Page 50 of Going Solo (The Brent Boys #2)
Chapter Twenty-Seven
N ick and I were sitting at a grimy service station picnic table beside a plastic children’s playground that was so sun-bleached it looked like it was haunted by the ghosts of other dead playgrounds. We were tucking into Greggs vegan sausage rolls and trying not to think about how much diesel particulate we were ingesting. It had been a quiet journey to Cardiff so far.
“This mood you’re in,” Nick said, licking ketchup off his finger, “I’m guessing it’s about your sexy squillionaire ex?”
I picked a flake of pastry off my sausage roll and let it crumble between my fingers. Since Cole had kissed me in the lift the night before, I had been going over and over it in my mind. What did it mean? Why did he do it? It had sent a million conflicting emotions bubbling up to the surface, and I felt overwhelmed.
“I’m fine,” I said. It wasn’t convincing even to me. There was no way Nick was buying it.
“Are you sure? Because, genuinely, for a while there I thought I’d accidentally climbed into a van with Sally Field. I thought someone’s kidney transplant had failed.”
“Huh?”
Nick looked appalled. “Don’t tell me you’ve never seen Steel Magnolias ? It’s literally set in a salon.”
I shook my head.
“Right, well, we’ll be fixing that little oversight in your cultural education as soon as we get back to London.” He took a bite of sausage roll, and we sat in silence, listening to the rumble of motorway traffic while he chewed. “You know what I think?” he said, finally. I looked up at him. “I think you’ve got quite used to having your sexy, rich, famous ex chasing you around these past few days, and you’ve liked it. Now he’s gone and you won’t see him for four or five days, and you”—he pointed his sausage roll at me—“don’t know how to handle it.”
“Oh, fuck off,” I said. “That’s not it.”
“No?”
“No.”
“Then tell me what’s up.”
I picked up my sausage roll and took a bite, avoiding eye contact with Nick.
“Toby, you insisted I come on this tour with you, despite it being diabolically wheelchair inaccessible at every turn. You wanted me here for a reason, and I hope it wasn’t so I could sit on the side of a motorway while car fumes smoked my lungs to pastrami, because very little of my body operates optimally as it is?—”
“Cole kissed me,” I blurted. “All right? He kissed me. Now you know.” I looked over at Nick. He raised his eyebrows.
“Is that all?”
“Isn’t it enough?”
“Depends. How do you feel about it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you kiss him back?”
“I slapped him across the face.”
“That seems definitive.” Nick licked a bit of pastry off the back of his hand. “So why are we moping, then?”
“Because before I slapped him, I might have kissed him back.” I put my head in my hands.
“This is a roller coaster ride.”
“If you’re going to judge me?—”
“Don’t be stupid. I’ve paid my penny, I’ve got my ticket, and I’m already sitting in a stranger’s vomit. So, why’d you hit him?”
“Because I hate him.”
“Do you really, though?” Nick let the last of his vegan sausage roll slide back into the bag and put it down. He reached a hand across the table to me, and I grabbed it. “Or are you in the habit of hating him?”
“He ruined my life,” I said. “It took me years to get over all that crap, I’ve finally got my life sorted, and it feels like he’s come back to screw it all up again, you know what I’m saying?”
“You think he’s back to deliberately ruin your life?”
“In the van the other day, he said this was about healing. I thought he meant he wanted to be friends. But if he wanted to be friends, why the kiss? Why disrespect me like that?”
“Maybe he’s doing it because he’s still in love with you, you absolute roaster.”
I pulled my hand away. “Don’t be stupid.”
“Have you listened to The Flame yet, Toby?”
I groaned in frustration. “This again? What is it with you?—”
“Don’t you think this whole ‘reborn’ thing of Cole’s is him pressing the reset button?” Nick said. “That guy has been through some shit. Can you imagine having Felicity Quant controlling your life for ten years? You saw what it was like for a few weeks. He’s finally escaped. You remember all the ‘let Cole be Cole’ stuff back when the Go Tos formed? What if he feels like he’s lost track of who he is and this whole thing is him pressing a great big reset button and going back to where he was the last time he truly felt like himself?”
I stared at Nick, my jaw slack, mouth open. “You’ve put a lot of thought into this.”
“I’ve had a lot of thinking time on this tour because my best friend keeps ditching me to hang out with his ex.”
I rolled my eyes. Nick fished the last of his sausage roll out of the paper bag.
“It’s Fiona’s theory, not mine,” he added, sinking his teeth into the pastry.
“Maybe us being together was the last time he was happy. But he doesn’t get to rewind the tape. Life doesn’t give us do-overs. He hurt me. I can’t forget everything that’s happened.”
“No one’s asking you to,” Nick said, mouth full, pastry falling from his lips. “It’s about what you do next. We get to choose how we react to situations, remember.”