. I try not to think about whether or not my auntie et al. would RSVP because I don’t know what’s worse, if that lot didn’t turn up, or if they did. Of course, this is an entirely fictional event I’m pondering. I’m not going to have anything to invite anyone to any time soon.

  ‘Oh, look, there’s Ruby,’ Millsy points out. ‘Don’t worry, I told her you were coming.’

  I remember her from the night I met Millsy. I recognise her long honey-blonde hair and intimidating smile. She seems like such a happy, bright person. She’s sitting on the lawn, on a blanket with a man either side of her.

  ‘Hey, Rubes,’ he says.

  ‘Hello,’ she says, pulling herself to her feet. She hugs him before turning to me. ‘And you must be Cara!’

  ‘Yes, hello,’ I reply.

  As Ruby reaches out to hug me the first thing I notice is the sunlight bouncing off her massive rock of an engagement ring. It’s gorgeous.

  ‘It’s nice to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you,’ she informs me. ‘This is Nick, my fiancé, and Woody, my brother.’

  ‘It’s nice to meet you both,’ I tell them.

  Ruby must not recognise me from the night I met Millsy, but, while I might look more his type now, he has insisted that he wants me to be myself. He says the only way Ruby will let me come to the wedding is if I seem ‘normal’, so I suppose it’s a compliment that he thinks of me as normal, even if normal isn’t his type.

  ‘So, where did you two meet?’ Nick asks curiously.

  Millsy has told me a lot about Nick. He’s a doctor – a gynaecologist, no less. When Millsy first met Nick he was just Ruby’s annoying, boring, uptight flatmate. Millsy really didn’t like him and, apparently, neither did Ruby. Millsy told me that Nick had a horrible girlfriend – someone he’d met when he delivered her sister’s baby – and I don’t know what happened but, somewhere along the way, Ruby decided she didn’t hate Nick, she loved him, and I guess all is well that ends well because they’re engaged.

  ‘We met at my work,’ I say quickly, before Millsy has the chance to tell the truth.

  ‘What do you do?’ he persists.

  ‘I design escape rooms,’ I tell him, relaxing a little for knowing I’m switching back to the truth.

  All three of them seem taken aback by this.

  ‘What were you doing at an escape game?’ Ruby asks him in disbelief.

  ‘Erm, escaping,’ he tells her, sounding almost offended. ‘And, it was so much fun. I was talking to the staff after and they introduced me to the designer… and it was Cara.’

  ‘Isn’t that a bit like Stockholm syndrome?’ Nick jokes. ‘Bonding with the person who held you captive?’

  I watch Millsy force out a polite laugh and do the same. Nick seems all right, but if he’s the opposite personality type to Millsy then I’m not surprised they’re not exactly best friends.

  ‘Wow, I feel like I hardly see you these days, with all the wedding planning going on and stuff, and suddenly you’re doing escape rooms and dating intelligent women – maybe I was the bad influence?’ Ruby jokes.

  ‘I’m still me,’ Millsy insists.

  ‘Unfortunately, for all of us,’ a pregnant woman jokes as she creeps up behind him, hugging him the best she can with her bump to contend with.

  ‘Oi,’ he replies, giving her a squeeze, before introducing us.

  It’s quite overwhelming, meeting so many people at once. With so many names and faces I’m terrified I’m going to start getting them confused.

  ‘Cara, this is Fran, my sister. The one who is going to let us know if she’s having a boy or a girl by, I don’t know, what? Smashing up a piñata full of pink or blue glitter.’

  ‘Oh, aren’t you hilarious?’ she says. ‘Hi, Cara, so nice to meet you.’

  ‘You too,’ I say. ‘Congratulations.’

  ‘We’ve been guessing,’ Nick starts. ‘We think you’re having a boy.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter if it’s a boy or a girl, it’ll drive you mad,’ Woody adds, hopefully only semi-seriously.

  ‘Oh, yes, you seem like your kids really stress you out,’ Fran replies in a sarcastic tone. ‘And yet here you are, lying here on a blanket in the sun, while your wife is trying to get out the ketchup your Robbie just massaged into his and his sister’s hair.’

  ‘She’ll have it under control,’ he replies, making himself somehow even more comfortable than he was before.

  ‘Honestly, the men in this family,’ Fran replies.

  I must look puzzled.

  ‘Well, not that we’re all actually related,’ she continues for my benefit. ‘But we’ve all grown up together, living next door to each other, our parents joking that they would often mix up the babies – especially Joe and Ruby – without noticing for days at a time…’

  I’ve been wondering, this past couple of weeks, if it might be possible that Millsy is in love with Ruby. Well, given the rumours I’ve heard about his romantic (or not all that romantic, as the case may be) relationships with women, I did wonder how he’s managed to have a female best friend all this time. But the more I hear him talk, and the more time I spend around members of his family, I realise that Millsy does love Ruby, but it really is like a sister. He isn’t in love with her. They grew up together, they’ve been best friends all of their lives, and now that Ruby is getting married, I suppose Millsy just feels a little lost without his best friend. It really does seem like they were inseparable until Nick came along. I suppose that’s what happens in any friendship, when the other person settles down. It’s certainly how I seemed to lose all my friends.

  This is probably how I got such an easy in with Millsy, him being abandoned by his bestie, but at least I know that I can trust him, that it is possible for a man and a woman to be just friends.

  ‘OK, well, I’m going to drag this one away to get a drink before you tell her anything about when I was a kid that might embarrass me,’ Millsy says as he ushers me away from the group.

  ‘It’s the adult Millsy stories that are the most likely to embarrass you,’ Nick calls after us.

  ‘Ergh, his jokes,’ Millsy says to me quietly. ‘I never get his jokes.'

  Nick’s voice isn’t the only thing that follows us. Fran is hot on our heels.

  ‘Joe, I need a favour. I’m trying to play music through the Bluetooth speaker you bought Dad and none of us can get it to work. Can you sort it out, quick?’

  ‘Wow, you’re not even a mum yet and you’re like a grandma,’ he jokes before turning to me. ‘Do you wanna go grab us some drinks? I’ll be back in two seconds, just as soon as I’ve got whatever cringey boyband this one wants playing coming through the speakers.’

  I smile.

  ‘Sure thing. Beer?’

  ‘Please,’ he says. ‘Back in five.’

  As Millsy goes off with his sister, I head up the narrow garden path, towards a table laid out with drinks.

  So far everyone seems absolutely lovely. Just a nice family with a lovely house and a beautiful garden, with a perfectly picturesque pond…

  I’m so busy taking in my surroundings I don’t see the person in front of me. I feel my body collide with his. That will teach me to look at the scenery when I’m walking on a path that runs alongside a pond. He somehow manages to grab me by the hands, steadying me on the spot, keeping me upright on the path instead of laid out in the pond. The water probably isn’t deep but I would have wound up very wet and even more embarrassed if he hadn’t caught me.

  ‘Oh, God, I’m so sorry,’ I babble. ‘My fault completely, I… I…’

  I finally look up at the person I just bumped into.

  ‘Partially my fault too,’ he insists in an accent that I can think of no better way to describe than: Hugh Grant. ‘I wasn’t really looking where I was going either.’

  For a moment I just stare at him. He’s around six foot tall, slim built, with chiselled good looks and big dark green eyes. His light brown hair is short, apart fro
m on the very top of his head where the slightly longer ends are just edging into intentionally messy. He has a very short, very neat beard to match, one that sits flat to his face and stops just past his jawline. He’s wearing jeans and a neatly pressed white shirt. I feel like a sweaty mess but he looks perfect, as if he should be on the cover of GQ magazine.

  ‘You saved me from ending up in the pond,’ I point out.

  ‘Erm, I saved you from ending up in prison,’ he corrects me with a playful grin.

  I just stare at him.

  ‘There are great crested newts in there. If you landed on one, and killed it, that’s six months in prison. I suppose you could be out in four with good behaviour.’

  ‘And you would have called the police, would you?’ I ask, safe in the knowledge he’s joking.

  ‘I would have to,’ he informs me in a faux-serious tone, attempting to mask his smile. ‘It’s my job.’

  ‘Pond nark?’

  ‘Ecologist. But I’ll let you off the hook this time, so you can get on with…’

  ‘Going to get a drink,’ I reply. ‘Also important work.’

  ‘Well, why don’t I walk you there?’ he suggests with a smile. ‘Make sure you don’t kill any endangered species on your way.’

  ‘I’d like that,’ I say with a smile of my own.

  ‘I’m Jay,’ he says as we stroll up the garden path towards the makeshift bar in the garden.

  ‘I’m Cara,’ I reply.

  ‘What’s your drink, Cara?’

  I cast my eye across the table. There’s something for everyone here – most of it alcoholic.

  ‘Ooh, an elderflower cider would be lovely.’

  ‘Coming right up,’ he says before grabbing one and popping the cap off for me.

  ‘Mum or dad?’ he asks me.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I ask, swigging my drink from the bottle as delicately as possible.

  ‘Oh, sorry, would you like a glass?’ he asks.

  Perhaps I’m not doing it as delicately as I thought.

  ‘Oh, no, I’m fine,’ I insist.

  ‘OK. Well, you know when you go to a wedding and people ask you if you know the bride or the groom…’