Chapter One

I’m late for work again, which is why I burst out through the front door like a reverse bailiff, only one shoe tied and the laces dangling from the other as I hoof it across the lawn towards the gate, Mum squawking about coming straight home after my shift so I can help set up for Gran’s surprise birthday party tonight. I wave my hand above my head to acknowledge the request before grabbing the gate and yanking it open. I’m so unfit, my chest is already on fire after the short dash, but I push through it and propel myself out onto the pavement.

‘ Oof! ’

I collide with what feels like a massive boulder but is, in fact, a person. I stumble backwards while they stagger to the side from the impact, righting themselves much better than I do as I end up veering into next door’s bush, which is the only thing that keeps me upright.

‘I am so sorry.’ The boulder-like person reaches out to help me straighten up. ‘Oh my God. Cleo? Cleo Parker?’

I look from the hand grasping mine to its owner’s face. It’s thinner than I remember, more contoured, and there’s stubble on his chin that wasn’t there the last time we saw each other, but it’s definitely him. ‘Franko?’

My chest aches, but in a good way this time, not in an I’m-about-to-keel-over-from-some-light-exercise kind of way. The way it used to ache when I spotted my crush in the school corridor or loitering around the playground. The way it used to ache when I spotted Paul ‘Franko’ Franks.

‘It’s Paul now.’ He shakes his head. ‘How long has it been? A decade?’

‘Seven years.’ The last time I saw Franko was the night before I left our little seaside town to travel across the world. I wasn’t the only one leaving – Sienna had the seat booked next to mine on the flight, and Peter and Courtney were leaving for university in a couple of days, so we’d organised a final boozy get-together in the Red Lion. It had been an amazing night, where we spilled out onto the beach at kicking-out time and splashed in the shallows without taking our shoes and socks off. Franko walked me home afterwards, our soggy shoes slapping the pavement, and he kissed me on the doorstep, finally, after my three-year crush. I left the next day and I haven’t seen him since. Until now.

‘Wow, seven years. Only feels like yesterday that we were mucking about in that chippy you used to work in at the weekends, when you used to sneak us free chips so we wouldn’t take the mick out of your hairnet.’ Franko shakes his head and laughs wistfully. ‘Have you kept in touch with the others? I think I’m friends with most of us on Instagram. I haven’t seen you on there, though.’

‘I’m not on Instagram.’

Franko laughs. ‘ Everyone’s on Instagram. Even my mum.’

‘Not me.’ Not since my ex announced his engagement to the girl he cheated on me with and all our mutuals fawned over the couple with their congratulations, as though their relationship was anything other than skanky. I couldn’t bear to see their smug faces or the massive ring so I deleted all my social media accounts and have refused to set foot in the Red Lion, where The Skank is a barmaid, or socialise with any of my former friends ever since. I’m not saying they should have taken my side, but they definitely shouldn’t have taken Dane’s so publicly. Not that I’m still bitter…

‘You always were different. Do you remember when you had those multi-coloured dreads? They were pretty cool.’

Cool or cringey? Almost a decade later, I don’t think I had any place having dreads, multi-coloured or otherwise, as a white woman, but I was young and stupid and I’d had the rainbow dreads when we kissed on my doorstep. He’d played with an orange dreadlock, twisting it between his finger and thumb while he told me how unique I was, his face moving closer to mine until we were kissing. I wonder if he remembers that?

‘I didn’t know you were back up north.’ I crouch down and tie the loose lace of my Converse. ‘Didn’t you move down south somewhere?’

‘Ashford. In Kent. Moved in with my dad for a bit until I got my own place. I own three gyms down there now.’

‘Three gyms ?’ I try not to gape at Franko, but it’s quite difficult to remain straight-faced. The Franko I knew wasn’t into fitness. The Franko I knew chain-smoked his way through his mid-teens, sat his maths GCSE while hung-over after Shelby’s sixteenth birthday party, and spent his pocket money on weed. I think he even sniffed glue for a bit when we were fourteen.

‘I know, right? But I cleaned myself up when I moved in with Dad, got into personal training and caught a passion for it. I’m hoping to move the chain on from Kent soon. I want at least ten gyms by the time I’m forty.’

I realise now that Franko wasn’t merely passing; he’s decked out in shorts over shiny leggings with a skintight long-sleeve T-shirt. He’s out running, properly, not because a shopkeeper’s caught him nicking stuff and he’s making a quick getaway like he used to when we were kids.

‘Is that why you’re here? Looking for new opportunities?’

‘Nah. My mum and sister are still in Clifton. Mum’s still on Woodland Road, actually. It was my niece’s christening so I had to come back for that.’ He shakes his head. ‘I don’t know how people can stay in this crappy little town their whole lives. Not like us, eh? Got out of this shithole as soon as we could.’

‘Yeah.’ I concentrate on straightening my hair, checking for bits of twigs and leaves after my fall into the bush, so I don’t have to look at Franko.

‘Did you make it around the world like you always said you would?’

‘Sienna did. She met a guy and stayed in New Zealand and married him. They’ve got kids and everything.’ Two of them, the last I heard, but that was a couple of years ago, before the social media cull. How did my best friend become nothing but an Instagram acquaintance?

‘It’s weird thinking of Sienna as a mum. She was always such a free spirit. Like you.’

‘Yeah.’ I smile weakly. I’m such a free spirit, I boomeranged back to our sedate home town after a matter of weeks in Europe and failed to escape again. Didn’t even try to.

‘Shelby had a baby a few months ago. Peter’s the godfather. Can you believe it? Peter, who used to get shit-faced every night and drew cock and balls on every surface he came across is a godfather . Mind you, he’s respectable now. He’s a doctor .’ Franko snorts. ‘Peter, a doctor. Mad.’ He shakes his head. ‘His wife’s a doctor as well. Nancy. They’re having a baby in a few months. They’re down in Buckinghamshire, not far from Spencer in Milton Keynes. Everyone seems to have migrated south, apart from Demi. She’s in Edinburgh. She has her own interior design company and she was on telly last year, on that home makeover show on the BBC.’ Franko tilts his head to one side. ‘How come you didn’t stay in New Zealand with Sienna?’

‘I didn’t make it that far. I had to move back home. My grandad had a stroke.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Franko places a hand on my shoulder and my stomach flips, just as it would have done when we were teenagers. ‘Is he okay?’

‘He made a pretty good recovery, but he had another stroke a couple of years ago. A big one and… well, you know.’

‘That sucks. I’m sorry, Cleo.’ He squeezes my shoulder and my stomach performs a cartwheel. Who knew that my crush on Franko was still there, hidden away all this time? ‘Where did you end up?’

‘End up?’

Franko’s hand starts to slide away from my shoulder. ‘You’re not still… You don’t still live…’ His face crinkles up in what looks very much like pity.

‘In Clifton-on-Sea?’ I snort, really loudly, and regret it immediately. ‘Of course not. I’m just visiting Mum and Dad.’ I nod back towards the house. My house. Where I live with Mum and Dad, in Clifton-on-Sea.

Franko’s face smooths out again and he huffs out a laugh. ‘I didn’t think you’d still be here. You’re the last person I’d expect to stick around in this dump. What was it you wanted to be?’ He taps his stubbly chin with his finger. ‘A journalist! How did that go?’

‘Perfectly. That’s what I am now. A journalist. An editor, in fact.’

What am I talking about? I still work in the fish and chip shop in Clifton-on-Sea where I used to sneak free chips to my mates when the bosses weren’t looking. I did not add ‘lie through your teeth’ on today’s to-do list, but it looks as though I’m doing it anyway.

‘Where are you based?’

I swallow hard as my brain works on another lie. ‘Liverpool.’

‘Liverpool?’ Franko’s eyebrows shoot up his forehead. ‘That’s where I wanted to go to uni. Didn’t get in though. Didn’t get the grades.’ I’m guessing being shit-faced for our entire final year of school had a lot to do with that. ‘I bet you have a swanky office.’

‘So swanky. It’s massive, with big squishy sofas and a top-of-the-range coffee machine and stunning views across the river.’

My nose should be growing because there’s no office where I work, unless you count the tiny back room where Jed does the accounts and the only view is of the yard at the back of the chippy.

‘What kind of editor are you?’

‘I work on a women’s magazine.’ I scratch the back of my calf with the toe of my shoe. ‘A glossy one, not one of the salacious weekly ones with “I Had Sex With My Butcher – And His Sausage Was Massive” type stories.’ One of our customers left a magazine behind the other day and it had that exact headline on the cover. ‘I won an award last month for North-West Editor of the Year. I’m a proper girl boss, like Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada , but nice. But I’m not a pushover. I’m assertive but approachable. Fair but firm. Everyone says so – and not just because I tell them to.’ I step forward so I can nudge Franko in jest. I don’t know where I’m getting all this from because it’s utter bollocks, but I can’t seem to stop it spilling from my mouth. My face starts to crumple in dismay, because I don’t usually go around spouting lies (making up excuses for being late for work doesn’t count) and I press my lips together, really tightly, to smother any more lies.

‘Right. That’s great.’ Franko reaches into his pocket and pulls out his AirPods. ‘I should get going. Need to keep the heart rate up.’ He pats his chest before slotting his Pods into place. ‘But we should get together for a proper catch-up. Are you free tonight?’

My heart is Riverdancing and my feet are itching to join in the joyous jig. It takes great effort to stop them from flickering up and down on the pavement because Paul ‘Franko’ Franks has just asked me out on a date. At last . I have been waiting for this moment since I was fifteen and I can’t quite believe it’s happening.

Except.

Oh no.

I’m not free.

‘I can’t tonight.’ I pull a face that doesn’t even come close to displaying the utter annoyance I feel right now. ‘It’s my gran’s birthday. We’re having a party. Just a teeny one – close family and friends – otherwise I’d invite you. Sorry.’ I pull another face, but figure it probably doesn’t look very attractive and stop. ‘How about tomorrow night?’

‘I can’t. Sorry.’ This time it’s Franko pulling a face. It doesn’t look unattractive. I’m not sure he could appear unattractive, with his shaggy blond hair and blue eyes. He still looks like a surfer from a teen magazine poster, even with the light stubble, and I approve. ‘I won’t be here tomorrow night. I’m heading back home first thing.’

‘Oh.’ I somehow manage to push a smile through the devastation. ‘That sucks.’

Understatement! This could have been it . The start of our new life together. First date, second date, fast-forward a bit to proposal, marriage, babies. Maybe babies. Probably not. I wonder how Franko feels about kids?

‘I’ll be back for Mum’s fiftieth though. Couldn’t miss that. She’d kill me. I’ll be back for the whole weekend so we can meet up then. Go for a drink.’ He backs away, already jogging, before raising his hand in farewell. ‘Get on Instagram and add me. Or TikTok. I’m mostly on there at the moment. Add the others. I’ll message about us getting together.’

‘When’s your mum’s birthday?’

But Franko’s already turned and sprinted away in the opposite direction and I’m already severely late for work.