‘Go on. So what happened?’ Jess shuffles slightly on the sofa, so a cushion drops onto the floor. I pick it up and hand it back, and she hugs it, looking at me expectantly.

‘Well, you know how everyone always has the old made-up emergency call thing?’

‘You mean when you tell your friends to ring up and invent a disaster so you can make a quick exit?’

I nod.

‘I was sitting in a bar in Clerkenwell, waiting for this girl to turn up. She walked up to the window, looked in, spotted me, picked up her phone and pretended to take a call.’

‘What happened then?’

‘She never came back.’

‘Oh, Alex, you poor thing.’ Jess reaches out and pats me on the thigh. ‘I wouldn’t have left you sitting there like a lemon, I promise.’ Her eyes are soulful. ‘So what did you do?’

‘Waited an hour, ate my entire body weight in olives, then went home.’

‘And she definitely wasn’t coming back? It wasn’t an actual emergency or anything?’

I shake my head. ‘Apparently she took one look and decided no thanks.’

‘Brutal.’ Jess gives a low whistle.

‘Yeah, not great for the self-esteem.’

‘That’s dating in London for you,’ Jess says, picking up the remote control and fiddling with it. ‘But then you met Alice, and it all worked out okay in the end.’

‘Well, okay until she dumped me, yeah. I mean basically great, apart from the whole thanks but no thanks element.’

I look at her with a dubious expression and she claps a hand to her mouth, realising what she’s said.

‘Oh my God, Alex.’ Jess is laughing in horror. ‘I am so sorry.’

We end up staying up for hours, watching a rom com that Jess has found on Netflix, drinking gallons of tea and eating toast. At one point Emma comes home, looks into the sitting room and says hi. I feel like a bit of a shit because I give her a quick wave of hello and Jess carries on talking. I don’t know what to do about the whole Emma thing, and I don’t want to think about it this evening. I just shove it to the back of my mind, and decide I’ll leave it there until tomorrow.

Chapter Seventeen: Alex

Chapter Seventeen

Alex

28th April