Million Love Songs(26)

As Charlie slices into her bacon, she says, ‘I’m waiting for you to start.’

‘I’m confused,’ I tell her.

‘You’re a muppet.’

‘I didn’t mean to go out with him. It just kind of happened.’ I toy with my brekky even though I thought I was hungry when I ordered it. ‘It felt very natural.’ And a little bit reckless.

‘Did you spend the night with him?’

‘No way.’

‘I bet he asked you to though.’

She’s not wrong. Charlie never really seems to be. ‘It was in the heat of the moment. We’d both had a lot to drink.’

‘Ah, sparkly coloured drinks. The root of all evil.’

My headache agrees with her. If Charlie’d been there then she might feel differently. He treated me nicely, we had fun and he’s a bright, ambitious guy. ‘I kind of like him.’

‘No.’ Charlie holds up a hand. ‘You can like anyone else in the world except Shagger Soames.’

‘Can’t I just have a little bit of fun with him?’

‘No.’

‘I promise I’d tell you everything.’

‘Urgh. I wouldn’t want to know.’

‘You so would.’

She cracks. ‘You’re right, I would.’

‘Since Simon left, I’ve lost all of my confidence. Mason makes me feel young and sexy again. Desirable even. Is that so wrong?’

‘He’s playing you, Ruby. You’re my dearest friend, I don’t want to bring you down, but he does it to everyone.’

I know he has a reputation. I know that. But he seems so sincere too. Can you really fake a reaction like we both had after The Kiss? It seemed genuine enough to me.

‘I just don’t want you to get hurt,’ she adds. ‘My bad-boy antennae is on red alert with him.’

There’s no doubt that he’s on the naughty side, but maybe that’s what I need right now. Joe is lovely, no doubt, but he’s weighed down with cares and commitments. I don’t want to take those on.

‘Sometimes you have to take risks though, don’t you?’ I ask her. ‘I don’t want one mistake to define the rest of my life. Sometimes you have to trust your instinct. Isn’t that what love is about? Otherwise, we’d both end up in love with cardboard cut-out Gary Barlow for ever.’

‘There are worse things,’ she says.

‘Mason ticks a lot of boxes. The main one being that he doesn’t have any baggage. No children, no tricky ex-wife. That has to count for something. My instinct says that Mason Soames is an OK bloke.’

‘If you’re going to insist on falling in love again, I don’t want you to fall for a bloke who’s OK. He has to be totally fabulous.’

Maybe that’s the impossible dream though. Like Charlie holding out for Gary Barlow. While I’m pondering this, she leans over and nicks my sausage. When I open my mouth to protest, she holds up a hand. ‘You’re looking far too smug with yourself,’ she says. ‘This is your punishment. Take it on the chin.’

So I let Charlie eat my sausage and wonder what will happen next time I see Mason Soames.





Chapter Twenty-Three





What happens is that Mason doesn’t come into the pub for the next few days – which I think may be a good thing. I can’t help having a surreptitious glance at the car park whenever a throaty car roars in though, which unsettles me slightly. Charlie’s words have struck home. She’s right. I should keep Mason at arm’s length. I know that I shouldn’t be thinking about him as much as I am. And I know that I should never have kissed him. I like this job. I need this job. If it all goes wrong and he starts being funny with me, I could be out of work. Remember that, Ruby Brown.

Also, I’m thinking of not going to my scuba-diving lesson tonight. I know that I’ll have wasted the money I spent on the course, but … well … err … gahdohmehgrrrpfft. My head feels all scrambled. I’m thinking about Mason, I’m thinking about Joe. It’s a good job I’m not at work as no one would be getting their right orders today.

I should go to my diving lesson, shouldn’t I? There must be a saying about not giving up in the face of adversity. If there is, I can’t think of it. I want to change my life, but my plan was to simplify it and have some fun. Instead, I seem to be making it more complicated by the minute. I’d ask Charlie, but I’m not sure I’d like her advice. Oh, God. Life should get easier once you leave the playground, but it doesn’t. Then you think you’ll have it sorted in your teens and you don’t. So you hurtle into your twenties when you’re sure you’ll crack the meaning of life. Yet here I am in my late thirties and I’m still all at sea. I haven’t even got Relationships sorted.

It’s my day off and I need to grab some shopping as there is nothing but wine and wilted lettuce in my fridge. I need some fresh air too. Usually, I try to do a lap or two of shuffling around the lake during the week, but there’s a stiff breeze blowing today and I’m not feeling like being biffed about by the wind. Yet a bit of a walk will help to clear my head and burn off some of those calories from that late-nite chip and gin fest earlier in the week. So, instead of heading into the shopping centre, I go up to our nearest little market town on the outskirts of Milton Keynes. Stony Stratford has an old-fashioned high street with quirky little independent shops.