Page 31 of The Best Ex of My Life

‘Let’s. So, will you help me out? Will you get us all together?’

‘Remind me again why I have to be the one who throws the dinner party. In fact, tell me the bit again about why it has to be a dinner party at all, will you?’

‘Because if we meet in a pub, we’ll end up sitting in our couples, not talking properly, not making eye contact with our exes. It will be awkward, and before long, someone will take the chance to slip away. The night will be over before it’s begun, and that will be that. But if we’re in your flat, we’ll be forced to move past how we all got together, to face it head on and get any awkwardness out of the way. I don’t want to keep our love lives separate from our friendship. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to all go out together on dates? We’ve never done that, and it’s a shame. It would be so much fun triple dating with you and Ted! All we need to do is go through one night facing our exes round a table and we’ll be sorted.’

‘Karina,’ I say, my voice as earnest as I can get it. ‘That sounds truly horrendous.’

‘Maybe, but it needs to happen. I need to know what Teddy and Matthew are going to be like when they meet up, if they can be friends or not. If it is a disaster, better I know that now instead of a few more months down the line, when there’s every chance I will be falling for him.’

Like she’s not already.

I’m in my flat on my own, but I find myself nodding to no one. I get it. Karina’s trying to protect her heart, a heart that, despite what she says, is already well on its way to being filled with Matthew. As much as she likes him, she would never want to risk her friendship with Teddy because of it, and she has to know if Teddy can handle them being together.

‘Fine,’ I relent. ‘You can have your dinner party, but you’ll need to get Teddy to agree to it, and I wouldn’t bet on that being easy.’

Karina hangs up and a message appears on our group chat a few minutes later to say I’m hosting a dinner party. Teddy’s reply is almost instant.

TEDDY: Hell yes! Sounds great. Me and El would love to come.

Shit.

‘Which one do you want?’ Karina asks, holding up two different bottles of Barolo as I manoeuvre the heavy trolley towards her.

‘I don’t know, which one would you go for?’

‘Given how much all that food you’ve loaded up is going to cost, I’d probably say the cheaper one.’

‘Agreed. Let’s get three bottles of that.’

Karina loads up the wine, and I swear I hear the sound of the trolley buckling under the weight.

‘Right,’ I say, consulting my list. ‘Next up, dessert.’

I lead Karina from one side of the supermarket to the other to get back to the fruit, where I’m going to need three punnets of raspberries, jackfruit and the pick of the season’s best berries if I’m going to pull off Paul Hollywood’s pavlova.

‘Are you sure you want to go to all this hassle?’ Karina asks, when she catches up to me. ‘I mean, no offence, Lizzie, but you’re hardly known for your culinary skills – I still remember the picture you sent me and Teddy of that jacket potato with crumbled feta on your beans instead of Cheddar, which you considered a triumph. Doing a beef wellington as well as a vegan one for me sounds pretty complicated.’

Open mouthed, I spin round to her.

‘Do I want to go to all this hassle? Me? You were the one who bloody railroaded me into this whole thing, remember? What did you think I’d be serving to my new boyfriend, my friends and the person I’ve slept with? Fish fingers and chips?’

‘No, good point,’ she says. I put all my weight into pushing the trolley to get it moving again, sure ligaments are being torn from multiple places all over my body when I feel her hand on my arm and stop.

‘I’ve not heard you say that before, you know?’

‘What?’

‘Your boyfriend.’ She looks so excited, I prepare my ears for the squeal to follow, but she squeezes my arm instead. So tightly, I can picture the bruises forming under my T-shirt.

‘That’s because it’s the first time I’ve said it out loud,’ I admit. ‘But he asked me a few nights ago if that’s what we were now – and I couldn’t think of a reason to say it wasn’t. We talk all the time, we’re not dating anyone else, and he is lovely, so yeah, I guess he’s my boyfriend.’

‘That’s amazing, Lizzie. If we weren’t in Tesco, I’d be hugging you right now. I take it this means you and your new boyfriend have now sealed the deal?’

I swallow and feel the heat rising up my face. ‘Not exactly.’

Karina’s eyes grow huge, and she’s so busy gawping at me as I continue to push the trolley down the aisle she doesn’t spot the young child in her path and crashes right into her.

‘Shit, sorry,’ she says to the little girl, which earns her a filthy stare from her parents. ‘What do you mean you haven’t slept together? That is so unlike you. Not in a bad way. Obviously.’