‘Ben! Come and meet my good friend, Delilah James.’ Francesca tugged him into our little group. ‘Delilah, this is Jeremy’s best friend, Ben Martin.’
‘Hello.’ I gave a little wave like the dork that I am. ‘Lovely to meet you.’
Lovely to meet you? I’d be curtseying next. I told myself to get a grip, and bloody fast.
‘It’s lovely to meet you too, Delilah James.’ God, his voice was dreamy.
‘Great party, isn’t it?’ My voice was a bit slurry from the cocktails and lust.
Ben nodded and looked down at my hand. Oh God, I wasn’t offering it to him to kiss, was I? ‘But you don’t appear to have a drink. Come with me.’
Francesca winked at me as I scuttled after Ben. He’d taken my hand (and it felt amazing) and was striding towards the bar. He was a much faster walker than me, but it meant I got to have a good old look at his bum as we dodged the crowds (and it was gooood).
Ben ordered glasses of champagne for us and it didn’t really matter that he hadn’t asked me what I wanted first. I was pretty sure I’d have picked a glass of champagne to have a break from the cocktails anyway. Pressing a glass into my hand, he took hold of the other and led me away from the bar, snaking out of the crowded room and into the kitchen, where the chef was busy grilling gourmet burgers. My stomach gurgled in appreciation of the yummy smells but Ben continued on his path, passing through the kitchen and out into the garden. Never mind. I wasn’t that hungry anyway.
The garden was massive, stretching much further than my eyes could see (and not just because my vision was on the hazy side due to the cocktails) but we only moved a few yards to a fairy-lit gazebo.
‘I thought it might be nice to sit out here. It’s a bit hectic in there.’ Ben sat on the bench inside the gazebo and I followed suit. ‘It’s difficult to talk inside and I get the feeling you’d make fascinating company, Delilah James.’
‘Oh,’ I squeaked. Fascinating? Me?
‘Tell me about yourself.’ Ben turned on the bench so his gaze was directly on me, urging me to speak. What should I tell him? He was under the assumption I was fascinating but the truth was quite the opposite. ‘What do you do?’
‘I’m an admin assistant.’ I pulled a face. ‘Bit boring, really.’
‘Don’t say that!’ Ben grasped my hand and I felt myself go a bit giddy at the touch. ‘Nothing is boring about you, I can tell.’ Ben was in for a disappointing evening then. ‘What kind of company do you work for?’
‘It’s a biscuit factory.’
‘See!’ Ben’s face became animated, almost boyish. ‘A biscuit factory! How awesome is that? I love biscuits. What’s your favourite kind? Mine’s chocolate chip.’
‘I like chocolate chip too.’
Ben grinned and leapt to his feet. ‘Let’s go and ask the chef to bake us some biscuits right now. Chocolate chip!’
‘I think he’s busy with the burgers,’ I pointed out but Ben shrugged.
‘I’m sure he won’t mind. Come on, Delilah James.’ He held out his hand and I took it. I knew then that I’d always want to hold this hand. ‘I was right about you. You, Delilah James, are the most fascinating girl at this party.’
And the funny thing was, when I was with Ben, I felt like the most fascinating girl at the party. We ate chocolate chip cookies and sipped our champagne in the gazebo, we went for a midnight dip in the pool and made use of the plush, four-poster bed in the room Ben had bagged earlier. In the morning we ate pancakes together and explored the extensive gardens even though it was drizzling, and spent the afternoon back in the four-poster. When the time came to leave, Ben insisted on giving me a lift back to Woodgate instead of catching the train and when he said he’d call me, I believed him.
Ben was everything I wanted in a boyfriend; kind, attentive and reliable. If he said he would call on Sunday at eight, he would call on Sunday at eight. There were no games with Ben, no deciphering the boy code to figure out what he meant. It was easy with Ben. We fit.
‘Ben’s smitten with you, you know,’ Francesca had whispered to me the next time we met. We’d got together as a foursome with Jeremy and Ben, which we would do quite a bit over the next three years.
‘I’m smitten with Ben.’
And I was. I really was. I thought we’d be together forever. This was it, my very own The One. I wanted to break out in song like my favourite musical heroines. Life with Ben was perfect. Until nine months ago, when he decided it was no longer working for us.
‘But it’s working for me,’ I’d pointed out. Nothing had changed. We fit just as much as we always had.
‘But it isn’t working for me, Delilah.’ I was no longer fascinating Delilah James to Ben. Just plain old Delilah. ‘I want more from life than a stale relationship.’
Ben may as well have slugged me in the stomach. ‘You think our relationship is stale?’
Ben had snorted. ‘Don’t you?’
‘No!’ It was perfect. Had been perfect until two minutes ago. ‘What do you want me to do? I’ll do it. Anything.’
‘I don’t want you to do anything,’ Ben said. ‘I don’t want you at all.’
And then he’d gone. Left without a goodbye or even a parting glance. Ben didn’t want me. But I wanted him and I still do, which is why I’m dreading the words that are about to come out of Francesca’s mouth as we sit in the café.
‘What about Ben?’ Why did I ask? Why didn’t I just get up from my seat and walk out of the café in blissful ignorance?
‘He’s met someone else.’ The words I had been dreading for the past nine months made my head swim. But there was more. ‘And they’re engaged.’
Engaged? In the measly nine months we’d been apart, Ben had found, dated and proposed to another woman? While I’d been daydreaming about our reunion, he’d been marching full steam ahead into a new life without me?
We weren’t getting back together, were we? Not at Francesca’s wedding. Not ever.
‘Delilah, darling?’ Francesca’s hand was back on my arm, squeezing gently. ‘I’m so sorry. I thought you knew. It’s been all over Facebook.’
‘I’m not friends with Ben on Facebook.’ He’d wanted a clean break. No phone calls or texts, no contact on social media. He’d erased me from his life completely.
‘I feel terrible,’ Francesca says, her grip tightening on my arm so much it starts to hurt a little. The sharpness helps me to focus.
‘Don’t.’ I shake my head, attempting to dislodge all the old feelings that are whooshing to the surface and threatening to topple me off my chair. ‘Of course he’s moved on. It’s been nine months.’ Nine months, eight days and seventeen hours, to be exact. ‘Like you said, we’ve both moved on.’
Lie number three of the day, but this one is absolutely necessary. Ben and Francesca are clearly still chummy and I don’t want word getting back to him that I’m a complete mess without him. I won’t weep, even though I think Ben is a great, big turding scumbag for getting engaged so soon after ditching me. I will remain strong and poised, even if it means lying through my teeth.
‘You have?’ Francesca’s hand is snatched away from my arm as she claps her hands together. ‘That is brilliant news, darling! I thought it would be awkward, you know, with Ben and Eden and everything, but now you’re with someone too it won’t be awkward at all!’ Eden? Ben’s new fiancée – ugh – is called Eden? ‘I’m so happy for you, darling. So happy. You will bring him, won’t you?’
‘Bring him where?’
‘To the wedding.’ Francesca giggles. ‘I can’t wait to meet him. I’ll rejig the seating plan, so it won’t be a problem.’
‘You don’t have to do that.’ Really, there’s no need at all. My imaginary boyfriend doesn’t take up much space at all.
‘Nonsense! You are one of my oldest friends and I want to see you happy and settled. I’ve always felt a bit guilty about Ben, you know. You met him through me and ended up heartbroken, so I’m glad you’ve found somebody else. Is this it, do
you think? Is he The One?’
Francesca’s eyes sparkle as she leans across the table towards me, eager for details of my fictitious boyfriend.
‘Could be.’ I grin at Francesca, the lie slipping off my tongue quite easily. ‘He’s amazing and gorgeous and we’re having so much fun together.’
‘I can tell. Look at you – you’re glowing!’
Fictitious men have that effect on me.
‘So what’s his name?’
My grin slips a little. What is his name? What name screams sexy and gorgeous and a million times better than Ben Martin?
‘Oh.’ Francesca pounces on her handbag as it begins to buzz. She whips out her mobile and yelps. ‘I have to take this. Excuse me.’ Francesca dashes away, giving me a bit of breathing space to conjure a suitable name. Danny is the obvious choice. Danny is cool, he has swagger and looks very much like John Travolta in his heyday. Or how about Billy? In Chicago, Billy Flynn is suave and successful and pretty damn irresistible. And then there’s bad boy Cry-Baby, but I don’t think I’d get away with that one, no matter how hot Johnny Depp is.
‘I’m so sorry but I have to dash.’ Francesca returns – briefly – for one final sip of coffee and to grab her jacket and magazine. ‘But let’s meet up again soon, yes? I want all the details. Bye, darling!’ Francesca drops a kiss onto each cheek before she scuttles from the café.
So I need a boyfriend to take to Francesca’s wedding then. And I have six months to bag one.
Chapter 4
The BFFs
Text Message:
Delilah: I am dying, Lauren. Head is going to explode. Stomach is going to explode. I feel explode-y
Lauren: Germs or beer?
Delilah: Beer. Too much beer. Can’t get out of my pyjamas. Super-glued on
Lauren: Want me to come over in my pyjamas? We can slob out and watch Bedknobs and Broomsticks
Delilah: This is why you are my very best friend (but don’t tell Ryan I said that)
Lauren McIntosh is one of my best friends (I’m greedy and have two. Ryan is the other – more about him in a minute). We’ve known each other since our first day of secondary school, when we were shaking in our knee-length skirts (and they really were knee-length back then. We hadn’t discovered that they were totally uncool and we must roll them up to bum-cheek-skimming length to survive school). I was sitting at a table at the front of our form room (like the skirt situation, I didn’t know that you must endeavour to sit as close to the back of the room as possible yet) when a girl stopped by my desk. She was quite short and skinny with her ginger hair plaited into pigtails at the side of her head.
‘Scary, isn’t it?’
I was bloody terrified but I gave my own hair (blonde and loose around my shoulders) a flick. ‘I’m fine. Not scared at all.’ I caught this new girl’s eye and gave a wobbly smile, my show of courage completely failing before it had properly begun. ‘I’m lying. I’m so scared. Do you think we’ll get bog-washed?’ I’d heard so many horror stories about high school that I didn’t expect to last the day without serious injury and/or humiliation.
‘I hope not.’ The girl bit her lip and her big green eyes started to get a bit swimmy. ‘Can I sit here?’ She pointed at the empty seat beside me and I nodded, grateful that I wouldn’t have to sit on my own (I did already know that sitting on your own was a bit sad). ‘Thanks. I’m Lauren, by the way.’
‘Delilah.’ I moved my pencil case over, to make room for Lauren’s.
‘Like the Tom Jones song?’
I rolled my eyes. ‘Yeah.’ I heard that a lot. I heard the song a lot as people thought it was hilarious to sing it to me on a regular basis. They still do that now, but it’s mostly the older generation or my friends when they want to wind me up. For a while, I had a burst of ‘Hey There Delilah’ by Plain White T’s but that’s mostly fizzled out now.
‘Do you know anybody here?’
I looked around the room and shrugged my shoulders. ‘Sort of. Some of them went to my primary school but they’re not really my friends.’
Lauren twisted a ginger plaited pigtail around her finger. ‘I don’t know anybody. We just moved here over the holidays.’
‘That sucks.’
Lauren nodded, her twisting becoming more and more erratic. ‘I haven’t got any friends at all.’
‘You’ve got me,’ I said and that was that. Delilah and Lauren, BFFs.
Lauren is waiting for me in The Farthing, our pub of choice for most occasions. Partly because it’s close and partly because the barman is so damn cute. I’ve called an emergency meeting of the BFFs to discuss my dilemma with Francesca, her approaching wedding and my big, fat, lying gob. I order a round of drinks, having a little flirt with Dan the Barman while I’m there (it would be rude not to) before joining her at our usual table.
‘Ryan not here yet?’
Lauren shakes her head and takes a sip of her red wine. ‘He isn’t bringing that awful Kelsey with him again, is he? Where does he find these women?’
‘His mother.’ Lauren and I share a look, both knowing what an utter pain in the bum Ryan’s mum is. Ryan’s choice in women is never good enough for Eleanor Ford so she’s taken to setting him up with ones she deems suitable. ‘Kelsey wasn’t that bad. Ryan’s dated worse women.’ At least this one didn’t mistake Lauren and me for the hired help.
‘She made us lose the quiz last night.’
‘Lauren.’ I place a hand on her arm. ‘We always lose the quiz.’
‘But she thought Vientiane was the capital of Legos!’
I try – and fail – to hide a smirk. ‘But who is thicker? Kelsey for thinking Legos is a country or us for believing her and writing it down?’
Lauren doesn’t have an answer – or at least one she is willing to admit to – so she takes a couple of long sips of her wine instead. ‘What’s so urgent anyway? It’s supposed to be a gym day.’ I’m alarmed when I realise Lauren is wearing her gym gear – she doesn’t think we’re actually going to the gym after this, does she?
‘I can’t go to the gym. My knee.’ I lift the hem of my pencil skirt to show off the plaster Adam applied this afternoon. My bloody, ripped tights are bundled in the bin back at Brinkley’s. I’d managed quite well once it had stopped stinging after Adam applied some nasty-smelling ointment, but I can feel my limp returning. It has nothing to do with the prospect of the treadmill and cross-trainer, of course.
‘What happened?’ Lauren asks.
‘I fell over running for the bus this morning.’ I could have told Lauren the mugger-lie but her porky-pies detector is pretty sharp. ‘The pavement was all wonky. Hey!’ I sit up straighter, only remembering at the very last second to wince. ‘Do you think I could make a claim?’
Lauren is a solicitor. She focuses on divorce, but I’m sure she could give me some advice.
‘Probably. People claim for tripping up over their own shoes laces these days.’ Lauren peers at my plastered knee. ‘So how bad is it?’
I wince and groan. ‘So bad, Lauren. Adam was ready to take me to A&E for stitches. You should have seen all the blood. You could practically see my kneecap once all the blood was cleaned up.’
Lauren cocks an eyebrow. ‘Delilah…’
Uh-oh. I’ve laid it on a bit too thick. ‘But it isn’t as bad as it looks. No stitches required.’ I cover the plaster with my skirt in case Lauren decides to whip it off and examine my knee herself. ‘But I don’t think I’m up to the gym. It hurts.’
‘Why don’t you just do something gentle?’
Gentle? At the gym? ‘Like what?’
Lauren thinks for a moment. I can practically see the cogs turning in her brain, but we both know it’s useless. If there was a gentle option at the gym, we’d have used it every time.
‘Fine, we’ll miss the gym this once.’ Lauren takes another sip of her drink. She doesn’t look too put out about missing her workout, but then why should she? Lauren and I go to the gym twice a week but our main motivation isn�
��t to be fit and healthy (that isn’t even a minor motivation, in fact). We only go so Lauren can ogle Courtney, the gorgeous fitness instructor. She’s had a massive crush on him for ages and has roped me into her perviness.
‘So what’s this meeting about then?’ Lauren asks me but I’m not ready to divulge my stupidity just yet. I don’t want to have to confess all twice.
‘Wait until Ryan gets here and I’ll tell you.’
As though on cue, Ryan Ford, Best Friend Number Two (but not in a toilet-y way), wanders into the pub. Alone. Good. The less witnesses the better.
I’ve known Ryan for as long as I can remember, as he and his family moved into the house next door when I was two. According to Mum, the Ford family – Ryan and his parents, Eleanor and Phil – moved in one sunny Saturday in June. She remembers that it was sunny because she says she was wearing cut-off denim shorts and a bikini top (I can’t imagine Mum wearing a bikini. She won’t even strip down to a one-piece on holiday any more) and it was around a month before my birthday. She and Dad were discussing plans for my third birthday and Mum suggested, because it was so warm already, that we could have a pool party.
‘But we don’t have a pool,’ Dad had pointed out.
‘We’ll buy one of those inflatable paddling pools and dangle our feet in.’ Which we did. Thankfully I can’t remember it. ‘Ooh, hello there! Are you our new neighbours?’
Eleanor and Philip had appeared beyond the back garden fence and Mum pounced to introduce herself. The house had once belonged to an elderly couple who banged on the wall if you dared to sneeze, so Mum was pleased that a young family was moving in. Ryan was already in their back garden, kicking a football around. She pictured the seven of us (Ryan and his family, plus Mum, Dad, me and my older sister, Clara) getting together for barbeques and dinner parties.
The Wedding Date Page 3
