Page 51 of How To Not Need You

Harper with Alexander walking beside her with two coffees. And Leo, already breaking into a sprint toward the playground before either of them can finish saying “slow down.”

What. The. Fuck.

I straighten up and narrow my eyes at them.

“What a completely unexpected coincidence.”

Harper sips her coffee. “Isn’t it?”

“I hate you.”

Leo reaches Tilly at the base of the climbing frame. There’s a brief, intense negotiation involving hand gestures and dramatic gasps, and then they’re off, two small humans racing toward the sandpit.

Five minutes later, Elsie and Noah round the corner. Milo is already running, a blur of movement, heading straight for the biggest slide with the kind of reckless abandon that I have grown to expect from him. Maisie is tucked against Noah’s side, one small hand clutching the hem of his shirt, watching everything with wide, solemn eyes.

Then Luca. Of course Luca is there too. Hands in his pockets, walking beside Adrian with the expression of a man who has done absolutely nothing wrong and is deeply, sincerely delighted about it.

I stare at them as they approach and reconsider every friendship decision I've made in the last decade.

Luca stops when he is standing just in front of me and just stares for a second before looking to Jake, the picnic rug, and then back to me again.

“Fancy seeing you here.”

“You’re unbelievable.”

“I’ve been called worse.”

Harper drops the pretence of it being an accident entirely. She settles onto the edge of the rug, tucks her legs underneath her, and says, “We thought it’d be nice to join you.”

“You ambushed me. That doesn’t seem nice to me.”

“We thought a picnic would be nice.” She reaches into her bag and pulls out a container of cookies. “I brought shortbread.”

Jake has moved to stand next to me as Harper proceeds to pull containers out on the mat. He leans close to me. His voice is low, meant only for me, and there’s something in it, a note of genuine bafflement, that makes me turn towards him.

“I swear Noah didn’t tell me either.”

I look at his face. The pink creeping up his neck. The slight furrow between his brows. The way his eyes keep darting between Noah and the rest of the group like he’s trying to work out how everyone ended up here.

I believe him. He looks too embarrassed to be in on their scheme.

I should probably unpack the level of trust I have in him. Not today.

“I believe you.” His eyes soften as he looks at me.

“Come on.” I tug his hand towards the mat. “We’d better just get on with it.”

I pull him to sit with me on the mat, taking time to grab us some seemingly homemade lemonade that Elsie has brought. His mouth pulls into a grin when I clink my plastic champagne flute against his.

Annoyingly handsome bastard.

Adrian and Alexander approach Jake somewhere between the lemonade and the shortbread, the easy re-introduction of men who have met once before at an open bar and remember each other just well enough to skip the formalities. Elsie unpacks sandwiches. Noah produces a football from somewhere and immediately loses it to Milo, who decides it is now an egg that must be protected at all costs.

Luca, meanwhile, has been recruited.

I’m not entirely clear on the rules of whatever game Leo and Tilly are playing, but it involves Luca crawling across the grass on all fours making guttural shark noises while two small children shriek and flee in opposite directions. He is committing to this with an incredible amount of enthusiasm. His arms are extended, his teeth bared and he is growling with an intensity that suggests he’s been waiting his entire life for someone to ask him to be a shark.

Adrian watches from the picnic rug with the serene resignation of a man who married this.