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Bradley cleared his throat.
“So, are you going with her?” he asked, his tone a little too bright.
“Why does everyone keep asking me that? I don’t have anything lined up in London and I have family here.” I took a sip of my orange juice, the tangy flavour rich and vibrant against my tongue. Bradley was eyeing me closely. His gaze wasn’t intense like Alfie’s, it felt gentle.
“You mean you want to leave, but you feel like you need to stay?”
“Okay, you need to stop doing that, it’s creeping me out.”
“Sorry.” He grinned sheepishly.
“It’s okay, it’s just that Keira seems to think I should go with her. My sister thinks I should go with Alfie and be with him. I have no idea what I want.”
“Well, I think you’d be fucking crazy to give up your dreams to be with that guy.” He said ‘that guy’ as if his name was poison on his tongue.
“You really don’t like him, do you?”
“No, I really don’t, and it’s not because I want you. At least, it’s notjustbecause of that.” My heart twisted in my chest. Bradley was speaking the unspoken truth and I felt like I was betraying Alfie just by listening to it.
“Bradley…”
“It’s okay, you don’t need to say anything. That guy just gives me an uneasy feeling.”
“Bradley, he would never?—”
“You don’t know what he would do,” he cut me off with such vehemence that I sat back, drawing away from him. “WhatIknow is that he’s got a temper and he has trouble controlling himself when it comes to you. That’s a really bad combination, Lola.”
I sat there in silence, staring down at my half-empty bottle of orange juice. I couldn’t argue with Bradley. Everything that he’d said was true. But Alfie was also so many other things that Bradley didn’t get to see, that nobody did. I sniffed softly, trying to hold back tears.
“Lo, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you, I would never want that.” His hand closed gently over mine and I looked up at him, at his kind, warm face. I hated that I couldn’t give him what he wanted, but I couldn’t. I needed to be straight with him about that, even if it meant I would lose him as a friend.
“Bradley, I?—”
“You’re attracted to me,” he cut me off, stunning me. I froze for a full moment, staring at him.
“That’s not what I was going to say.”
“But it’s true. It’s okay, you don’t have to say it out loud.”
I tore my gaze from his because I couldn’t look at him any more. He was right. I did feel something for him. It was nothing like what I felt for Alfie, but even so, it was still there.
“I don’t know what to say.” I felt like I was going mad sometimes. Ever since Alfie had bulldozed into my sphere ofexistence, my peaceful life had been blown to smithereens, and it only seemed to be getting worse.
“Want to know what I think? I think that the only reason he’s got you and I don’t is because he saw you first.”
“That’s not fair, Bradley. He’s good to me, he spends time with my family, he just sent me flowers this morning?—”
“Why?”
“What?” I asked, my brow creasing in confusion.
“Why did he send you flowers? Did you have a fight?”
“No, he was just being nice.”Why am I lying? How many times did I lie to cover for Adam?
“Really? So the last time you saw him, you didn’t have a disagreement? He didn’t upset you?” Without thinking, I began to twirl my fingers in the hem of my dress, the awful, peach dress that I hadn’t wanted to wear. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
Was that really why he’d sent me flowers? To buy me off? It wouldn’t be the first time. He’d tried to give me diamond earrings the first time he’d upset me.