Second Chance - Jane Green [101]
‘Don’t be. I’ll call you when I can.’
She hangs up to find Olivia looking at her with raised eyebrows.
‘What?’ Holly says although she is flushing with guilt.
‘Sounds like there’s more to the story.’
‘What? The phone call?’ Holly attempts to laugh it off. ‘That was just a friend. Oh God. Okay. It was Will.’
Olivia tilts her head. ‘Oh I didn’t realize. Thought it might have been some other dangerously sexy, single, completely gorgeous man.’
Holly laughs. ‘I thought he wasn’t your type?’
‘Only because men that perfect terrify me.’
‘There’s nothing going on. I promise you. We’re not having an affair.’
‘Holly,’ Olivia says, ‘I couldn’t care less whether there’s anything going on. And I’m hardly in a position to judge, given that I’m pregnant after what was basically a four-night stand.’
‘But there really isn’t anything going on.’
‘You don’t have to explain anything to me. Anyway, Will is lovely, and Tom was never very keen on Marcus so I know he’d approve.’
Holly is stunned. Tom not keen on Marcus? He never said anything, never gave her any indication he didn’t like him.
‘What did Tom say about Marcus?’
Olivia groans. ‘Oh God. Here I go again, putting my foot in it.’ She sighs. ‘Oh well, in for a penny, in for a pound. Do you remember that time Tom and Sarah met you and Marcus for a drink, somewhere in the West End, I think, one of the bars?’
‘Yes. It was the Blue Bar at the Berkeley. Marcus’s idea.’
‘I don’t know if I should tell you this…’
‘You can’t not.’ Holly flashes her a look, the anticipation almost too much for her to bear.
‘Okay, so Tom apparently made it clear that the drinks were on him, and Marcus looked at the menu and when the waiter came he looked at Tom with a raised eyebrow and asked, “Do you mind?”’
‘Do you mind what?’ Holly tries to remember that night but can’t.
‘Well, that’s exactly what Tom thought, so he said no, not at all. And then, when the bill came…’ Olivia tails off, wincing at having to tell Holly, who clearly has no idea. ‘He’d ordered a glass of cognac.’
‘I vaguely remember.’
‘It cost a hundred and twenty-five pounds.’
‘What?’ Holly almost chokes. ‘What?’ She is aghast.
‘I know.’ Olivia’s face is pained. ‘Tom was completely horrified.’
‘But, but…’ Holly splutters. ‘Who does that? Who in the hell does that?’
‘Marcus, it would seem.’
Holly shakes her head. ‘Oh my God, that’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard. He knew Tom was paying so he ordered that. I don’t even know what to say. It’s just so fucking Marcus, and…’ She groans.
‘I’m so embarrassed.’
‘After that,’ Olivia continues, ‘it was pretty much all downhill. He just never got it. He never understood why you got together, what you saw in him. He said that Marcus was pompous beyond belief. He always said that you hadn’t changed, that you were still as down-to-earth as you’d been at school, and he never understood how you put up with Marcus. So, bottom line is, I would think Tom would be delighted if there was something going on with you and Will.’
At that they both lean forward and look up at the sky, then look back at one another and burst out laughing.
It’s dark by the time they bump over the old gravel driveway that leads up to the barn. The children are fast asleep in the back, and Holly and Olivia haven’t stopped talking for a second, discussing everything from how they feel about the things in their lives, to whether they are where they expected to be, and where were the forks that might have led them down a different path.
And Holly realizes that, given the events of the morning, she is exactly where she is supposed to be.
With friends that feel more like family, not because of her closeness to them now, but because of the strength of a shared history. They know her mother, she knows theirs. She knows their brothers and sisters, who they were before they adopted the mantle of adulthood, the mantle of who they thought they were supposed to be.
And it may only have been a few hours, may be, as Holly suspects, the vaguest separation in the history of separations,