The Guilt Trip(2)

“But…” he protests.

“I’ll stay here with the cases and wait for Noah and Paige.”

“Why don’t I do that?” asks Jack.

“Because if you don’t find the passport, you’ve got just enough time to shoot back to Ali’s. You’ll be quicker than I will and besides, you’ve already got six points on your license, so what’s the harm in three more?” She winks at him, trying to inject some much-needed humor into the situation, but his jawline is set and his eyes are fixed on the departures board.

“I’ll hold the fort and explain the situation to the others when they get here.”

“And what happens if we don’t get back in time?” asks Ali breathlessly.

“Then we’ll have to get the next available flight,” says Rachel, smiling, although the thought of sitting at Gatwick airport for any longer than is absolutely necessary fills her with a sense of dread. “It’s only Will we’ve got to worry about—none of your other guests are arriving until late tomorrow, so we’ve got plenty of time.”

“But he’ll be there on his own if we don’t make it out by tonight,” says Ali tearfully.

“I’m sure he’s spent worse nights on his expeditions around Asia,” says Rachel. “I don’t think a villa in Portugal is going to faze him.”

“Jack, would you mind?” says Ali, turning to face him with her best little-girl-lost look. “I wouldn’t know how to get back to the parking lot if you paid me.”

He looks at Rachel as if to say, “Are you really going to make me do this?”

Rachel doesn’t know why Ali seems to rub him up the wrong way so much. They used to get on really well—at least until they stopped working together. It was Jack who introduced her to his brother Will in the first place, so he only has himself to blame for bringing her into the family. But ever since Will and Ali announced their engagement, it’s as if everything she says and does irritates him.

Even last night, when Ali texted Rachel that she couldn’t sleep because she was sure she heard a noise downstairs, he was unsympathetic.

“Tell her to handle it herself,” he snapped.

“That’s not fair,” said Rachel. “She’s in the house on her own, unused to being without Will, and she’s spooked.”

“Tell her to ring him then—she’s his problem now.”

The way he said it struck alarm bells for Rachel, because Jack was usually the first to volunteer to fit a CCTV camera for his parents or a security bolt for Mrs. Wickes next door. She was sure he’d even popped in to check on Ali in the early days when Will was still gallivanting and she was feeling vulnerable. So what had changed?

“She thinks she’s heard some glass breaking,” said Rachel.

Jack had stopped doing his push-ups on the bedroom floor and turned to look at her with an exasperated expression.

“She lives twenty minutes away,” he said. “Do you honestly want me to go all the way over there because she’s said she heard a noise?”

“I just know what it feels like when you’re on your own late at night,” Rachel said, without answering the question.

“Yes, but thankfully, you don’t make a mountain out of every molehill, like she does.”

“She doesn’t mean any harm by it,” said Rachel.

“Well, let’s just hope that this is the only mountain she’s going to be creating over the next few days.”

As Jack and Ali walk back in the direction they came from, with her half-skipping to keep up, Rachel can tell, just by Jack’s gait, that he’s seriously pissed off. The ice-cold pint of lager that he’d no doubt imagined having with Noah on the other side of security looks highly unlikely. At this rate, the best he can hope for is a lukewarm can on the plane, if they make it back in time.

“Hey,” says Paige as she dashes across the departures concourse toward Rachel, with her husband Noah following. “Where is everyone?”

Rachel throws an arm around Paige’s back as she pulls her friend in for a brief hug. “You wouldn’t believe it if I told you.”

Paige furrows her brow. “Is everything all right? Where’s Jack? And weren’t you picking Ali up?”

“No; likely to be halfway around the M25; and yes, we did.”

Noah looks perplexed as he kisses Rachel’s cheek. “So, what’s going on?”

“Ali seems to have mislaid her passport,” says Rachel. “They’ve gone back to find it.”

Paige rolls her eyes. “Oh God, has it started already?”

Rachel smiles and nods. “It’s a bit early in the proceedings, even for Ali.”

“What did I tell you?” says Paige, turning to Noah. “I said to him on the way down here that something would happen … that there was bound to be one crisis or another.”

Rachel looks to Noah, who rolls his eyes theatrically.

“But you know what men are like,” Paige goes on, as Noah’s mimicking her behind her back. “They’re completely oblivious to it all.”

Rachel nods in agreement, knowing that when her friend is on one of her rants, it’s best to let her get on with it.

“As long as she bats those long eyelashes of hers at them, they let her get away with murder,” Paige goes on.