Page 42 of Good at Being Alive
“I would never discuss something like that on camera,” I tell him as he pulls onto the road. “Do you think it would have changed things, if she’d told you?”
His jaw shifts. “I know it would have,” he grits out. “If he’d heard it from me instead of some fucking journalist, if he hadn’t been alone…”
He trails off, but I can figure out the rest.
It must have been a lot to contend with at once. Before his brother died, Theo was the head of a really successful company, had a brother he was close to, and was, theoretically, happily engaged. A year after, he’d lost all of it, and was guilty about his brother’s death to boot.
“What happened to your money?” I ask. I might as well get all the questions out now, and this is one that’s bothered me for a while. “You sold your big company, but you claim to have even less than I do, so what happened?”
He pulls up in front of my hotel and puts the car in park. “I used a chunk of it to buy Kieran’s share of Families Travel from his wife, and the rest is in a trust I can’t touch.”
It sounds like he basically made two really bad investment decisions, but I’ve fought with him enough for one night.
I reach for the door. “Well, I’d thank you for a lovely evening but…” I let my shrug say the rest.
He ignores this. “What do you have planned for tomorrow?”
My shoulders sag. “There’s this restaurant my family was supposed to eat at our first night here with this press-for-champagne button. I’ve got a reservation there at eight.”
“Alone?”
I swallow. It seemed like the kind of thing Ishoulddo, under the circumstances, but now I’m not so sure. “Well, I don’t know anyone in London, so unless you’re open to me going on British Tinder—”
“It’s just called Tinder here, Rebecca, and I am not.”
“Then yes, I’m going there alone.”
He appears to dislike this as well, frowning as I reach for the door. He frowns atmea lot for someone whose friends are such dicks.
“Does it not concern you at all that two of your oldest friends tried to make you look bad?” I ask, turning toward him.
He doesn’t entirely meet my eye. “They both have their own things going on right now.”
I already know he won’t say more, and I wish he would. Even if he gave me a few of his secrets tonight, it still wasn’t enough.
I want all of them.
• • •
I wake to a sunny but cool London morning, with no sign of the weather system currently drowning Amsterdam. I don the sweatshirt Theo got me, though it’s just as dorky as it was a few days ago, and head out, darting around the city by Tube and taxi to get in as much as possible.
I race through Westminster Abbey and the Tower ofLondon. I rush from there to the City of London, giving St. Paul’s only the most cursory glance before I wander in search of all the streets named after what they once sold: Bread Street sold bread, Honey Lane sold honey, Cock Lane sold…prostitutes. That fact would have made Bronwyn laugh while Jessie rolled her eyes, so I’d have brought it up more than once.
I conclude by taking the Tube to Covent Garden and standing in line for the ice cream Bronwyn wanted to try. The girls ahead of me chatter to each other, checking their phones. That would have been us—me dealing with drunken texts from Brian back on the West Coast, her telling me to block him while lamenting Theo’s absence.
My appetite has dwindled to nothing by the time I reach the kiosk. I order rhubarb with hot custard because that’s what Bronwyn would have gotten—she always ordered the strangest combinations—and then I burst into tears and walk off without waiting for it to arrive.
For the first time I wonder if going to the press-for-champagne restaurant is a good idea after all. I suspect it’s not, but it just feels like something I have to do. As if I’m closing some loop, and things will be better once it’s done, though I already know they won’t.
Two hours later I’m in a dress Jessie would havehatedand calling a car to take me to the restaurant and more certain than ever that tonight is going to hurt.
“Bob Bob Ricard?” asks the driver, his eyes dropping to my cleavage. “Someone’s splashing out for this date.”
“I’m not going on a date. My family was—” I pause. Theo suggested I stop referencing my dead family all the time and he perhaps had a point. Just because I find it funny to make strangers uncomfortable doesn’t mean it’s actually funny. “I heard it was good, and I’m not in London very often.”
His eyes fall to my cleavage again. I wish I’d worn aturtleneck because he’s going to get us killed. “You’re eatingalone? At Bob Bob Ricard?”
“It didn’t seem especially weird untilnow,” I reply, though I guess Theo said the same thing.
