Million Love Songs(87)

Standing, I pick up my bag. ‘I hope it works out for you.’ I sound so brave, that I almost believe it myself.

Joe stands too and, I can’t help myself, I go to him and he takes me in his arms. He holds me tight, rocking me against him and I let my tears flow. He kisses my hair, strokes my face and I feel that I’ll never be able to let him go.

When we’ve stood there for too, too long locked in our final embrace, unwilling to let go, he eventually says, ‘Goodbye, Ruby.’

‘Goodbye, Joe. Give my love to the kids.’

Then before I lose my dignity completely, I walk away. I get in my car and somehow, through a blur of tears, manage to drive round the corner until I’m out of sight of Sunshine Meadows. Then I pull to the side of the road and I cry and cry and cry until I feel that my eyeballs might drop out of my head.





Chapter Eighty-One





‘Shit,’ Charlie says when I tell her.

‘Yeah.’ I haven’t gone into work as I can’t stop crying. Mason will be hacked off with me but I couldn’t care less. I may not have known Joe all that long, but I feel devastated.

Charlie came straight over and now we’re sitting on the sofa bingeing on Take That DVDs. ‘Gary will cheer us up,’ she says, confidently.

So we watch the lads strut their stuff and sing along with them. I bawl my eyes out at all the sad songs – ‘Back for Good, ‘Love Ain’t Here Anymore’ and ‘Pray’ are particularly difficult. Though Charlie is slightly disappointed that I don’t know all the lyrics off by heart.

‘He told me he loves me,’ I sob in Charlie’s arms.

‘Fucker,’ is her verdict.

But Joe’s not a fucker, he’s a nice man and I’ve lost him.

We eat a tub of Ben & Jerry’s each – Cookie Dough for Charlie, Baked Alaska for me – glug our way through a bottle of wine apiece, then scoff two bags of Thai Sweet Chilli Sensations and a bar of 70% Lindt.

Then, when that has made me feel no better, we send out for pizza. Extra large ones. Hawaiian with extra pineapple for Charlie. Meaty Treat for me. And garlic bread. And coleslaw. Even though I don’t even like coleslaw. We polish off the lot.

If this is comfort eating, it’s not working. Charlie just wants to be sick and I still feel like crap.





Chapter Eighty-Two





Weeks go by. I haul myself through my shifts, struggling to find a smile even for the regulars who I like. Yet my tired heart hasn’t stopped hoping for the call that says Joe has made a big mistake and it’s me he wants after all. Yeah. Was that a pig I saw flying across the sky? Plus the weather has taken a turn for the worse and it’s not like summer at all. It’s more like December – cold with freezing rain. Even that’s coming out in sympathy with me. No one should be this miserable in blazing sun.

Charlie shoots off straight after her shift as she’s going to a concert with some of the people from her Take That forum including Nice Paul. I don’t want to go home to my empty flat, so I hang around in the bar talking to Jay about nothing in particular and having a double espresso in the hope that an excess of caffeine might lift my flagging spirits.

Then Jay has to go off and tend to his accounts and I’m just thinking about gathering my stuff together when Mason comes in. He brushes the rain from his immaculate hair and strides across the bar towards me.

‘Hey,’ he says. ‘I hoped to catch you.’

I hold up my hands. ‘Consider me caught.’

He drops into the armchair opposite to me. ‘I need to talk to you about the Christmas menu and possible events.’

‘Get lost, Mason. It’s not even August.’

‘You know what it’s like, the office parties will be beating the door down soon. We have to get ahead of the crowd.’

Even though I know he’s right, I bat back, ‘I don’t want to talk about naffing Christmas. Come back to me in December. I might be in the mood by then.’

‘Grouchy today, Brown,’ he notes. ‘And looking like a wet weekend in Weston-super-Mare, if you don’t mind me saying.’

‘Thanks. I do mind you saying.’

‘Charlie said you’d been dumped.’

I look at him aghast. ‘What?’ All I can do is shake my head in disbelief. Wait until I see Charlie.

‘Well, she may have dressed it up with more girlie words, but that was the gist of it. Is it true?’

‘Yes,’ I concur. ‘I have been dumped.’ From a great height.

He actually smiles. ‘The good news is, I’m still available.’

‘Whoop-de-doo.’

‘You’re lucky, Brown. I could have been snapped up. Only this week I took out Sherene Taylor from Girls About Town. She was very keen.’

‘Really?’ Girls About Town is a hideous reality show that Charlie and I are addicted to. Sherene is actually quite hot, but doesn’t appear to have been allocated her fair share of brain cells. ‘You’re saying that I’m on a par with a Z-list celeb?’

‘Look, I get it.’ He sighs at me in an exasperated manner. ‘Your heart’s broken and all that guff, but come out with me. I’ll take your mind off it. We can have some fun.’