Page 2 of The Long Way Home

“Yes.” She gives me a smug smile. “I am quite thoughtful when you don’t think I’m a raging slut.”

I give her a look. “You are a bit of a slut though.”

She laughs brightly. “Yeah, I am.”

“I’m here to fly home with you,” she tells me.

I frown at her. “Why?”

“Because.” She shrugs. “You haven’t been back in a year, and there’s the wedding, and your mother’s basically a contestant on her own personal version of Love Island.” I roll my eyes at her, though I know it’s true. My mother has taken my father marrying my childhood nanny like an absolute champion, if we consider champions today as high functioning, trollop-y alcoholics.

“You’re still not talking to Jonah. BJ’s dating someone now.” She watches me closely as she says this and I avoid her eyes, looking down at the checked stretch sports bra that I’m wearing from Burberry. He’s dating someone new. That’s the one everyone’s worried about. I don’t let it show, not even a flicker on my face, and you can bet your bottom dollar that the beast I’ve beaten, bound and buried for the better part of a year is so restrained and controlled and sedated that not even a whisker of emotion breezes across my poised little face.

I cock my eyebrow in defiance of her — she of little faith, waiting for my heart’s knees to buckle at his name.

Never again.

“It’s going to be a hard couple of weeks for you,” she tells me cautiously. “I’m here to bring you home because that’s what best friends do.”

I glance over at her. “Are we best friends now?”

She perches up on the kitchen island and I hand her a glass of pinot gris.

2014 Hans Herzog. Peach blush tint. Dry but not overly tart. Refreshing tannins.

I was sleeping with a boy here for about a month whose family owns vineyards all over — Napa, Burgundy, Champagne, Marlborough.

The alcohol was an important component of the relationship.

During that time I picked up some obnoxious, sommelier-adjacent qualities which were the only real takeaways from the relationship.

“Are we not?” She frowns. “Who else would your best friend be?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. Henry? My sister?”

“Sisters don’t count.” She rolls her eyes. Very blue. They’re quite like sapphires. I used to hate them, but now I’m rather fond of them.

“Why?”

“Because I don’t have one, so it’s not fair.”

“Fine.” I roll my eyes. “Besides Bridget and Henry, you’re my other best friend.”

“Don’t tell Henry.” She gives me a look which I mirror.

I could never.

I’d never hear the end of it.

The day he turned up in New York with Taura Sax I could have thrown him in front of a taxi.

I’d been here maybe five months then.

Henry was visiting me every few weeks. Still does. It was his seventh trip and I knew they liked each other by then because he’d told me they were sleeping together when I met him in Cannes and we’d had a fight over it already. We’d never had a fight before, not really. Well, besides the time he was upset when he found out that Christian and I were together, but that was a one-way fight and it only lasted the length of the drive home until I told him about what BJ had done and then it was back to regularly scheduled programming — so fighting in Cannes was big. Cannes in general was big for other less-ideal reasons, so I’d left early with Rush without saying goodbye and then a few days later he turned up in New York with her. Can you believe it? He’d just brought her here with him.

To New York.

To my apartment. To stay. In my house!