Page 33

‘Is that a Vespa?’ Ben said, as he drove up Holly’s driveway. The vehicle was exactly where Holly left it, still bright and shining. With all the commotion of the cancelled wedding, Holly had almost forgotten about it.

‘It is,’ Holly said, thinking that perhaps she ought to get one of the cover sheet things she saw people put over fancy cars and bikes. After all, the last thing she wanted was for it to get scratched up just sitting there.

‘Whose is it?’ Ben said.

‘Sorry?’

‘The Vespa? Who does it belong to? It’s parked right in front of your house. You need to ask them to move it.’

‘Oh, right?’ Holly hesitated, wondering what to say next. It wasn’t that she was worried Ben would judge her, but more, she supposed, that he’d judge Evan for buying her such an extravagant gift. But then, her only other option was to lie, and that was worse. Honesty was still the best route with her and Ben. That was their fundamental rule of co-parenting.

Still, there was a slight tingle of butterflies in her stomach as she told him. ‘It’s mine. It was a gift from Evan.’

Ben raised his eyebrows.

‘That’s a nice gift,’ he said, then offered Holly a smile before opening the car door and slipping out. Holly waited a moment to see what else he would say, only he seemed to be done.

‘Is that it?’ she said, hurriedly unclipping herself and following.

‘What do you mean?’ Ben already had the back door open and was unstrapping Hope from her seat.

‘It’s a nice gift? That’s all you have to say?’ Holly wasn’t sure why his answer left her feeling so enraged. Perhaps because it wasn’t an answer at all.

He had already unbuckled Hope and was taking her out of the seat, but Holly blocked the way, offering him no room to get into the cottage.

‘Do you think I’m being ridiculous?’ she said. ‘Do you think things are moving way too fast?’

‘No,’ he said, but his eyes went down to his feet. It was all the signal she needed. Her heart dropped.

‘You do, don’t you? You think it’s moving too fast. You think I’m being ridiculous? I know it. I know it. I’ve fallen in headfirst. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.’

‘You really do like to overreact in situations, don’t you?’ Ben said, handing her Hope so he could lean in and get her bag.

‘So you weren’t going to say you think it’s going way too fast and I’ve lost my mind?’

Ben attempted to suppress a smirk and failed.

‘What I was actually going to say to you was that Evan and I spoke quite a bit at your dad’s party yesterday.’

A heavy weight of dread filled Holly’s belly. ‘When? I didn’t see you two talking.’

‘Well, it was when you were dealing with Aunt May. And Lenny and June had muddled up the vegetarian sausages with the meat ones.’

‘Of course.’ Holly remembered. She hadn’t even had a chance to think about Evan during that chaos.

‘Well, what did he say? What did you two talk about?’ she said, focusing back on the moment.

‘Well,youmostly. We spoke about you.’

That didn’t make Holly feel any better.

Slipping past her, Ben walked over to the house, waiting for Holly to follow so that she could unlock the door.

‘Think of it this way,’ he said, as he put the bag down and turned to Holly. ‘You and I didn’t rush things at all. You and I were obscenely slow. From the first dates to the first kiss. I mean, we were painstakingly slow in getting our acts together even though we liked each other.’

‘And you’re telling me this, why?’

‘Because at the end of the day, it didn’t matter. We did things properly, ish. We knew each other well. We thought we knew exactly what we were getting into when we started our relationship, but it still didn’t matter, because you and I weren’t meant to be.’