Page 7

Five

“How’s the date?”

Adam’s words jarred me from momentary shock; actually they pushed me into an all-new deeper kind of shock.

“How do you know I’m on a date?” I asked, genuinely confused. Our last text message had been over a week ago and had been so uneventful I couldn’t even remember what it had been about.

“Tess told me. Rory Franklin, hey?”

I stopped in my tracks, gritting my jaw as I looked up at the night sky, blinking back my angry tears and praying to the gods above.

No-no-no-no. Not now, not this.

I refused to talk about this with Adam. The humiliation was far too raw, as in five-minutes-ago raw.

In the movies, Rory would have come running after me, chasing me down the street in the rain, swinging me around dramatically as he confessed he had been an utter fool, and then of course giving me a perfectly logical explanation about the text before crushing his mouth to mine.

We’d then live happily ever after raising a boy and a girl in a beautiful, affluent, leafy suburb of Maitland.

Instead, I stood in the middle of the street with Adam on the phone asking me a question that had me feeling like an utter loser, and that was something I hadn’t felt since that night rereading my old diaries whilst on a wine binge.

I made a promise that I wouldn’t let myself feel like that again, not ever.

And yet, with one simple, harmless question, I had been plunged back there all over again.

I hated feeling this way and more importantly I hated Adam adding to the feeling; there had been a time when Adam would be able to cheer me up, but at the very sound of his voice, all the old feelings hit me in the gut again. So I did what I had to do: I had to lie through the skin of my teeth.

“Ah-ha, he is AMAZING!”

“Really?”

“He took me to this place where they served the most incredible duck, and ordered the most delicious red off the menu.”

“Wow, he can read?”

“Shut up,” I snapped; he was ruining my lie.

“He just dropped me off actually, in some red sports car, nearly gave me a heart attack, talk about powerful.” Which wasn’t exactly untrue: the way Rory had zipped around the city streets in his Porsche had made me feel rather ill.

“That’s early; is there a bomb shelter curfew in Maitland then?” Adam mused.

Crap! I looked at my watch: 9 p.m. on a Saturday night, hardly something to brag about. I wasn’t very good at this ad-lib-lying thing, clearly.

“No, it’s just he has footy training in the morning and he is really dedicated.”

“I’ll say; it’s cricket season.”

FUCK! I knew jack about sports.

“He still has to keep fit.”

“On a Sunday?”

“Yes,” I snapped.

“Well, I could think of a few better ways to keep fit,” Adam said, mainly to himself.

“What?”

“Oh nothing; he’s a better man than me. Well, glad you had a good night.”

“I had a GREAT night.”

“Cool.”

“In fact, we’re going out again next weekend.” I lifted my chin with great triumph, feeling rather empowered by my fake life.

Silence fell on the other end of the phone; I had almost thought that Adam had hung up until he spoke. “So, you’re bringing him to the engagement party?”

Wait. What?

Now it was my turn to be silent.

“Didn’t you get the memo?”

Memo? As far as I knew there was only one pending engagement party.

The one for my best friend Tess and Toby, one that had yet to be scheduled a date for, the one for which I was pretty certain I would have been the first to know if there had been a date set.

I felt a bit hurt. Was this what happened?

Leave Onslow and it’s out of sight out of mind?

It killed me to ask. “What memo?”

“Oh shit, hang on a sec.” There was rustling on the other end, as if he was juggling the phone from one ear to the other. “You there?” he asked, this time in a lowered voice.

“Yeah,” I said, a bit uncertain. Anytime Adam lowered his voice normally meant he was up to no good.

“So Tess and Toby have set a date then?” I said, trying not to sound as though receiving the sloppy, second-hand news hadn’t seriously pissed me off.

“Well, yes and no,” said Adam, which only made me more confused.

I sighed. “What does that mean?” I was seriously losing patience: my feet were hurting, my pride was in tatters, and as I glanced around me, I soon realised I had no ride home.

Perfect.

“Sean is throwing them a surprise party at the lake house next weekend.”

Crap! It sounded exactly like something Sean would do, give him any excuse to throw a party at his place.

There always seemed to be a pre-celebratory party to every event amongst us; we had even managed to have farewell drinks there before I left.

My heart sank; there really was nothing more spectacular than a party at Sean’s lake house.

Unofficial engagement party aside, it wasn’t something anyone would blow off, and to see the look on Tess’s face would be completely worth it.

“So Tess has no idea?”

“Hasn’t a clue. I’ve been avoiding her since I found out; I’m shit scared of letting something slip.” Adam laughed.

I smiled. I knew the feeling; I would have to do the same. Poor Tess was about to get a major complex. I was suddenly relieved in only now having to carry the burden for a week of keeping this from her.

“You’ll have to sneak into town,” Adam said, echoing the very same thought I was having. It was seriously disturbing how similar our thought processes were.

“You could stay here; I could check with Chris. I’m pretty sure we could get the door frames widened so Rory could fit his head through.”

I burst out laughing, which considering I was supposedly dating him was probably not the most appropriate reaction.

“You don’t even know him, he is really down to earth.” LIES. “He is a complete gentleman.” LIES. “You would really like him.” Lies-lies-lies.

“Well, guess I’m about to find out,” he said, in a way I could imagine him with a crooked little grin.

I loved that Adam instinctively disliked Rory, forever the overprotective friend.

It made my heart clench just thinking about it.

When did I feel the need to lie to Adam about anything?

We have always been honest with each other.

“Well, see you next weekend,” I said, wincing.

This was definitely not a part of the plan.

It would have me back in Onslow way before I was ready.

I had wanted to completely reinvent myself before walking back through the doors of the Onslow.

I wanted to be a distant memory to the town folk, so when everyone turned around on bar stools, all their mouths would be agape, and everyone would be elbowing one another with speculative whispers: “Who’s that girl? ”

Instead, I could clearly imagine the reality of going home next weekend. I would walk through the bar, no one would blink, not one person would give me anything other than a glimpse and a “Oh, hey, Ellie.” I hadn’t even been gone long enough to really garner a “Where you been?”

“Yeah, let me know if you need anything for when you come. Like a spanner to tighten Rory’s bolts in his neck; seriously, anything.”

“Goodbye, Adam.”

And before he could answer I ended the call, smiling, and feeling a little bit better at the mere trash talk of Rory Fucking Franklin, until reality hit me. How was I going to explain rocking up to Onslow desperate and completely dateless?