Page 7

SEVEN

Lena

Lena entered the restaurant with nerves making her stomach tense. She should’ve told Alix to shove it with her ladies’ nights that included her ex. What kind of person hung out casually with her ex?

A man greeted her at the entrance. "Hello, do you have a reservation?"

"Yes, it's under Alix Jones," Lena replied, already peering into the restaurant.

The man nodded and checked his list. "Yes, table for four. You're the first."

Lena wasn't surprised, she was often the first. She didn't mind, it meant she got the best seat at the table and she got to raise her eyebrows judgingly at everyone who arrived late.

While she waited, she ordered herself a glass of wine and checked her phone to see where everyone was. Everyone was ten minutes late and the group chat had no new messages. Lena was starting to fear she had the date or place wrong but then she spotted Aditi by the entrance of the restaurant.

Her chest tightened instantly. Just as she expected and feared, Aditi looked absolutely breath-taking and there were multiple people taking note of her arrival, not that Lena blamed them.

Aditi wore red in a way that most people couldn't, like it was part of her.

The rhythmic click of her heels served as a hypnotising beat as she approached, a confident no-nonsense walk that made people move out of the way.

Lena had no issue admitting that it was Aditi's beauty and vibe that had lured her in when they first met. It was the wonderfully kind and dedicated person underneath that had made her fall head over heels in love.

And now it was over and all Lena could do was clench her teeth and force a smile. It didn't matter that once she thought they would be together forever, now they were just friends. Or rather, they were friends with the same people.

Aditi arrived at the table but remained standing. "Where is everyone?"

"How would I know? I'm not a mind reader," Lena grumbled. She had that exact same question and she was going to give her friends more than a judgmental look when they arrived. This was what she feared might happen.

"Did you message in the group?"

"I did, no answer."

Still standing, Aditi checked her phone. "Hmm, you're right."

"Of course, why would I lie?" Lena bit back, harsher than intended. She didn't like this side of her, this sharp edge in her voice that cut her own tongue. She hated how it sounded, how she was coming across. Especially towards Aditi who always used to soften her hard edges.

Surprisingly unbothered, Aditi sat down as far away from Lena as a four-man table allowed. They sat in awkward silence, both on their phones typing urgent messages to their friends.

"Where are they?" Lena muttered, wondering at what point she should start calling emergency services to report her missing friends. This wasn't too out of character for Alix but Maria was always on time.

Aditi held up her phone. "Oh, it's Alix!"

"Answer then."

"Hi! Where are you?" Aditi shouted into the phone which she helpfully put onto speaker.

"I'm so sorry! I missed my bus. I'll be there in twenty minutes. Maybe thirty." Alix thought for a moment. "Definitely thirty, traffic is a bitch and this bus driver keeps slowing down for bikers and to let other people on."

Lena pinched the bridge of her nose. Great.

"Have you heard from Maria?" Aditi asked.

"No? Isn't she there yet?"

"No. It's just me and Lena."

There was a beat of silence on Alix' side of the line. "Yikes. Is it awkward? I bet it's awkward."

"You're also on speaker," Aditi said, looking horrified.

"Hey, Alix," Lena said, not sure if she should be amused or embarrassed.

The phone stayed silent for a few seconds before Alix replied sheepishly, "Hi, Lena. Sorry, didn't know this was on speaker. Thanks, Adi. You should really let people know that at the start of the call."

The phone call ended, leaving them in an even more awkward atmosphere than before. Lena drank some of her wine just to have something to do.

"I didn't know she was going to be so blunt," Aditi said with an uneasy chuckle.

"It's fine, I'm used to Alix' bluntness by now." Lena twirled her glass around, drawing circular indents in the tablecloth with the foot. This was torture.

"Yeah, but---"

The conversation was interrupted by the sound of the front door open and both turned to look at it, only for their hopes to be dashed when two unknown women walked in. They looked to be arguing even while they settled at the bar.

"I wonder if Maria is okay," Aditi said. "It's not like her to be late."

"Pregnancy-brain does funny things to people. Maybe she went into early labour," Lena wondered.

"Unlikely, but you never know." Aditi drummed her fingers on the table. "I suppose I could call into work, see if she's been admitted. That's probably overkill though, right? I'm not my mother."

Lena couldn't help but chuckle. "Yeah, it's a bit premature to start calling all the morgues."

With a mortified look, Aditi sank her head into her hands. "I still can't believe my mother did that. What was she thinking?"

"She just loves her little precious baby girl," Lena teased. There were many things she missed about Aditi but her overbearing mother wasn't one of them. She never got the impression that Rheka approved of their relationship either so it wasn't like there was any love lost there.

The harsh sound of shattering glass interrupted their first positive conversation since they sat down and both looked at the bar. The two women who came in earlier seemed to be fighting still and it was unclear whether the glass on the floor had been an accident or on purpose.

It was followed by one of the women throwing her glass of water in the other's face which promptly earned her a slap. Before the bartenders or staff could even jump in to intervene, one of them stormed off with a surprising amount of poise for someone who was dripping.

Lena and Aditi exchanged a silent look with each other.

"Wow... wonder what that was about," Aditi murmured. "What do you think? Friends or couple fight?"

"That has to be a couple. Maybe one of them confessed to cheating," Lena guessed. "Or they're best friends and one of them is sleeping with the other's husband or wife."

"Maybe they're sisters and one of them stole the other's inheritance."

"Or business partners and one of them embezzled money. We have overactive imaginations."

Aditi chuckled. "Not at all, you wouldn't believe the stories I heard from my colleagues in A&E. Yesterday, there was a man who came in with a knife in his shoulder. He had a habit of critiquing his wife's food and she got fed up with his complaints."

"Ouch."

"And there was an elderly lady who got into a fistfight with her sister at a will reading.

They had to be checked for concussions." Aditi leaned on her hand.

"And two teenage boys got into a fight in the lobby over some trading cards or something?

I don't fully understand what that was about but one of them stabbed a pen into the other's eye. "

Lena winced and automatically touched her eye. "Vicious."

"You have no idea. That---" Aditi gestured to the lone woman at the bar who was softly sobbing. "Was actually pretty mild."

"I'm realising our fights were pretty tame then," Lena remarked, thinking back to their worst days. There would be screaming and slamming doors but never anything close to this scale.

Aditi hummed in agreement. "Yeah, we were never that bad. Maybe we just loved each other a lot more than those people do."

The words cut through Lena but she managed to keep a neutral expression even if it felt like salt into a fresh wound.

Loved.

Not love.

Loved.

She finished her wine with one big swig and turned around, searching for a server so she could order more. Instead, she spotted Maria arriving at the restaurant with a head of chaos hair.

"I'm so sorry, I totally overslept!" Maria announced when she got to the table. She sank down and poured herself a massive glass of water that she downed in one go. "Goodness. Have you been waiting long?"

"Just a little while," Aditi said diplomatically.

"Where's Alix?"

Lena tried not to let her frustration get the better of her. "Delayed by traffic."

The look on Maria's face was worth a picture. "So it's just the two of you here? Goodness."

"We didn't do too badly, did we?" Aditi said, looking at Lena for the first time since she sat down. There was a softness in her eyes, a sparkling warmth and traces of genuine affection.

It melted Lena's frustration away like snow under the first sun.

"Yeah, we didn't kill each other unlike the couple at the bar," Lena replied. Her chest contracted when Aditi laughed. It was amazing what such a simple sound could do to her poor heart.