Page 87 of Break the Ice

‘We do but none of these sorts of late-night places. London is pretty dead after ten p.m. unless you like kebabs and fried chicken,’ she jokes. ‘But I’ve overdone the fizzy pop. I’m just going to absent myself for a moment to have a whizzle.’

My family all look at her, slightly confused. ‘Pee, she needs to pee,’ I translate.

‘Oh!’ Maddie says, giggling, and points past the tables.

‘Are you all right?’ I ask Phoebe as she gets up, putting a hand on her arm, thinking back to last night and how her stomach is faring.

She looks at my hand for a moment and then back up at me. ‘I’m all good, honestly.’ She leaves and I scootch back into the booth. I know what’s coming because my whole family are sitting there smirking at each other over coffees and ice cream floats.

‘What gives?’ I ask them all, and my dad sits back with his arm across the back of the red leather seat.

‘Are you all right?’ he says. I think he’s mimicking me with how he touches my mother’s arm.

‘I’m all good, honestly,’ she says in a squeaky Victorian orphan accent. They then look at each other with googly eyes as Maddie bursts into laughter. That’s not funny. That’s the opposite of funny.

‘You guys are hysterical,’ I say coldly. ‘She got a bellyache last night, I was being⁠—’

‘Nice. Because you care about her?’ my mom says, a cheeky glint in her eye.

‘I’m being a good host.’

They all smile at each other again.

‘It’s just… we really like her,’ Mom says, taking a bite of her mozzarella sticks. ‘She’s come all the way to New York and she goes to a Knicks game head to toe in gear, she cheers at every shot, she dances, she eats. I like the way she eats tacos and licks her fingers and talks avidly about guacamole. I like the life in her.’

‘She’s very foodie. Her family are in the restaurant business,’ I explain.

Dad nods in agreement. ‘I’ve never seen someone talk so much about guac. She’s fun. And you seem to be different around her. A bit lighter, son, if that makes sense.’

I inhale deeply because I know exactly what he means. She is light, it shines out of her. It also feels oddly lifting to have someone so invested in me. She’s here to immerse herself in every part of this great city but she’s also here for me, to help, to raise me up, and I can’t remember a time when a relationship ever did that for me.

Maddie nods, grinning. ‘God, even Meatball likes him and he’s a fussy S-O-B. Remember how he used to bark continuously at that guy who landscaped the yard?’

‘And Meatball knows. He has a sixth sense about these things,’ my mom says, smiling.

‘But also,’ Maddie adds, ‘the tux shopping, the carriage rides… Avery would never, just saying. She’d be at the Knicks game in her Gucci, trying to flag down Bella Hadid. She drinks water at games. Through a straw.’

I see Mom and Dad eyeball each other at hearing that girl’s name around this table and the comparisons between her and Phoebe. I think with their allegiances to their family friends, they’ve never really had it in them to hate her completely. ‘She’s just very different, Joshua,’ my mom says. ‘We’re so glad you have her in London, that’s all. It was always a worry after everything you’ve been through that you were going to be alone, a very long way away from us.’ I nod, sensing the emotion in her voice. ‘But it turns out you had Phoebe.’

I’m not sure now is the time to tell them I’ve known her for a far shorter time than they assume. Also, she’s still bullshitting half her backstory for fun, shits and giggles. But there is something about the fact that they’ve all taken to her, that, like me, they see the good soul under all that big energy.

‘I do have Phoebe, but you guys need to just calm it down. Don’t make it weird,’ I tell Maddie, pointing at her.

‘You really like her,’ she says, looking me in the eye.

‘Not as much as you all seem to like her.’

‘I mean, she came all this way, just for you,’ Maddie says. ‘It must mean something.’

‘It means I’ve moved on with someone else,’ I tell them. ‘I’ve moved on from Avery, in the same way she’s moved on from me.’

There is quiet as this fact descends on the table. ‘You know about Avery?’ my mom pipes up.

‘Having a new guy? Yeah. Social media. You met him?’ I ask.

‘I may have met him at golf with Jed,’ my dad says, and I don’t know why but that hits a tiny nerve. I’ve never been a golfer really and it pains me that he would have been out on the green with my ex-fiancée’s dad and new boyfriend. My silence tells him that much. ‘He’s boring. In finance,’ he adds.

‘So you all knew and didn’t think to tell me?’ I ask them all.