Page 17 of Stuck

Fiona scoffed. “Friend. Okay. If you say so.”

“Who’s Billy?” I asked, my voice coming out colder than I’d intended, but oh well.

Fiona leant around Elizabeth to address me. “He’s from her swimming club. He’s been pestering her to go on a date for ages.”

“It wasn’t a date,” Elizabeth snapped. “Billy and I are just friends.” She turned her head enough to meet my eye as she said this last bit but didn’t hold my gaze and quickly turned away again. Not quickly enough to hide the colour on her cheeks.

Fiona held up both hands. “Okay, okay, chill your beans. I take it back.”

Their conversation moved on, but my mind didn’t. It stayed rooted in that same spot, turning what had been said over and over, and finding no solace in the replay. All my previous suspicions came flooding back—Elizabeth’s falseness around Bingley, her apparent indifference to his most cherished passions, her desire to keep their relationship a secret. And now she was going out for dinner with another man while he was away. A dinner her colleagues thought was a date.

I ought to have been more careful what I wished for. I’d wanted a reason to stop liking her. I hadn’t wanted a reason for Bingley’s whole relationship to fall apart.

I left not long afterwards, too angry to stay. Angry that one of the best men I knew might be about to get hurt again. Mad that I’d been so mesmerised by Elizabeth for the last hour that I’d let my guard down and forgotten my misgivings. Downright furious at the treacherous spark of… something I should not have felt that ignited in me at the prospect of them breaking up.

9

ELIZABETH

My weekend felt slow after such a manic week at work. I went swimming on Saturday morning—and was relieved when Billy and I fell right back into the friend zone without any awkwardness. (In your face, Darcy.) But otherwise, I was mostly a slug, reading a book and binging Maltesers on the sofa in my pyjamas, making the most of having the flat to myself.

As though sensing that her sister was slowly dissolving into the cracks between the sofa cushions, Mary texted me on Sunday to demand that I join her and Tam for afternoon cocktails.

We met in our favourite haunt, The Duck and Decoy in Maida Vale. It was a bit of a trek from Battersea, but I didn’t mind; with its industrial chic décor and funky blues music, the place had a great vibe, and their cocktails were sublime. I found my fellow hedonists in one of the booths at the back, sipping from two straws in the same glass of a brightly coloured, layered cocktail. I smiled at the way Mary was watching Tam as they drank, somehow gooey-eyed and utterly serious at the same time. I loved that she was so happy. It had been a long time coming for her.

“So, how did you get on dating Jane’s boyfriend this week?” Tam asked when I plonked myself down in their booth with my own cocktail—a Bramble—and three packets of crisps to share.

“Hello to you, too, Tamara.”

She waved a hand. “Yes, yes, hello. Don’t keep me in suspense. I’m dying to know whether you pulled it off. I couldn’t believe it when Mary told me what you were planning to do. It’s so deliciously silly.”

“There is nothing delicious about it,” Mary said. “It was always going to be a disaster. What do you plan on doing when his friend inevitably mentions your supposed relationship with the CEO to someone else in the office, and suddenly the whole company thinks you’re sleeping together?”

I dismissed her question with a flippant puff of air, despite it being a very valid concern. I’d already had to put Darcy off revealing it to Debbie. Bingley and I truly hadn’t thought it through, and I could only be glad we’d weathered the week unscathed.

“There was no disaster. I played my part flawlessly.” Well, mostly. But my few slip-ups would all be moot come tomorrow. “That said, I am glad Bingley will be back at work in the morning because his friend seems clever, and if he hasn’t worked it out already, I think he might have done soon.”

“How so?”

“He spent the week asking me a lot of extremely pointed questions. And looking at me funny.”

“Funny how?” Tam asked.

I shrugged as I tore open the crisps and arranged them in the middle of the table for everyone to help themselves. “Like he doesn’t trust me.”

“Well, we can’t blame him for that, can we?” Mary said.

“No.” I popped a crisp in my mouth and crunched it loudly to annoy her for pointing out the obvious. But while it might not be Darcy’s fault that I was complicit in the stupidest lie anyone over the age of twelve had ever told, I wasn’t ready to let him off the hook completely. “But we can blame him for hating on my clothes the first time he met me, accusing me of sleeping my way up the ladder, and turning up his nose when I told him we lived in a council house.”

“He didn’t!” Tam said, sounding as indignant as I’d been when Darcy frowned as though he found the very idea of local authority housing revolting.

“How did you even end up telling him that?” Mary asked. “I thought you were planning to stay out of his way?”

“Yes, well… I took pity on him. There were drinks after work on Friday, and between Callie Blethyn trying to pour herself into his trousers and everyone else being too scared to talk to him, he looked thoroughly miserable. And he is Bingley’s friend. So I had a quick chat with him. Honestly, though, I’m not sure he appreciated it. I don’t think he likes me.”

Mary shook her head fondly. “You and your soft spot for the downtrodden.” She did a double take at something over my shoulder, and her expression hardened. “Good grief. Speaking of downtrodden, is that…”

I turned around to see, of all people, George Wickham ambling towards us, one hand clutching a pint and the other in his pocket, a familiar crooked smile on his handsome face.