Haven
“It’s Saturday night. We have to go out,” Ash whined.
“I’m not stopping you,” I replied.
“You totally are. You’re my only friend. I can’t go out on my own.”
I rolled my eyes. Ash only wanted to get me out talking to other men to take my mind off Jake. It had been nearly two weeks since I’d last seen him. All the books I was reading and songs I was listening to were telling me how it would get better in time, but each day seemed more painful than the last. I knew I’d made the right decision. He was free to spend as much time with Millie as he really, truly, in his heart wanted to. He didn’t have to think about how jealous it was going to make his girlfriend. He could fly to Chicago and see his father, he could concentrate on his new business. But that didn’t mean it didn’t feel like a red-hot poker in my stomach all day, every day. Scared of completely falling apart, I did my best to keep my longing for Jake hidden, zipped up inside me. If no one else saw the effect on me without him, then maybe the feelings within me would just disappear.
“Jesus, your fridge is barren apart from ketchup. When was the last time you ate?” Ash called from the kitchen. I didn’t respond. Food hadn’t exactly been the top of my priority list. “Not even any ice cream. That’s it, there’s no way we can stay in.” I heard the freezer door slam shut and Ash pad back into the living room. “You keep telling me how you made the right decision about Jake, but I don’t think even you believe it.” She started gathering up empty glasses and mugs from where they were scattered about, carrying them back into the kitchen.
“I do. I didn’t say it wasn’t going to hurt, though.”
“Well, going out, even if it’s just for a drink, will help distract you. You might start to function like a normal person again.”
The only person more stubborn than me was Ash. She wasn’t going to take no for an answer. And she was right. I had to accept Jake was gone, and at least act as if I had started to move on. “Okay, an hour. And as long as you don’t want me to do anything to my hair. I’m either putting it up or leaving it like this,” I bargained. I knew my hair could do with a wash, but even the simplest of things seemed to take all my energy. My laundry was piling up and I hadn’t changed my bed linens since Jake left. At first it had been because I could still smell him on my pillow, but now the thought of the sheer effort that was required to put clean sheets on the bed filled me with horror.
“Two hours and can you put some dry shampoo through it?”
“Not a minute past two hours? And fuck off with your dry shampoo.”
“Do a shot of tequila with me before we go out, I will no longer care about your hair. Deal?”
“Deal.”
Jake
I arrived at exactly seven o’clock. I expected Millie to be still getting ready, but she answered the door with her coat on.
“You ready?” I asked.
“Don’t I look ready?” she asked, tilting her shoulder up slightly, and glancing at me from under her lashes.
“You look lovely.” She did. She always looked beautiful. It was just difficult to see it through the rest of her crap.
“Thank you. You look very handsome, too. But you always do, Harry.”
I smiled and led her out of her apartment. “I brought the car, but we can walk to the Italian place,” I said.
“Actually, I booked us something in Soho.”
“Millie . . .”
“What? I’m treating you, remember? I want to take you somewhere nice.” She grinned at me.
“Isn’t this nice?” Millie asked, scanning the restaurant before her eyes rested on me.
“Sure,” I replied. A happy Millie was much easier to handle than a miserable one.
“They do a thing with black cod here which is meant to be amazing. It was in Tatler last month.”
“Tatler?” I asked. I thought Rallegra was a vacuous magazine but Tatler was elitist and vacuous.
“They have the best recommendations. This place is super-hot right now. I can’t believe I managed to get a table.”
I couldn’t tell if Millie was simply ignoring me or just didn’t notice my reaction to her reading material.
“I like that Italian place by you.”
“Harry, don’t be a spoil sport. Anyway, I can’t eat pasta. I don’t do carbs.”
“Jesus. You’re not dieting when you’re pregnant! You have to think of the baby, for crying out loud.” A crash exploded in my head. This situation was ridiculous. She was so selfish and trying to be nice to her in the hopes that she would do the right thing by me and my child was utterly futile.
I wanted to leave. The fact that I was having dinner with Millie and not Haven was unacceptable. Even if I couldn’t have Haven, there was no way I was going to go back to Millie or someone like her. If necessary, I’d take Millie to court to get joint custody of our child. I wasn’t going to mollycoddle her anymore.
“I’m not dieting. I’m just being careful,” she said softly. At least she had the good grace to blush.
“You need to be healthy. Are you even taking folic acid?”
“Um, yes, I’m doing everything the doctor recommended. But sometimes it’s hard, especially when I’m on my own.” She sounded sad again. Was she trying to make me feel bad for wanting her to take fucking vitamins? There was no need for us to spend time together. I’d been an idiot for indulging her. I looked down at my plate. I couldn’t wait to leave here and get home, away from Millie.
“Let’s change the subject. Did you find a new flat you like?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Really? So Beth is moving out? That’s amazing. Can I come and see it?”
“Maybe,” I replied. There was no way she was going to see my place. I wanted to keep it separate from her. Things needed to switch to a different setting between us.
“Do you need a hand picking furniture? You need to make sure you go classic, rather than modern bachelor. I saw a great mirror in Elle Interiors this month, it would look fabulous—”
“Stop.” If I could render her mute until I dropped her off, that would be ideal. I could be working at the moment, rather than wasting time with someone who didn’t deserve my attention.
The silence between us only lasted a few minutes.
“Did you show your parents the video of the ultrasound?” Millie asked, bringing the conversation back to the baby.
I shook my head.
“Doesn’t your mother want to see?”
Had I told her my mother had died? I couldn’t remember. I hadn’t told my dad about the pregnancy. It wasn’t that I thought Millie was lying, but there was something stopping me from telling people. The only people who knew were Beth and Haven. It felt as if I was living in some kind of limbo and when things started to become more concrete, with Elemental Energy, with the new flat, with my dad and the baby, then I’d be able to put words around my future.
I shrugged. “How’s your sister?” I asked, trying to change the subject. If Millie was talking about herself then she couldn’t be asking me questions. I just needed to get to the end of this meal and then renegotiate our relationship. It wasn’t working for me. I was done indulging her. Done with her trying to engineer something more between us, and done with spending any more time with her than was absolutely necessary.
“She’s good. She’s been with Matthew a few months now. I think she’s hoping for a ring at any moment. When they get engaged, they’ll move in together. I’ll be on my own apart from you and the baby.”
“You won’t be on your own. You have your parents and your friends. Your sister isn’t moving to a new country. Anyway, she’s not engaged yet.”
“Oh, she will be by the end of the year, whether or not it’s to Matthew.”
I drew my eyebrows together. “What do you mean?”
“She was always going to be engaged by twenty-five. And she’s twenty-five in December.”
“But what if she hasn’t found the right guy by December? Or what if Matthew doesn’t ask her?”
“She’ll give Matthew until the end of the summer and then if he hasn’t proposed, she’ll dump him and have three months to find someone else,” she said.
“But she’s in love with Matthew?”
Millie shrugged. “I guess. He has family money. They make a good couple.”
Everything she said cemented my feelings, or lack of them, for Millie. Relationships weren’t about love to her. She reminded me how what I’d felt for Haven had been so different, so amazing. Now I couldn’t imagine my life any other way. I relaxed. I’d been trying to find something in Millie that just didn’t exist. I could accept that now. I’d made a decision to take her out of my life as far as possible, and it felt good.
“It’s so great to spend time together like this, isn’t it?” Millie said, scanning the restaurant again, no doubt searching for famous faces. It was the last time we would ever spend time together like this.
Haven
It was about nine by the time we finally got out. I had given in and washed my hair. Ash was right; I needed to feel as though my life was moving forward.
Ash told the cab to head toward Soho. “Where are we going?”
“To find hot men who want to shower us with attention,” Ash replied.
“Really?” I was grinning at her. The night sounded increasingly promising. “We’re going out with the gays?”
Ash grinned. “Old Compton Street,” she said to the driver. “Everyone needs more gay in their life.”
“That’s exactly what we need.” I was excited for the first time in I couldn’t remember how long. Maybe I would enjoy myself. I was beginning to remember what happy felt like, even if I wasn’t feeling it at the moment, there was a possibility that I might. Especially when men were off the menu—straight men anyway. I wasn’t close to being ready for a straight bar. The thought of trying to find someone new, waiting to be approached by a guy only for it to happen and for him to be too short, too weird, too boring. In Old Compton Street, all the men were fixated on each other and would want nothing from me but a dance partner. Kylie Minogue and gay men—the ultimate heartbreak cure.
As we got out of the cab, noise and heat assaulted me. It felt as if everyone was on holiday. The windows of the bars and restaurants that lined the road were thrown open, and people were spilling out into the street, making their way from one place to another so that you didn’t know where one party ended and the next one started. In every direction, groups of friends and couples threw back shots and sang along to whatever music was playing closest. Everyone’s joy surrounded me. It slid through me and lifted my mood. It was the first time since I’d left Jake that I thought I might just make it through.
Ash led the way into what used to be a favorite bar of ours and we headed through the crowds to find some shots of our own. “What can I get you two beautiful ladies?” the gorgeous barman asked.
“Can we order you?” Ash asked, fluttering her eyelashes.
He grinned. “If I ever decide to play for the other team, you will be first on my list,” he replied. “In the meantime, what cocktail can I make for you?”
“I’ll have a screaming orgasm please,” Ash said with a wink.
“I bet you have plenty of those in your life,” the barman said.
“Yeah, but unfortunately most of them are self-inflicted. This one,” she said, tilting her head to me, “will have a cosmo.”
We got our drinks and headed to a table by the folded back windows so we could, when we’d had enough to drink, touch the tight t-shirted men walking by.
“Why are gay men so much better looking than straight men?” Ash asked.
“Genetics? And they care more about their appearance than straight men.”
“Not more than George,” Ash said.
George was Ash’s ex-boyfriend. He was very definitely a metrosexual. “No. Not more than George. Unlike you, I refuse to date anyone who puts more effort into how they look than I do. It’s not what nature intended.”
“That’s a low bar. Most men shower,” Ash said, beaming at me.
I laughed. “Hey, I shower. And I wear makeup and look at me! No hair where it shouldn’t be. I even shaved my legs for you tonight.”
“And I’m mighty grateful. But you’d have been fine to leave them, you would have just been mistaken for a tranny.”
We laughed and it felt good. I hadn’t used my laughing muscles recently.
“You ladies seem like you’re having a good time, can we share your table?” A beautiful looking black man said as two almost as beautiful men loitered behind him.
“On one condition,” I said.
“Name it,” he replied.
“I want your friend’s hat for the evening.” His blond friend, sporting a bright pink cowboy hat, took it off and placed it on my head.
“It’s on loan, mind. I’m seeing Dolly next month and it’s part of the uniform,” he said.
“Understood, cowboy, I wouldn’t want Ms. Parton disappointed in you.” I winked at him and they all took their seats.
“Okay, I’m going to get some shots, do you boys want in?” Ash asked as she jumped to her feet.
“No Sambuca, Ash, please—”
“Hey, isn’t that—” Ash pointed out of the window at something and then quickly turned back to me.
“What?” I asked, briefly turning in the direction she had indicated.
“Nothing, I just thought I saw something,” she said quietly. “No Sambuca, got it.”
“What?” I asked, ignoring her efforts to try and change the topic. I turned properly so I could see what had caught her attention.
I wished I hadn’t. It was the unmistakable sight of Jake. My heart actually stopped beating and I couldn’t breathe. How I missed him. My Jake. He had his back to me and I realized he was opening a car door . . . for Millie.
I kept watching as he rounded the hood and settled in on the other side. He was laughing as he drove away.
“Haven,” Ash said.
I downed my cosmo. “I want to go home and drink a lot of tequila, in private where it doesn’t matter if I vomit.” I took off my hat, stood up and walked toward the exit.