Page 13

Chapter Thirteen

Gemma

Ooh, the drama.

It is delicious .

I live for it, really, I do.

Francesca stands there, speechless and ashen, mouth gaping open, looking for all the world as if her soul just left her body. Off to one side, Leon, eyes wide and mouth tight; but it’s not the white-hot fury I would’ve expected – it’s more like … vindication.

And me, leaning forward with my elbows propped up on the table, and I just know there’s a glint of excitement in my eyes, my smile something toothy and vicious – which, really, is not so much to do with Francesca at all.

What a tableau we must make. A veritable Renaissance painting.

All three of us caught up in this storm (the figurative and literal kind) while the dull hubbub of the airport continues around us.

People balancing trays of food, families wrangling tired or unruly children, solo travellers bent over devices trying to block it all out and get some work done – all of them oblivious to the absolute hellscape that’s about to unfold here.

And oh, it is excellent .

Kudos to Marcus, of course, for the plausible deniability.

His texts walk a very careful line of ‘just being friendly!’, but I know .

Any self-respecting girl dating in the social networking era would know.

I mean, we used to log off and back onto MSN to get our crush to notice us when we were kids.

We know .

Marcus’s texts aren’t the kind of stuff you’d get a guy sending you on a dating app.

They’re somehow worse. Charming, casual in the way only an established relationship of any kind can be, and juuust long enough that he’s obviously invested even though, from the quick scroll I just had, he only reacts a very little to anything Fran says and never asks her questions.

He’s doing the bare minimum to prove he’s interested in what she has to say, knowing she’ll respond to whatever self-centred crap he spouts.

He hasn’t got to waste time fluffing her ego with compliments, trying to win her over. He’s joked to us all often enough about how she obviously has a crush on him, how pathetic and sweet that is, how sorry he feels for her.

It’s the kind of way Kayleigh talks to me. It’s so easy to recognise.

Whatever Marcus really thinks about his work wife’s crush on him, he’s absolutely guilty of pandering to it.

Which, knowing Marcus, he wouldn’t do unless there was a benefit to him. He doesn’t do anything without putting himself first. He’s a lot like Kayleigh that way.

Does Kayleigh know he’s indulging Fran with all these texts?

Does she even know they text ? Pretty regularly, too.

There’s at least one message from him every day for the last week or so, and that was only as far back as my scroll took me.

I can only imagine what’s further back in the chat history.

Surely she would’ve mentioned it to me before if she knew.

But I’m not thinking, I should tell her; my best friend is about to marry this man and look at this scumbag, red-flag behaviour; she needs to know, I have to tell her .

I’m thinking, This is fucking great .

It’s all I can do not to burst out laughing. This isn’t even surprising , coming from Marcus, and Kayleigh would go absolutely ballistic if I did tell her, which is a real double standard coming from her, and how much fun would it be to watch her perfect life implode then?

She certainly enjoyed it plenty when it was my life imploding.

I wouldn’t even need the video, then. I could be the architect of her destruction without even really getting my hands dirty.

I am her best friend, though, so I know my barely contained glee comes off as righteous indignation and a ‘Ha, gotcha!’ to Francesca and Leon, which is all that matters.

Leon turns more fully to Fran, now, and she shrinks in on herself, both our empty cups huddled into her body.

‘ What? ’ he repeats tightly, then throws a glower my way. I barely blink in reaction. ‘What the hell are you talking about? Did you know about this?’

‘I just found out. I got a look at their messages. Looks like darling Marcus is playing away from home.’

There’s a flash of emotion in Leon’s eyes that takes me a moment to process, it’s so out of place.

It’s the kind of look I’m trying so hard to hide.

He asks, head snapping between the two of us now, ‘Why? What’s he said? Is this that text he just sent you? Is that what this is about? Let me see.’

Fran is shaking, now, poor thing, but manages to sound fabulously indignant when she says, ‘Marcus and I are friends . There’s nothing to see, alright?

I don’t expect to go digging through your phone looking for rubbish I can blow out of proportion.

But fine , if you want to look, fine . Go on! I’ve got nothing to hide!’

She wrestles her phone into one free hand to unlock it, the text thread still up on the screen, and slams it down on the table before storming off.

I hope she remembers the oat milk.

Leon has picked up the phone before he even sits down, so focused on the messages that he half falls back into his seat, almost misses the chair completely. I watch his frown deepen as he concentrates, reading slowly, scrolling back up – and then down again, rereading, like he’s missed something.

He lowers the phone to look at me, and exactly like I thought he would, he says, ‘Am I missing something here? I thought you said he was cheating.’

‘I didn’t say that .’ I huff, and take Fran’s phone to put it on the table.

I love her phone case, all pressed flowers in pink and yellow.

So cute. Basic, but cute. I point at the screen.

‘Read between the lines, Leon. Look . Like how he only texts in these chunky paragraphs – probably because it’s when Kayleigh’s not in the room, or asleep or something, rather than texting back and forth throughout the day?

And he doesn’t even reply to half the stuff she says, but he’ll heart-react so it feels like he’s paying attention, so poor Fran is probably out here telling herself, Look how much he cares about me! Bless her.’

Leon nods, once, slowly, absolutely not getting it.

‘Like, did he need to send her a shirtless selfie? Or this gym-mirror selfie, post-workout? Like hell he did. And look, that message he just sent her – wish you were here, won’t be the same without you, need you here with me, and all that crap.

It sounds friendly, but if you’ve got a raging crush on someone and they send you messages like that—’

‘It’s not going to feel friendly,’ he concludes, finally catching on. He leans back in his seat and rubs his hand across his mouth, frowning at the screen.

It’s startling, how much he and Kayleigh don’t look alike.

She’s all dainty, sharp edges and refined features and graceful stature, whereas Leon is …

clunky . Squarish face and squat nose and unruly hair, thick limbs and clumsy, calloused hands.

He does a lot of weightlifting – he makes a lot of really boring, dry posts about his progress on his Insta Stories – but it’s a far cry from any sort of gym-bro energy.

Sometimes, I think if I really wanted to get under Kayleigh’s skin and piss her off, I’d fuck her brother.

But that feels weirdly Freudian and I’m sure a therapist would have something to say about that, so.

‘So …’ Leon clears his throat, shuffles in his chair. ‘Are they having an affair?’

‘I don’t think so. An emotional affair, maybe …’

‘I knew something was dodgy, whenever Kay mentioned the work wife. I mean, who says things like that anymore? It’s …’

‘It’s very pick-me girl,’ I say sagely, nodding, though I’d be willing to bet Leon doesn’t know what that is. Honestly, he thinks I’m an idiot for not knowing who Zeus is off the top of my head, but he wouldn’t understand the nuances of pop culture if they bit him on the arse.

‘I knew it was bothering her. She always acted like it was some big joke, though.’

‘Well, yeah. What else are you going to do in that situation? It’s not like she doesn’t have a harmless little flirt with guys if we’re out at a bar, or everyone’s round to dinner.’

Leon recoils a little. ‘She what?’

I roll my eyes. As if we’ve got time for his rose-tinted glasses when it comes to his sisters. (I mean, you just know he’d go to his grave denying that little Myleene’s ever touched weed, but she was high as a kite the last two times I saw her.)

‘Anyway,’ I carry on, ‘obviously Kayleigh whinges about the work wife thing behind Marcus’s back. He always treats it like a joke. The way he talks about Francesca, mocking her and saying how sad the whole thing is, you’d never guess—’ I snort, cutting myself off before I can say –

‘Hardly surprising, though, coming from him .’

It takes me a beat to realise that wasn’t me saying it, and that yes, it did, in fact, come from Leon. I’ve never heard him say a bad word about anybody .

This is a delightful turn of events.

Truly, spectacular.

‘Mmhmm,’ I say, which is non-committal enough to brush off if I’m ever challenged on it, but just sympathetic enough that Leon carries on.

‘Selfish prick. I should’ve – fuck , we should’ve known he’d do something like this. I knew he was bad news. Right from the start, Mum said—’

He cuts himself off, though, so abruptly I just know whatever he was about to say would’ve been juicy and damning. He shuffles in his seat again, shoulders bunching, and clears his throat awkwardly.

‘Didn’t your nana not like him?’ I prompt, fighting to keep my voice neutral.

If Leon doesn’t like Marcus much, if his mum doesn’t either …

I know Kayleigh huffs and puffs and rolls her eyes a lot about going home, but she’s been griping about visits back home for years , way before Marcus was on the scene.

It was like she’d … outgrown them. Was sick of the drive back and forth, the poky little terraced house they’d pile into for a family dinner and feeling obliged to stay in the childhood bedroom she shared with Myleene, them not understanding why she wanted to live in London or cared about things like dry-cleaning her silk blouses and drinking bubble tea.

She had her own life now, and they didn’t fit. And I guess with Marcus on the scene, she decided they were even less of a priority. Which makes even more sense if they never actually liked him …

Oh, the drama she’s been keeping from me.

So as much as I want to grab Leon by the shoulders and yell, ‘Spill the tea!’ I stay put in my chair, hands folded in front of me, giving him a sympathetic look, and I mention his nana instead.

The same grandmother that Kayleigh cut off and called a bitch after the last time she saw her, then cried crocodile tears over at the funeral.

Leon is so visibly affected by the mere mention of his nana, though, my heart does genuinely bleed a little for him.

It’s always so easy to gobble up Kayleigh’s melodrama and take it at face value, I forget sometimes that it’s all a story she’s rewritten to put herself at the centre of.

But Leon’s face crumples, and he swallows hard, even looking a little misty-eyed, and I remember that his nana looked after me in the school holidays when my parents couldn’t, and she showed me how to bake the best chocolate-chip cookies I’ve ever had in my life .

I bake them sometimes still, when I need a little pick-me-up, and something cosy to turn off my mind.

I feel such a wave of compassion – of sympathy for his loss, a shared moment of grief that his nana has gone, a shame for trying to throw it in his face even in some small way – that I reach out to put a hand on his arm. Leon’s mouth twitches in a wobbly attempt at a smile.

But whatever he’s about to say about his nana or Kayleigh or Marcus is stolen by Francesca plonking down three steaming paper cups on the table, looking ready to face the wolves.