SIXTEEN
I groaned as the phone rang. No one tells you how awful hangovers are in your thirties. It’s like you spend your teenage years and your twenties believing every movie with hungover characters is an exaggeration to put you off drinking. And suddenly you’re a grown-up and throwing up into a potted plant at the office and trying to wash your mouth out with Lucozade.
If I even managed to make it to the office.
I opened one eye and looked at the name on the screen. Dylan. At seven a.m.
Oh god, what did I say last night?
“Hello?” I croaked. “Is everything okay?”
“I’m calling about something incredibly important,” Dylan said smoothly, as if I hadn’t called him half-cut the night before.
“Which is?”
He took a deep breath.
“Five things, Aly,” he said, and suddenly I was sixteen again. My heart leaped at the thought of it, even as my head pounded. And then reality set in.
“No, Dylan. No way. I have work. You have work!”
“Five things, or it has to be done. You know the rules.”
I scrambled on my nightstand for painkillers. “If I don’t go in today, it’s going to look like I’m throwing a hissy fit over Matthew’s promotion.”
“So?”
“So it’s unprofessional. And you have the most important presentation of your life in two weeks. You need to be preparing.”
The phone went silent, and then I heard him hum.
“Fair point. I’m pretty good at multitasking these days. What if I promise our adventure will be educational?”
“Dylan,” I warned.
“Alyssa,” he mocked. “It’s a simple question. Can you tell me five wonderful things you’re looking forward to today?”
“I couldn’t give you one.” I sighed, defeated. “I couldn’t give you half of one.”
“That’s what I thought. Make your excuses; I’ll see you at St. Pancras at eleven.” He went to hang up, and I stopped him, suddenly desperate.
“Dylan!”
“Yeah?”
I hesitated, unsure what I wanted to say. “Why?”
“Because you’re not happy. And it’s very important that you be happy.”
He hung up, and I closed my eyes, unsure whether I should be excited or terrified.
—
St. Pancras is my favorite London train station. There’s something about the possibility of it all. The Eurostar, the oyster bar, the dark entrance to the Renaissance Hotel, hidden in the back corner, like there’s some secret history unfolding around the commuters and day-trippers.
I sat with a coffee, pretending to read a book, but really just watching people. Greeting each other with hugs, swerving around luggage, walking at speed. Tourists getting lost, couples having arguments. You could see everything in the crowds at St. Pancras.
Dylan appeared wearing sunglasses on his head and holding two coffees. He looked at my table, my cup of coffee evident, and sighed.
“Damn.”
I held out my hand, jumping down from the stool. “Gimme. There is not enough coffee in the world.”
“I really didn’t think you’d show,” he said, handing me the cup, “thought you’d care too much about what people thought at the office.” I did. But I couldn’t turn down this chance.
Of course, to Tola and Eric, I made it all about the Fixer Upper. Here was my chance to get Dylan onside, to push him toward Nicki, solve all their problems. But I knew, deep down, I was lying.
Dylan looked at me, a sly smile on his face, and I panicked.
“Have you . . . spoken to Eric this morning?” he asked.
I frowned at him. “Why would I . . .” He grinned at me, wiggling his eyebrows. “Shut the front door! It was Ben he was meeting last night! Again!”
He held his hands up as if he had agreed he wasn’t saying anything, and we just stood, smiling at each other.
“Looks like we might be in each other’s lives quite a bit, then, if this turns into an epic romance from one of those old movies Ben loves,” Dylan said, looking up at the departures board. I was relieved he didn’t see the panic that must have flittered across my face. Lies with people you were never going to see again, strangers in the street? Sure, fix them and move on with your life. But . . . there was no coming back from this. I was in too deep. And now Eric was at risk, too. How long would he lie to Ben about how I really knew his friend?
“Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves, it might just be a very curable case of lust,” I said breezily, and Dylan whirled around to look at me, tilting his head like a confused canine.
“Ben took four years to find the perfect pair of jeans. And when he finally found the pair he liked, he bought twenty of them. Size up, size down, every color. He waits until he finds what he wants, and he plays for keeps.”
“Bit intense?”
“I admire him, actually. It may look like he’s closed off, but he just makes very . . . purposeful decisions, you know? He’s an analyst, he weighs up the pros and cons, waits to know what he’s walking into, and then jumps in headfirst.” Dylan smiled fondly. “It’s a good way to be. But if Eric’s not . . .”
“Not what?” I felt myself getting defensive.
“Looking for something real . . .” Dylan paused. “It’s better he tells him now.”
I thought about that first night I became friends with Eric, how he’d sobbed into his pint about how much he was going to hurt everyone. I remembered the first dates and the cheeky grins and sexual jokes as he tried out different personalities and opportunities like jackets, waiting for one that fit. And I remembered the tired eyes at the end of nights at the pub as he’d hug my arm and tell me he was so very tired of looking for his perfect match.
“He wants real. But . . . he hasn’t had that before,” I said, and wondered if I was giving away too much, betraying my friend.
“Then it sounds like it’s all good.” Dylan shrugged, sipping his coffee. “Unless Helena doesn’t like Eric. Then he’s toast.”
I frowned, trying to remember whether Ben had mentioned Helena when we’d had dinner. A sister? A best friend?
“His beagle. Helena Bonham Barker. She rules that house.” Dylan grinned and tilted his head toward the trains.
“As well she should,” I laughed. “So, where we going?”
It was pointless to even try. I knew he wouldn’t tell me.
“You know better than that, Aresti,” Dylan snorted.
“But you promise we’ll do some work?” I heard myself and sighed. Once a nerd, always a nerd.
“Some things don’t change.”
Get out of my brain, Dylan.
When we got to the platform, he handed me a ticket, and told me not to look. I swiped through the barrier and handed it back, as surprised as he was that I did what I was told.
We settled into the empty carriage, seated opposite each other at a table.
“Whilst we are on this train, I promise we can work on the presentation.”
“And when we’re off the train?”
“We have adventures. Those are the rules.”
“Okay,” I said, “work.”
We actually managed it—for three whole hours we worked together, practicing the pitch, amending the presentation, researching the company. No arguing or bitching or talking in code. No mention of Nicki. I forgot about that guilty feeling in my stomach. We made progress.
And when we stepped off the train, I could smell the sea.
We walked down the hill, and it suddenly appeared, out of nowhere, full of potential and hope and the promise of summer. I smiled and felt Dylan looking at me.
“What?”
“First of five things, that’s all.” He smiled, then broke into a run. “Race ya!”
I chased him, dodging people and jumping off the curb, exhilarated, telling myself how stupid it was even as I ran. He beat me, unsurprisingly.
“Maybe I need to start some of those Sunday morning drills,” I wheezed, and he shook his head.
“Okay, now what?”
Dylan looked up and down, as if surveying his land and looking for something in particular. Really, I was sure he was just looking for the next opportunity to present itself. Which it did when he suddenly pointed at the arcade.
It sounds ridiculous to travel for three hours just to spend twenty quid on arcade games, but being out of London was like being free of myself. I left “workaholic Fixer Upper, always perfect, always striving” Aly back at St. Pancras.
“What next?” I asked, wide-eyed and childlike.
“Fancy lunch!” Dylan looked so pleased with himself that I laughed.
“Oh, please, not fancy. There’s so much fancy in your life. Can’t we just eat chips with lots of vinegar?”
“And not once take a selfie?” he replied, shrugging. “Sounds good to me.”
Oh no, I was doing the opposite of what I was meant to be doing. I was meant to push him toward that life.
“Wait, no, we can do the fancy thing!” I held my hands up. “It’s your day, too.”
“It absolutely is not,” he laughed. “Today we do what you want.”
“When do we do what you want?”
“Probably when we’re brave and drunk and ready to be honest.” He looked at me, eyebrow raised, head tilted. Daring me.
I simply shook my head, not even really sure what he was asking, but certain I didn’t like the sound of it.
“You never used to be this stubborn, you know?” he said conversationally, peering down side streets, hands in his pockets like he didn’t have a care in the world.
It was like going back in time. This could have been any one of the weekends we’d spent as teenagers, off on one of Dylan’s adventures—music festivals, seaside towns, getting a bus to the middle of nowhere and trying to find our way home. And still him, calm, hands in pockets, strolling along like it was the easiest thing in the world to be happy.
“Well, that’s just not true.”
My phone buzzed.
“Hi, Nicki,” I said, answering the call, watching Dylan shake his head, “how’s things?”
“Well, to be honest, darling, I’m having a bit of a nightmare today. Do you know where Dylan is?”
“Dylan?” I said aloud, and watched as he shook his head more vigorously, eyes wide. “No, haven’t seen him. Why?”
I watched him scratching the back of his neck, staring at the floor as she spoke. Guilty.
“Well, we were talking about the future yesterday and I think . . . I think I spooked him. I pushed too hard, and now he’s disappeared and he’s not answering my calls. And if he doesn’t do well at this presentation, well, it’s Daddy’s contact, and that’ll look bad . . .”
“I really don’t think you have to worry,” I said softly, trying to be comforting. “He’s probably just taking some time to get his head in the game before the presentation.”
“We talked about marriage, and I thought he was with me on that, why wouldn’t he be with me on that?”
“I . . . uh . . .”
“I need this to happen, Aly.” There was a level of desperation in her voice. “I need him. He’s the only real thing in my life.”
Well, now I felt sorry for all three of us.
“Please don’t worry about anything. If I speak to Dylan, I’ll tell him you’re trying to get in touch.”
“Okay, you’re right. Positive thinking. I’m going to do some meditation.” She took a breath and seemed to suddenly inflate with helium, back into her bubbly persona. “Bye, then!”
When I looked up from my phone, Dylan was smiling like he hoped I wouldn’t probe for answers. “So, about those fish and chips . . . that pub on the corner looks promising!”
“Dylan.”
He ignored me, and I followed automatically.
“Dylan! Why are you hiding from your girlfriend?”
“Why is she calling you to find out where I am?” he replied, holding open the door to the pub and gesturing for me to go first. The only way we were going to have this conversation was if he was trapped in a seat, with a huge plate of food, a pint of beer, and no way out. Fine, we’d do it his way.
“Um, she paid my fee?” I retorted, picking a table and plonking myself down, waiting for him to join me.
“Right, of course, so now she owns you.”
I rolled my eyes. “So we’re back to this fun way of interacting again? Great, I’d missed the snark and all the glaring.”
“I’m gonna get some drinks and some menus.”
And then he was gone, chatting with the bartender, asking questions about ales, smiling back at me as if he knew how much he was pissing me off.
I had gotten myself stuck in the middle of this, and solving it was my responsibility. I tried to think about it as I would any other Fixer Upper situation, taking my history with Dylan out of the equation.
As much as they seemed to disconnect over particulars, Dylan and Nicki had the potential to be a power couple. They looked perfect together. He got her to chill out and eat the damn pizza, she . . . got him business contacts through her dad and paid for me to improve him. Okay, bad example but . . . they were two beautiful, insecure people playing out their patterns and they just needed to find a way to communicate their needs. The problem, of course, was timing.
Dylan needed to stop feeling like he was playing a part and to be able to tell when Nicki was offline. He needed to know when she was being real. And Nicki needed to remember her boyfriend was a real human, and that life events were not just marketing opportunities.
Okay, communication, empathy, smoothing ruffled feathers. I could do this.
He finally returned, placing two pints of beer on the table.
“Thanks. Menus?”
“I just ordered fish and chips, that’s what you wanted, right?” he shrugged, sipping at his pint, looking around the pub.
“Dylan, what’s going on? Nicki said she started a conversation about your future, and you ran away?”
“Why do you even care?!” he huffed. “You’re here to fix my ailing career, right?”
“I’m here to support you before a big opportunity, when we both know you’d rather run away than take the risk of failing.”
“I can’t have changed at all, in a decade?” He laughed, pulling a hand through his hair. “I’m still the happy-go-lucky, everything’s fine, hang with the cool kids guy, right? At no point in the last fifteen years could I have grown up?”
I threw my hands up. “You’re running a fucking company! I don’t know what you’re angry about, I thought I was helping!”
“You are! But you’re helping me because it helps her.” He sighed.
That was a little too close for comfort. I took a breath, lowered my voice, and leaned in.
“Dyl, she loves you. She wanted to help. That’s what partners do for each other.” She just wants a proposal in return, no big deal.
He nodded, sipping his pint.
“Why’d you run?”
He looked at me like I was completely insane. “Because . . . because she doesn’t know me. It’s like she looks at me and sees the version of me I could be in ten years.”
It was like he was waiting for some big answer, but he hadn’t asked a question.
“So what? That’s nice, isn’t it? She sees all that potential, the future Dylan. She wants to be with him.”
He shook his head, and I got the sense he was disappointed in me. The waiter came over with our plates and put them down on the table, pointing out condiments and asking if we were okay for drinks. We smiled and nodded and waited for him to leave.
I gestured for Dylan to continue.
“Right now, I’m like a puppy she bought thinking I’d grow into a Doberman, but actually I’m part poodle and I wasn’t fully toilet trained.”
I snorted into my pint, reaching for the vinegar and pouring it liberally. I watched as Dylan sprinkled a terrifying amount of salt over his chips.
“You laugh, fine, but she’s more in love with that version of me than the real me. And every time I get a little closer to whoever that guy is in her head, she rewards me. I wore the suit she picked, I went to the gala, I stopped wearing T-shirts with eighties video game images. She’s waiting for me to grow out of the things I love, and I’m not sure I’m ready to do that.”
He gave me this look, like he was trying to avoid saying something, and I massaged my temples.
“Just say it. You’re bringing back my hangover.” I sighed. “You’ve got that look like you need to tell me you killed my goldfish.”
Dylan snickered, shaking his head. “How many times do I have to say it, Mr. Bubbles died of old age! It’s just . . . since you turned up again, I remembered who I used to be back then. I liked that guy.”
“Eh, I thought he was kind of annoying.” I wrinkled my nose, shrugging one shoulder. “Dylan, you wanna know what you should do here?”
He put down his knife and fork. “Yes, actually. O wise oracle Aly, fixer of such problems. What should I do?”
“Honestly?” I wiped my hands on a napkin and picked up my pint. “I think you should stop thinking so damn much.”
He was poleaxed. His eyebrows disappeared beneath his fringe. “What?”
I looked down at the four missed calls from my mother, the text from Tola asking if I was on track. The messages from Nicki. And then I looked at him, this beautiful man who had been my friend. He could be happy.
And then there’d be no more heartbroken calls from my mother. I could end the cycle. I could start something new—make the Fixer Upper into what it needed to be. Maybe I could teach men like Dylan—no pretense, no trickery, just a desire to grow up.
I had to help him leave me behind.
I shrugged nonchalantly, like every word wasn’t killing me. “You’re in love, you’re loved, you’re in your thirties. Famous or not, your girlfriend is going to be thinking about marriage. Those conversations are about figuring out if you are happy plodding along, as most people are when things are good enough, or you’re willing to take a step forward, to say yes, this is what I want long term. That’s it.”
Dylan looked so bemused I almost laughed. “Dyl, it’s really simple. Do you love her?”
“Yes, but . . .”
I shook my head, “Nope. Sorry. The rest is doubts and insecurity and fear of change. Peter Pan is fiction, and we all have to grow up sometime.” I tilted my head at him, going in for the kill. “Besides, you want to be that guy, right? The successful business type? Don’t you want to go home the day after you get that deal and tell your dad you were on the right path all along?”
He smiled that crooked smile and nodded at the table. “I guess you’re right. We are well suited, we even each other out. She’s so fun. And she’s shown me this whole other world I never even knew existed. I don’t want to live in it all the time, but . . . growing’s natural, right? Relationships develop.”
“Exactly. You two are great together. Honestly.”
Honestly?
His bright blue eyes zeroed in on me.
“So you’d be happy if I married Nicki?”
Why does this question feel like a trap?
“I’d be happy if you were happy. Isn’t that the whole point of our trip today? Mutual happiness?” I smiled widely, and he looked sad, shaking his head at me.
“Don’t do that.”
“What?”
“That camouflage smile, it doesn’t work on me. I’ve seen it too many times before.”
“It’s not . . . I’m mourning my promotion, I’m hungover, and I’m dispensing the same advice I was giving when we were teenagers. Give me a break, would you?” I stuffed a chip into my mouth and chewed furiously.
He took a breath.
“Are we ever going to talk about it? About us?”
I winced, swallowing my food, then pressed my fingers to my lips, my voice barely audible. “Don’t do this now, Dyl.”
“We need to, because I’m going to explode. Please”—he reached over and held my wrist, pleading with me—“please can we just be honest, just be us for five minutes?”
“You’re the one who started pretending!”
“I panicked!” Dylan threw up his hands. “Otherwise we’d have to do that whole oh, how are you, what are you up to, throwing around our life achievements, and I knew I would immediately disappoint you. And I was angry at you.”
“Well, I was angry at you, too.”
He jerked in surprise. “Me? What do you have to be angry about? I’m the one who got abandoned and blocked and never heard from you again!”
I looked around at the other patrons, all eerily quiet as they listened in on our argument, avoiding looking directly at us. I held my hands up and spoke quietly.
“I think we need to stop having this conversation.”
“Please, Aly, I’ve been patient, but we do need to—”
“I know, just . . . not here.”
He nodded and stood up. “Okay, let’s go.”
I gestured at my food. “We need to pay.”
“Already done. Let’s go.”
I followed him like I was on my way to the gallows, head down and following his feet, not daring to think or talk or argue. Somehow, this was going to be all my fault. I was going to stand there, ashamed, as I told him that I’d loved him once, and I’d discovered he’d never given a shit about me. I was going to make myself weak and vulnerable and embarrassed.
He led us out to the seafront, the waves making enough noise to cover us.
“Is that to hide the sound of my yelling?” I asked, gesturing at the sea.
“Maybe I just want to be able to chuck you in if you piss me off too much!”
I faced him, steadied myself, and put my hands up. “Okay, fine. So let’s be honest. Let’s be us. What do you want from me?”
“I want you to ask me to tell you something truthful!” he yelped in frustration, and I almost laughed.
“You want me to request trivia from you? Sure, hit me with your facts about South American bird migration, I’m all ears.”
He tugged at his hair, and I thought he was going to yell at me. “You know it’s more than that! You said yourself, you asked for truths so you knew people weren’t always lying to you. I need you to ask so when I say what I’ve gotta say, you’re going to know I’m not lying, okay? Please.”
Well, that knocked the fight out of me.
I looked at his face, so open and familiar, so desperate to have this moment that I’d been running from.
I took a breath to steady myself.
“Fine. Tell me something true, Dylan.”
He had clearly planned the exact thing he wanted to say, and I wondered if he’d rehearsed it, changed words until it was perfect. How many years had he wondered what he’d say to me if he saw me again?
“I loved you, and you ran away.”
A searing rage flowed through me, until I physically shook. I wanted to throw something at him.
“You didn’t love me!” I yelled, outraged. It was like those words broke the dam. “You had a girlfriend! You always had a girlfriend! That night you kissed me for a dare, I was drunk and I must have said something bad because you looked like I’d just punched you, and then in the morning you messaged your girlfriend about what an awful burden I was and you couldn’t wait to be rid of me! Don’t retell this story with you as the perfect hero, Dylan.”
His jaw physically dropped. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
I yelled, “I remember the look of horror on your face!”
He put his head in his hands, then walked away from me and yelled at the sea, hands clenched, arms outstretched. He bellowed into the waves until it drained from him. I felt like doing the same.
When he padded back over, his face blank, he stood close to me. There was no way to avoid those eyes.
“We”—he gestured between us—“are idiots.”
“None of this matters, Dyl, it was a long time ago . . .” I started.
“Are you kidding?!” he exploded. “You told me you loved me, that you’d always loved me!”
I cringed.
“Don’t try it, Aresti, all that ‘I was drunk’ crap won’t wash. You loved me.”
“Fine!” I yelled. “I loved you, so what?”
“I loved you back, you idiot!” he shouted, and suddenly I didn’t feel like yelling anymore.
“No . . . you messaged your girlfriend . . .”
His voice was softer, his eyes mournful. “I’d abandoned her at that party to look after you, and I didn’t know if anything you’d said was real. I was waiting for you to wake up and pretend it was all a mistake. So yes, I said what she expected me to say, to keep her happy until I could figure it out.”
“You loved me,” I said, frowning out at the sea as I dropped down to sit on the beach, grasping fistfuls of sand. “And not in a friend way?”
“No, not in a friend way.” He collapsed down beside me, and I could feel his eyes on me. “Is that so hard to believe?”
“Um, yeah, kind of.”
He closed his eyes and sighed, before turning back to me. “Couldn’t you tell in the way I kissed you? I thought it was a dead giveaway.”
“I was mainly focused on the sniggers of your popular friends, and your girlfriend with daggers in her eyes.”
“Right . . .” He nodded. “Well . . .”
“This is awkward,” I said, heart thumping, digging a hole in the sand with my thumb.
Dylan laughed. “Yep.”
“So why did you look so horrified in my memory?”
He pressed his lips together and tilted his head, considering, playing it back.
“Well, it could have been the shock; obviously I wasn’t expecting you to say anything like that. And you know what you’re like when you’re drunk, Aresti, so incredibly forthright and matter-of-fact . . . But thirty seconds after your romantic declaration, you vomited all over my favorite jeans. And my brand-new Converse.”
I blinked. “Ah, well, that’ll do it,” I said, before putting my head in my hands, cringing. “I don’t know if that’s better or worse than I was imagining.”
“Oh, mutually in love and miserable is much better. I couldn’t figure out if you cut me out of your life because you were embarrassed about what you’d said, or you’d sobered up and remembered what I’d said . . . It was a messy time.” Dylan tapped his knees through his threadbare jeans. “So, feel better?”
I looked at him, considering.
“I guess I feel sad for past us?” I offered, and he nodded, taking my hand and giving it a squeeze. My heart contracted just a little, his thumb grazing the back of my hand.
“Me too, mainly for all the years we could have been in each other’s lives if you weren’t such a drama queen.”
I made a face at him. “If you’d been chivalrous about my blue vomit, we could have been married by now,” I joked and stuck out my tongue.
He laughed, and it felt like I could breathe again. Like we could just be us. The boy I had loved had loved me back, and our insecurities kept us apart. And now we could move forward.
I thought about all the women who had hired me so far, how much love they had in them, how much they wanted to give, to help, that they would go through our whole charade. I thought about the wannabe rock star who was afraid to sing, the genius who couldn’t speak in front of crowds, the man hesitant to demand the promotion. I had gently nudged so many of them, built them up with kind words and belief until one day they’d looked in the mirror and seen what I’d told them they were. This would be my gift to Dylan. No longer afraid of his potential, knowing he was growing in the right direction. I’d give him a life he could be proud of.
We were past this now, we were done. No more tension, no more what-ifs. He had been my best friend, he had loved me. I had loved him. And now I’d help him love her, love their life together.
It was best for everyone.
“It’s been a lonely old life without you, Aly. Like I’ve been missing my conscience.”
“You seem to have been doing just fine without me.” I squeezed his hand and he smiled.
“You know what the best thing about all this is?” Dylan asked, pulling me across the sand toward him, arm around my waist to cuddle me close. “No more pretending. It’s been so exhausting.”
I could smell the spice of his aftershave and feel the softness of his jumper beneath my fingertips. I could see the hint of red in his stubble and count all of those beautiful eyelashes if I wanted to. I was right back where I was at eighteen, overwhelmed by the beauty of him.
No more secrets, no more pretending?
“Exhausting,” I agreed sadly, daring to rest my head on his shoulder, trying not to cry, “it really, really has been.”