Down London Road (6 page)

My friend clearly wasn’t having any of that tonight. ‘You know, it took me a long time to figure out that we can’t do everything on our own.’

‘I’m not on my own. I have Cole.’

‘Okay.’ Joss shook her head and took another step in my direction. I turned towards her slightly, my stomach flipping at the edge in her voice. ‘I’m just going to say it.’

Brace yourself, Jo.

‘How can you take Malcolm and all those other guys’ help but not a friend’s?’

Because it’s a totally different thing!
‘It’s different,’ I told her softly. ‘It’s just part of being in a relationship with a guy who has money. I’m not good at many things, Joss. I’m not a scholar like Ellie or a writer like you. I’m a girlfriend. I’m a good girlfriend and my boyfriend likes to show his appreciation by being generous with his money.’

I was surprised by the utter fury that flashed in Joss’s eyes, and I automatically stepped back. ‘One: there’s much more to you than that. Two: do you realize you pretty much described yourself as a glorified whore?’

She might as well have punched me. Hurt cut me deep as I reared back from her words, feeling the sting of tears in my eyes. ‘Joss …’

I saw regret pass over her face, and she ducked her head, shaking it. ‘There’s so much more to you, Jo. How can you be happy to let people think these shitty things about you? Before I knew you, I thought you were a cool girl but a mercenary gold digger. I had you pegged all wrong – and so does everyone else. And you let them think that. Do you know how many times I wanted to kick Craig in the balls for the way he talked about you? No one respects you, Jo, because you don’t ask for that respect. I’ve only known the truth for a year and I’m finding it hard to hack it. I don’t know how
you
hack it. I don’t even think you do.’

Laughter and chatter filtered into the bar from the door and Joss moved away from me in preparation for our first customers. I watched her, feeling shell-shocked and raw … like someone had scrubbed off the top layer of my skin and I was exposed and bleeding.

‘I respect you,’ she told me softly. ‘I do. I know why you do what you do, and I get it. But from one ex-martyr to a current martyr … get over your bullshit and ask for help.’

The customers entered the club and I turned to serve them with a bright fake smile, pretending my closest friend in the world hadn’t just called me out on all the things I feared about myself.

As the night wore on, I was able to push Joss’s opinion to the back of my thoughts, and I flirted with good-looking customers, leaning across the bar to whisper in their ears, giggling at their jokes – good or inane – and generally pretending to have the best time in the world.

The tip jar filled up fast.

Two seconds after an attractive thirtysomething guy wearing a Breitling sports watch slipped me his number before he left the bar, Joss was at my side shaking up a cocktail.

Her eyebrow was quirked up in question. ‘Weren’t you just telling me last night how much you like Malcolm?’

Still feeling sore from her earlier flaying, I shrugged nonchalantly. ‘Just keeping my options open.’

She sighed heavily. ‘I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings back there.’

Not acknowledging the apology, not sure I was even ready to, I nodded down the bar. ‘Your customer is waiting.’

For the rest of the night I avoided conversation with her and constantly checked my phone in case Cole tried to contact me. He didn’t.

When the club closed and we’d cleaned up, Joss cornered me as I shrugged my coat on.

‘You’re a huge headache, you know that.’ She huffed as she pulled on her own coat.

I snorted. ‘That’s the worst apology I’ve ever heard.’

‘I’m sorry what I said came out so bluntly. But I’m not sorry for saying it.’

Pulling my bag out of my locker, I shot her a weary look. ‘You used to let people get on with their lives. You never butted in where you weren’t wanted. I liked that about you.’

It was Joss’s turn to snort. ‘Yeah, I know. I liked that about me too. But Braden’s rubbing off on me.’ Her mouth twisted into a grimace. ‘He has this thing about sticking his nose into the lives of the people he cares about whether they want his nose there or not.’

I felt some of the hurt from our earlier encounter recede, a warm balm spreading gently over it. ‘You saying you care about me?’

Joss grabbed her own bag and strode over to me. Her defiant grey eyes had softened with a surprising amount of emotion. ‘You’ve turned out to be one of the best people I know and I hate that you’re in such a shitty situation and you won’t let anyone help you. A few months after I met Ellie, she told me she wished I’d trust her more. I finally get how frustrating that must have been for her – to see that I needed someone and I wouldn’t let her be that person. I feel that way about you, Jo. I see a good
person with all her life ahead of her and she’s taking a path to inevitable misery. If I can stop you from making the same mistakes I did … well, I will.’ She grinned cockily. ‘So be prepared to be corralled. I’ve learned from the master.’ Her eyes glittered with anticipation. ‘And he’s waiting outside for me, so I better go.’

Joss left before I could respond to her threat. I wasn’t entirely sure what she meant, but I knew that when she wanted to be, she was the most determined person on the planet. I did not want to be someone she was determined to save.

It sounded exhausting.

‘I’m sorry, Malcolm. I can’t.’ I felt my heart rate speed up as anxiety crawled into my gut to play kickboxer. I hated turning down his generous offer. Once I started throwing the word ‘no’ around, things usually went downhill from there.

‘Are you sure?’ he asked quietly on the other end of the line. ‘It’s not until April. That gives you plenty of time to find someone to look after your mum and Cole for the weekend.’

Malcolm wanted to take me to Paris. I wanted to be taken to Paris. I’d never been out of Scotland, and I imagined I was like most people my age in that I wanted to see a bit of the world outside the one I’d been raised in.

But it wouldn’t happen.

‘I don’t trust anyone else to look after them.’

Thankfully, Malcolm’s sigh didn’t sound exasperated and to my surprise it was followed by, ‘I understand, baby. Don’t worry about it.’

Of course I still did. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Stop worrying.’ Malcolm laughed softly. ‘It’s not the end of the world, Jo. I like how much you care about your family. It’s admirable.’

A flush of heat, of pleasure, rose from my chest all the way into my cheeks. ‘Really?’

‘Really.’

For a moment I didn’t know how to respond. I was relieved that he was being so laid-back about my ‘no’, but I was still anxious. Only now I was anxious for a different reason.

My affection for Malcolm was growing deeper by the day. So was my hope.

The past had taught me that hope was far too fragile a thing to cling to.

‘Jo?’

Oops
. ‘Sorry. Woolgathering.’

‘About me, I hope.’

I grinned, and let the purr enter my voice. ‘I can come over after work tonight to make it up to you.’

Malcolm’s own voice deepened. ‘I look forward to it.’

We hung up and I stared at the phone in my hand. Dammit. I
was
hoping.

Hoping that this time it really was going to work out.

‘According to Braden I ambushed you.’

I glanced up in surprise as I pushed my bag into the locker. It was Friday night and the bar was already in full swing. I was late for work, so I hadn’t had time to really chat with Joss and Alistair, who was covering Craig’s shift and was already manning the bar. I’d ducked out during a lull in the crowds to get a drink of juice and some chewing gum from my bag. ‘Pardon?’

Joss leaned against the doorway to the staff room, the music from the bar beating loud behind her. She had a disgruntled look on her face. ‘I told Braden what I said to you last night and he said I ambushed you.’

I smiled. ‘Maybe a little.’

‘He told me I have a lot to learn.’

That earned an eyebrow raise. ‘Apparently so has he.’

‘Yeah.’ Joss huffed. ‘He’s sporting a bruise the size of my fist on his upper arm. Condescending asshat.’ She shrugged. ‘He also, maybe, was kind of, possibly, a little bit right.’

She looked so uncomfortable it was almost funny. ‘Joss, you were trying to be a good friend.’

‘Braden says I have to be stealthy. That includes not using the word “whore” in any capacity.’

I flinched. ‘Aye, that would be good.’

Joss took a step towards me, all her self-assurance seeming to have disappeared. ‘That came out all wrong last night. You know that, right?’

‘Does this mean you’re keeping your nose out of my business, by any chance?’

She scoffed. ‘Yeah, okay.’

‘Joss …’

‘I’m just going to be better at it. Less ambushing, more corralling.’

There was that word again. ‘You know, I would think if you were trying to be “stealthy” you wouldn’t tell me about your intentions to veer me from my “path of misery”.’

Joss crossed her arms over her chest, her eyes narrowed on me. ‘Don’t you air-quote me, woman.’

I held up my hands in surrender. ‘Hey, I’m just saying.’

‘Ladies!’ Alistair’s head appeared at the doorway into the bar. ‘A little help!’

I grabbed my gum and brushed past Joss. I smiled as I guessed at what was really bothering her. ‘I’m not mad at
you, you know.’ I looked over my shoulder to see her following me.

She nodded, giving a little shrug as if she didn’t care when she obviously did. Which was why I wasn’t mad at her. ‘Okay, cool.’

We hit the bar to see the customers standing all along it.

‘So, you and Cole are still coming to dinner on Sunday?’

I grinned at her, thinking of the Nichols family and Elodie’s mouthwatering roast dinner. ‘Wouldn’t miss it.’

The Nicholses’ home was the kind of home I’d wished Cole and I had been brought up in. Not for the fact that it was this gorgeous period flat in Stockbridge – although that certainly would have been nice – but because it was full of warmth and real familial solidarity.

Elodie Nichols was Ellie’s mum. When she was younger she’d fallen hard for Braden’s dad, Douglas Carmichael, and she’d then fallen pregnant. Douglas had broken things off but offered financial help and a lackadaisical impersonation of a father. Braden had stepped up to the plate, taking his younger half sister under his wing and playing man-child dad/big brother. The two were close – so close in fact, that Braden was closer to Elodie and her husband, Clark, than he was to his own mother. As for Douglas, he’d died a few years ago, leaving money to Ellie and his businesses to Braden.

Ellie had two adorable half siblings – Hannah, who was a year and a half older than Cole, and Declan, who was eleven. Not surprisingly, the two shy teens didn’t spend time with each other when I brought Cole to these dinners. Declan always monopolized Cole’s time
anyway – Declan had a large collection of video games for them to zombify themselves in front of.

About eight months ago, Joss had taken me on a night out with Ellie. After five minutes I got the distinct feeling I was being taken under their wing. Ellie immediately asked me to her family’s Sunday dinner (while Joss smirked happily at someone else getting the ‘Ellie treatment’), insisting that I bring Cole. After two months of dodging the invitation, I finally got to the point where I felt rude declining. I dragged Cole along and we both enjoyed ourselves so much, we tried to make Sunday dinner at the Nicholses’ house whenever we could.

I loved it because it was the only time Cole and I really got to be ourselves. Whatever Joss had said to the Sunday gang, no one ever asked about Mum, and Cole and I could relax for a few hours each week. Plus, Elodie was the epitome of a mother hen, and having never had that, both my brother and I enjoyed being taken care of for once.

Sunday dinner included the Nicholses, Ellie and her boyfriend, Adam, Braden and Joss.

While we waited for dinner to be ready, I usually hung out with Hannah. Looks-wise, Hannah was a smaller version of her gorgeous big sister. Tall for her age, and if she was going to be following exactly in her sister’s footsteps, Hannah had already reached her full height at five foot nine. She was absolutely stunning with short pale blonde hair, wide velvet brown eyes that peered out from under a stylish fringe, and delicate features including an adorable pointed chin. She was going to be a little fuller-figured than I ever would be, already sporting a decent cleavage and a nice curve to her hips. At fifteen-going-on-sixteen
she could pass for eighteen, and if it hadn’t been for her shyness, she’d probably have had boys beating down her door and causing Clark no end of aggravation.

As big a bookworm as I was, Hannah was an even bigger one, hiding behind literature and her schoolwork. I thought it was a shame that she wasn’t more outgoing, since she had an amazing personality. She was sharp as a tack, kind, funny, and a little snarkier than her big sister. I’d taken to sitting in her large bedroom, going through her piles of books while she chatted away to me about everything and nothing.