Chapter Thirteen

For the rest of the afternoon, I did exactly as he asked.

We walked back to the butcher's in silence, picked up Mum's meat order and, as soon as it was safely in the car, I asked Joe to drop me off on the way home.

‘Drop you where?' he asked stiffly.

‘Here is fine,' I replied, checking the address on my phone. ‘I'll walk the rest of the way.'

‘I don't mind taking you all the way,' he said, the corner of his mouth twitching. ‘Wherever it is you're running off to.'

‘Here is fine,' I repeated. ‘Thanks.'

He stared straight ahead as I unbuckled my seatbelt and climbed down from my seat. ‘Do you want me to take your bag?'

‘No, thanks.' I shook my head. ‘The bag—'

‘Stays with you,' Joe finished for me. ‘Got it.'

The car door wasn't even closed when he restarted the engine and pulled away, tyres squealing in protest.

The café on the high street was new, and it looked nice. Modern but inviting, cosy but not stuffy. There were quite a few people inside but I didn't recognise any of them so I stood by the door, basking in the sunshine, and waited patiently. My patience was rewarded ten seconds later.

‘Penny for your thoughts?'

‘I couldn't even charge you that in good conscience,' I said, turning to see one of my favourite people in the entire world racing towards me with her arms open.

‘Good because I haven't got any cash on me anyway,' Sarah replied as she pulled me into the biggest, warmest hug in the world. ‘Oh, it's good to see you, Taylor. Look at me coming in on my afternoon off, I must really love you.'

It was exactly what I needed. A quick break with my best friend, someone who didn't run hot then cold, or rather scorching then arctic. I always knew exactly what Sarah Nixon was thinking. Everyone did, it was both a blessing and a curse.

‘Shall we get a coffee?' she suggested. ‘My treat.'

‘Does it really count as a treat if you own the coffee shop?'

‘Oh, so you want to pay double?' Sarah replied cheerfully. ‘Works for me.'

‘Your treat it is,' I said, following her inside.

Sarah Nixon wasn't just my oldest friend. Sarah was my childhood pen pal. Our love ran real-handwritten-letters-sent-to-each-other-in-the-post deep. When we were little, her parents lived in Bakewell, next door to my grandparents. Every time we came to visit, I'd put in a ten-minute shift with the family then race around to Sarah's house to play in her massive only-child bedroom or, even better, in her treehouse. Proof enough that her parents loved her way more than mine loved me as far as I was concerned.

In between visits, we wrote each other essays on Groovy Chick writing paper in multicoloured glitter gel pens, disclosing every last little detail of our lives. Sarah knew things about me I'd never told anyone else; I'd always found it easier to express myself in writing than in real life. Eventually, we abandoned letters and graduated to emails, then when we got our own phones, pages long emails turned into a barrage of texts and DMs, until we arrived at our current destination of infrequent three-hour phone calls supplemented by a daily exchange of gifs and heatless curler hacks. We left memes in each other's DMs the way cats left dead birds on the doorstep, a silent but meaningful offering. Friendships like ours didn't need to be coddled with never-ending deep conversations, a crying laughing emoji response to a photo of a cat that bore a passing resemblance to Timothée Chalamet was more than enough to keep our love alive.

‘Go on then, what do you think?

Standing behind the bar, Sarah opened out her arms wide, presenting the coffee shop to me like I'd just won a game show and this was my prize. As far as I was concerned, I had. Free coffee whenever I wanted? It was better than winning the lottery.

‘I don't think anything, I know for a fact this is the greatest coffee shop I have ever seen,' I told her as she fiddled with a very large, very shiny silver machine. ‘Can I have a go? I've always wanted to play barista.'

‘Touch my Gaggia and I'll chop your hands off.'

I gave her a thumbs up and kept my mitts to myself. Sarah did not tell lies.

‘Still can't believe you did it,' I said while she busied herself cranking handles and pouring milk into little silver jugs. ‘From accountant to coffee shop owner in five easy steps.'

‘There were more than five and none of them were easy. But they were necessary. You're not going to believe this, Soph, but it turns out bookkeeping is really boring.'

‘No!' I exclaimed, slamming my hand down on the counter. ‘I refuse to accept it.'

She gave me the kind of look you could only exchange with a person who still remembered when you thought you might be pregnant because you let Assad from the sixth form finger you at your sixteenth birthday party. Her not me, obviously. No one from the sixth form wanted to finger me, not even when I was in the sixth form. I was, to put it kindly, a late bloomer when it came to romance.

‘It was a bit of a left turn,' she admitted. ‘You must have thought I'd lost it.'

‘That implies I thought you ever had it in the first place. Honestly I was more surprised when you told me you wanted to be an accountant.'

I spun around on my stool to get another look at the place. It was welcoming and warm, but still felt fresh and fun, a far cry from the traditional tearooms of Bakewell and the copy-and-paste coffee shop chains that seemed to pop up everywhere these days. Everyone who came in left smiling and even the other girl behind the counter looked happy to be going about her day. Couldn't say the same for the staff in my local Starbucks. They always seemed to be one non-fat, no-whip, triple-shot Frappuccino away from an emotional breakdown. Sarah's coffee shop truly felt like a one-of-a-kind place and I loved it.

‘Fair point.' She held a stainless steel jug to the steamer with easy confidence, effortlessly frothing up the milk for my latte as she spoke. ‘I can't even tell you what brought it on. I woke up one morning and knew I could not stand to sit in the office staring at a screen full of numbers for one more day.'

‘I'm still impressed you were ever able to do it,' I replied. ‘You know how I feel about maths.'

‘Numbers are not your friend,' she acknowledged with a smile. ‘It was time for a change. I understand how to run a business, I've never met a cup of coffee I didn't have a very informed opinion on, and not that I'm advocating for divorce in general, but it helps that Dave takes the kids three nights a week.'

‘The two of you make divorce look so good, I almost want to get married just so I can split up,' I remarked, breathing in the deep, rich coffee aroma as she ground a fresh espresso shot. ‘I've never seen two people more thrilled to get their decree nisi and, to the best of my knowledge, you're the only couple I know who had a joint party to celebrate.'

‘At least you won't have to murder him in his sleep,' Sarah said, misty-eyed with nostalgia. ‘Again, Taylor, best maid of honour speech ever.'

‘You know I would kill for you in a heartbeat,' I replied. ‘Please ask me to kill for you.'

She looked at me from underneath her blunt blonde fringe. ‘Anyone in particular?'

Tell her about Joe, whispered the little voice in my head that loved to get me into trouble. But I knew if I told Sarah about Joe, she wouldn't want to talk about anything else and I was there to catch up with her, not to describe his tropical-beach-blue eyes and thick black eyelashes and the way I thought the lower half of my body had been struck by lightning when he quoted my book back at me. I was literally here not to think about any of those things for as long as possible.

‘Taylor?' Sarah said, stretching my last name. ‘Out with it. Is there something you want to tell me?'

‘Nope,' I replied, stomping down all my thoughts of Joe as far as they would go.

‘Because if I learned anything over the last two years it's that talking is better than keeping things bottled up and change is good.' She took out a large powder blue mug from underneath the counter and carefully crafted my triple-shot vanilla latte with an added flourish of freshly shaved chocolate. ‘Turns out you don't have to stick with something if it's making you unhappy just because you're already doing it. Or him. Or her, as the case may be.'

I sucked my bottom lip under my top teeth and looked down, flooded with guilt. It wasn't only Joe that I was keeping from her. For almost thirty years, we'd told each other everything, even things we didn't want to know, like the time she told me how Dave liked a finger up the bum during sex. Right before she walked down the aisle. But I hadn't told her about Butterflies. When I started writing it, I didn't say anything because she was due to give birth to my second godson, and I really didn't think I'd even finish it. When I found the courage to send it to Malcolm, Sarah was in the middle of her divorce, and as much as we joked about it now, those things were never fun and I didn't want to burden her with my silly little side project. By the time the book blew up, I simply didn't know how to start the conversation and now it had been too long. What was I supposed to say? What's that, Sarah? You're leaving your reliable career as an accountant and taking a massive risk on a little local coffee shop while financially supporting two kids more or less alone because your well-meaning but ultimately useless ex-husband, who still wears Lynx Africa even though he's thirty-four years old, can't keep a job for more than six months at a time? Well, yes, that does sound quite stressful but please sit down and let me tell you about my movie deal, they're looking at Ryan Gosling for the lead.

It hardly rolled off the tongue.

‘How's that coffee?' she asked when I'd been altogether too quiet for altogether too long.

‘Incredible,' I answered automatically before I'd even tasted it. ‘Please can I get seventy-four more to help me get through this weekend?'

Sarah laughed as she poured herself a glass of water. ‘The visit is going well already then?'

‘As well as can be expected.' As expected, my latte was delicious. I took a sip and transcended to the next level of existence. It was strong and it was delicious. ‘Dad's being a weirdo, Mum's stress vein has been out since I got in, Charlotte's, well, Charlotte, and guess what? They've invited CJ.'

‘He's not coming though, is he?' She groaned when I nodded. ‘Oh, fuck off. I thought I'd seen the last of that gremlin. Imagine getting a pity invite to your ex's dad's birthday and actually showing up. He's shameless.'

‘Even better, he's staying at the house,' I told her, attempting to laugh but failing miserably. It really wasn't funny but Sarah seemed to disagree.

‘Sophie!' she exclaimed. ‘That's the best news I've heard so far!'

‘It is?'

‘Yes! It's so much easier to kill someone when they come to you. Less lurking, more unaliving. Please let me do it. Please, please, please?'

‘OK but only because you asked nicely,' I replied before turning an inquisitive eye on my best friend. ‘Speaking of the curse of heterosexuality, how's that going? You're not seeing anyone?'

‘Have you seen pink smoke coming out the Vatican?' she asked. ‘My romantic life is made of silicone and takes three AA batteries that need replacing weekly. Who am I supposed to meet around here? You're the one who is young, free and single, living it up in—'

‘Tring?' I finished for her. ‘Nixon, the average age of a man in Tring is eighty-two and I'm not talking a Harrison Ford eighty-two, I mean soft foods only, bed by half-past seven and lucky if you wake up again in the morning eighty-two.'

She looked off into the dreamy middle distance and sighed. ‘Sounds like a dream come true. Whatever, Taylor, no one's saying you've got to meet the love of your life at the pension office. Tring is what, half an hour out of London? You're practically living with the pigeons in Trafalgar Square compared to me.'

‘The pigeons would make better boyfriends,' I said as she chugged her water. ‘Trust me, the men of London are not better than the men of Harford. The men of London are human bin bags. Cheap black bin bags full of hair and bin juice just waiting to split open in the middle of the kitchen. I'd rather go out with three raccoons in a trench coat.'

The two of us sat quietly for a moment, silently commiserating with each other and every other human unlucky enough to be looking for love.

‘I don't know what's wrong with them,' Sarah said, leaning over the counter and resting her chin in her hand. ‘Imagine being a man with a penis and not wanting to put it in one of us.'

‘All we're looking for are two decent humans with no baggage, some emotional intelligence, a good heart, the right stance on all political issues and preferably their own teeth, who won't mess us around and break our hearts,' I replied. ‘Is that too much to ask for?'

She lifted a glass cloche that covered a stack of chocolate chip cookies and handed one to me before taking another for herself. ‘I can be flexible on the teeth to be honest with you. And the decency. And I don't mind a bit of messing.'

I broke the cookie in two then took a big bite. Heaven.

‘We're buggered, aren't we?' Sarah said before taking a bite of her own biscuit.

‘Yep,' I replied, unable to keep the image of Joe's smile from sliding, unbidden, into my head. ‘Completely buggered.'