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“Well, he should’ve been pulled off in the first half. Didn’t I say that? I don’t know why they even put the bloody idiot on.” He banged the steering wheel.

Maggie puffed out an irritated breath and flicked the radio off.

“Oi! I was listening to that.”

“I can’t hear myself think with all that jabbering nonsense and I would like to speak with my sister, please. I haven’t seen her for weeks.”

“Look, I’m really sorry to put you both out. Hopefully, it won’t take long, and you can be on your way,” said Alice, meeting Markus’s glowering eyes in the rear-view mirror.

Moody bastard.

“Why didn’t your sleepover friend offer to jump-start your car?” asked Markus.

Maggie scoffed. “They’ve only just met, so it would’ve probably been a bit of an imposition.”

Markus searched out Alice’s eyes again and waggled his eyebrows.

“Classy, Alice. One-night stand, was it?”

“Fuck off, Markus,” she muttered under her breath.

“Tinder?… or do you lesbians have your own app?”

Maggie slapped his arm. “Stop it.”

“If you must know, Ash is a friend. That’s it. We met at the hospital because I found a man in the road who needed help, so I took him to A&E. Ash was the doctor on duty and she popped by to give me an update on how he’s doing. That’s all. No fucking scandal, okay?”

Markus shrugged his broad shoulders and Alice glared at the back of his priggish head.

“And why does everyone think I’m on Tinder? I was literally in a relationship up until two days ago, so…fuuuuck…” Alice scrubbed her face with her palms.

Maggie twisted around to look at her.

“You’ve ended things with Fran?”

“Yeeeees,” Alice said impatiently, her voice on the seesaw edge of cracking.

Maggie reached between the seats and steadied Alice’s bouncing knee.

“You must be happy now, Mags. You never approved of Fran. Go on, say it, sayI told you so… because you were right.” Even through her scrunched-up eyes, the tears started to fall.Fucking hell, not here, not now.

“Oh, Al.” Maggie’s eyes softened with understanding. “Markus, pull over.”

“What? No.”

Maggie thumped his arm. “Pull over,” she said through gritted teeth.

With a loud huff, Markus indicated and pulled into a bus lay-by. Maggie unclipped her seatbelt, jumped out and slid into the backseat next to her crying mess of a sister.

“Come here. Let it all out.”

Alice folded herself into Maggie’s surprisingly comforting arms and sobbed.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Markus grumbled.

Maggie ignored him and tightened her grip around Alice, gently rocking her. “I’m so sorry, Al. I knew you’d end up getting hurt like this, but I wanted to be wrong.”

“No, you didn’t. You said before I shouldn’t be involved with a married?—”