Husband Material (London Calling #2)(14)

I buzzed on her buzzer, and she let me up without even checking who I was. Which was partly typical poor security on her part, but she did it with a sad edge.

She opened the door wearing a dressing gown two sizes too large for her, fuzzy slippers with half the fuzz worn off, and a look of profound melancholy.

“I got Caramel Chew Chew,” I told her. “Also one of those needlessly huge bars of Dairy Milk and also a Toblerone, but I think that might have been panic.”

“Come in.” She gave me the weakest effort at a smile I’d ever seen from her.

In some ways, Bridge’s flat was as messy as mine had been. It was just that in her case, it was a mess that said, I love everything so much that I can’t possibly bear to be parted from it because my world is full of beautiful memories and not I hate everything, and my pants live on the coffee table now. She sat down on the battered old sofa that she’d been dragging from flat to flat with her since we’d been at university and wrapped herself in an even more battered purple blanket that she’d been dragging with her even longer.

I tucked up next to her. “Just to establish some ground rules,” I said, “do we hate him and think he’s evil, or do we trust him and think it’s a misunderstanding?”

Bridge laugh-cried. “I don’t know. Either? Both. How could he do this to me?”

I thought both would be a bad call, so I picked a lane. And with uncharacteristic evenhandedness I picked the lane marked benefit of the doubt. “He might not have. Liz might have made a mistake.”

“Liz is pretty smart. Plus, she’s a vicar.”

“I don’t think that makes her infallible.”

“No, but it means I feel bad calling her a liar.” Bridge snapped off a triangle of Toblerone. “This was a good call, thanks. I don’t know why we only buy them at Christmas.”

I took a nibble of the Dairy Milk. There was an art to this kind of supportive binge—one I’d learned mostly from being on the other side of it. You needed to share enough that you weren’t just watching the other person eat but not take so much that you actually limited their access to comfort food. “I don’t think she’s lying, just that there’s lots of reasons Tom could be talking to a random woman in a café.”

“Name five.”

I nearly choked on my chocolate. “That’s not fair. Five is loads.”

“Okay.” Bridge pulled the blanket a little tighter around herself.

“Name three.”

“Old school friend, sister he’s never mentioned—”

“I’ve met his sister,” interrupted Bridge. “Also the woman in the photo was white.”

“Adopted sister we’ve never heard of.”

She gave me a disappointed look. “You’re only on the second one, and you’ve already gone to bad sitcom territory.”

“Hey, that trope has been in some very good sitcoms.”

“I’d ask you to name three but that’s how we got into this mess in the first place.”

“Fine.” I stared at the Toblerone for inspiration and found none forthcoming. “What if he’s hiring her to set up a lovely surprise for your wedding, and when he tells you what it is, you’ll be so overjoyed that you forget this ever happened?”

Bridge glanced up suspiciously from the Caramel Chew Chew.

“What sort of surprise?”

“Maybe he’s…he’s arranging a flash mob to do ‘All You Need Is Love’?”

For about eighteen nanoseconds, Bridge let this idea calm her. “I do love Love Actually.”

“Hell, maybe he’s even arranging for some creeper with a camcorder to take stalkery footage of you all night.”

The eighteen nanoseconds were over. “Or maybe he’s cheating on me like Alan Rickman. What if he bought that woman a necklace?

What if he got her sex and a necklace? What if—”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” I put my hands up. “I know I started this, but we can’t just go through every subplot in that entire movie. If we do, you’ll wind up being worried that he’s going to ditch your wedding to get drunk and watch porn with Bill Nighy.”

Bridge flopped back on the sofa. “Is everything going to be a little bit worse now?”

If the Love Actually gambit had been a plan, I’d have felt bad because it had taken us to a very unhelpful place. As it was, I felt bad because I was shit at this. “No,” I tried. “Tom is not Alan Rickman, you are not Emma Thompson, and that woman definitely isn’t… Okay, I admit I don’t know who plays the secretary.”

“Heike Makatsch,” said Bridget immediately.

And I briefly wondered if the way to keep her spirits up was giving her plenty of opportunities to correct me on rom-com trivia.

“How did you know that?”

“It’s my favourite film.”

“Even though at least half the stories are incredibly problematic?”

“Yes.” She gave me a defiant look. “Now pass me the other ice cream.”

I passed, and for a while we just sat like that, curled up on the sofa dual-wielding frozen dairy products and watching romantic movies from the early 2000s. Every half hour or so, we paused so Bridge could try unsuccessfully to reach Tom.