The Last Word (8 page)

Then she went to make dinner and tried to forget about it. She didn’t think about it while slicing tomatoes, and did not cut her hand because she was distracted. She didn’t roll his words around her head and analyse different meanings, and she did not at all have trouble sleeping that night. She did, however, consider that this was a fateful response to her being so pleased with herself and believing she was talented. It was pride, and she was being punished. And then she reminded herself she didn’t believe in any of that bullshit and went to bed.

At least, she consoled herself at two a.m., when she was tangled up in a bunch of blankets due to tossing and turning so much, she hadn’t weighed down Rhi. Lately, it seemed all she did with her friends was moan about her life. And that was not what best friends were for. At least, not all of the time. Lucky that Rhi was still dopey from sleep, or she would have guessed within five minutes that something was wrong.

Tabby stared at the cracked white Artex on the ceiling and snuggled down further into her bed, trying to disentangle a vine-like bit of blanket that had wound around her neck. Perspective. Perspective and problem solving was what she needed. She could quit. Except she’d done that quite a bit already, and she liked this job. Plus, when her mum finally called, she could tell her she didn’t need the cheques any more, she was finally self-sufficient! So, what else? She could tell Harry to go fuck himself. Except that would result in being fired, which was the same as quitting, except without the sense of pride. Or, the most logical option: she could get the hell over it and move on with her life, realising that sometimes people sucked and it was not a big deal.

So, that was what she would do. She would realise it was not a big deal. She would understand that Harry was not her friend, he was her editor, and nothing he’d said was essentially untrue. She would get on with her job. She wouldn’t complain. She wouldn’t write an article on how to crush a man’s windpipe. She would not spend an inordinate amount of time Googling ‘how to crush a man’s windpipe’. She would be a grown-up.

Yes, Tabby thought smugly, she would be the grown-up in this scenario. Her phone buzzed, scaring her half to death. It was a text message. She tried not to lunge for it, imagining all the ways in which Harry might apologise via text. Except, he wouldn’t, obviously. If Harry were to apologise – and he wouldn’t, and even if he did, she wouldn’t cave – he would do it face to face so he could depend on his charm offensive and pretty eyes. The bastard. Instead, it was the one person who could possibly make things worse. Her mother. Claudia Riley was reminding her daughter that they were scheduled to meet for coffee, to discuss bridesmaid dresses. P.S., Tabby noted, No carbs!

That was the exact moment Tabby decided to creep down to the kitchen and crack open the ice cream. After all, there were no carbs in ice cream, right?

Chapter Nine

When Tabby opened her front door to find Harry on her doorstep, she was less than pleased. Her night had been going to include a rejuvenating face mask, half a bottle of red wine and back to back episodes of Buffy, Season 6. A good night. All of that would clearly no longer be happening, as Harry stood there looking all gorgeous and apologetic, holding a much more expensive bottle of wine than the one she’d been planning on consuming.

‘What do you want?’ More than angry or irritated or defensive, Tabby felt weary.

He looked up at her from under his lashes. ‘Kiss and make up?’

Tabby rolled her eyes and went to close the door.

‘No wait! I’m sorry, OK? I’m sorry!’ He tried to lock her into eye contact, but she instead focused on his trainers. Ah, pink Converse, we’re starting to have a thing going on, Tabby thought, resolutely not looking up. ‘I know I’m a prick, and you didn’t deserve that, and it wasn’t about you at all, it was this big thing, and I just…urgh. I’m a massive dickhead and I’m really sorry, Tabs, honestly.’

Of course, Tabby lost it as soon as she looked up. Because seeing Harry frazzled and nervous was almost better than seeing him angry. He kept running his fingers through his hair so it stood up at odd angles. He dragged his hand across his face, and then raised an eyebrow at her.

‘You’re enjoying this too much.’

‘Maybe.’ Tabby shrugged.

‘This is me grovelling. Honestly, do you think I do this often?’

‘Act like an arse or apologise for doing so?’

‘The latter, smart arse,’ Harry huffed. ‘So, are we friends again? Please?’

Tabby twitched her lips thoughtfully. It was in that moment, watching Harry’s eyes dart back and forth across her face, that Tabby realised her greatest power with Harry was silence. He couldn’t stand it. Sadly, she couldn’t stand to be silent for very long either, so it’s not like it was much of a superpower.

‘Come on, Princess, give a guy a break.’ Harry tried his best to look extra appealing: wide innocent eyes, hopeful smile. Her lips quirked up, and he grinned in response.

‘Well, that was a good thirty seconds of being sincere Harry, well done, a new record. Better open the bottle and celebrate,’ Tabby said, with the exhaustion of an overly lenient parent. ‘Come in, then.’ She took a brief moment to imagine how Harry would react to her raggedy flat. Or Rhi.

He closed the door behind him and followed her down the narrow hallway, edging around Rhi’s bike. She didn’t even look back to see his face as they entered the living room and saw Rhi sat in the middle of the floor, surrounded by cardboard for signs and pots of paint, with the windows flung open to ventilate the room.

‘What’s the march tomorrow?’ Tabby asked as she hopped over one of the signs.

‘NHS.’ Rhi looked up and saw Harry hovering in the doorway, looking around the room curiously.

‘Um, Tabby, I think a man followed you in the front door.’ Rhi pointed.

‘Oh, that’s just Harry. He brought us wine.’ Tabby grinned, holding up the bottle.

‘Um…thank you?’

Harry seemed to snap back to consciousness and his usual grin suddenly appeared. ‘I work with Tabby. I was a bit of an arse, so I came to apologise.’

He had his ‘Oh, what am I like?’ face on, which seemed to lead people to wonder how on earth such a lovely young man could be an arse. Tabby suddenly realised her mum would love him. She winced, and went into the kitchen to look for a bottle opener.

‘Oh, you’re the posh editor,’ Rhi said without much interest, and went back to her slogans.

‘I’m not posh, I’m from Yorkshire!’ Harry said indignantly.

‘Harry, I hate to tell you this, darling, but you’re posh. Super posh. Verging on pretentious.’ Tabby returned from the kitchen, twitching her nose at him as she grinned.

He pouted. ‘What are you doing to that wine?’

‘I…uh…It’s not my fault!’ She helplessly held up the bottle with the opener attached, the cork halfway out. ‘I have no upper body strength!’

Harry inelegantly jumped across Rhi’s signs and took the bottle from Tabby. ‘Could the problem possibly be that you’re using a bottle opener shaped like Betty Boop?’

It was Tabby’s turn to pout. ‘Don’t insult my bottle opener. Betty has been with me through the highs and lows. It’s your posh wine’s fault, obviously.’

Harry nudged her, focusing on the cork. ‘I imagine Betty doesn’t get out an awful lot, what with Lidl’s own-brand being of the more screw top variety. That’s why she’s not up to the challenge.’

‘I will have you know – ’

‘JEEZ.’ Rhi stood up, then carefully piled her cardboard signs to the side, and huffily put the lids on her paint pots. ‘Banter is what makes me glad I work in a library. I’m going to the pub. Try not to screw this one.’

And with that, Rhi was gone, and Tabby was left feeling pretty hurt. Until she had the good sense to scrabble after Rhi and chase her down the front path.

‘What the hell does that mean?’ Tabby grabbed Rhi’s arm.

‘It means that I can see you heading down the same path you did three years ago: pretentious posh twat with money and power toys with you, uses you, and then fucks off again, leaving you in pieces. You’re doing the same bloody thing all over again!’

Tabby took a few deep breaths. ‘I know it looked…what I mean is…I’m a different person now…’

‘Yes, one who should know better!’ Rhi turned to start walking again.

‘I’m not sleeping with him!’

‘It’s only a matter of time. I’ve known you for ever, remember.’

Tabby narrowed her eyes. ‘You’ve known me seven years, and you’ve never let me forget one mistake.’

‘Well, maybe if you didn’t insist on repeating them – ’

Tabby stilled, and tried to find the part of her brain that knew Rhi was doing this out of love, not because she was a mad cow who had a tendency to overdramatise.

‘Rhi. I appreciate you looking out for me. I’ll be careful.’

Rhi looked at her, considering whether to continue in her hissy fit, or to back down. Eventually she just shrugged. ‘I’ll be there to pick up the pieces.’

‘There won’t be any pieces. Or any shagging of editors. Honest.’ Tabby grinned, and wiggled her eyebrows until Rhi smiled back, and reached out her hand to squeeze.

‘I still think you’re playing with fire.’

‘And I still think your NHS slogans are rubbish.’

Rhi nodded towards their front door. ‘Shouldn’t you get back in there? In case the posh twat thing is an act and he steals all of our stuff?’

‘A VHS player, IKEA furniture and Primark furnishings? It’s probably his idea of hell.’

‘Good.’ Rhi snorted. ‘Let him stay forever then.’

When Tabby returned, Harry did not seem to be in hell. He was lounging on her sofa drinking wine. He turned to look at her as she walked through the door, an amused grin twitching at his mouth.

‘Stop looking at me like that.’ Tabby grabbed her wine glass from the table and took a few healthy gulps.

‘Like what?’

‘Like I’m a particularly difficult Rubik’s cube, but you’re a master puzzle player.’

‘That was a terrible analogy.’ All Harry seemed to do was grin. He patted the sofa. ‘Come tell me all about your problems, Tabitha.’

‘Oh good, therapy. Wonderful. I feel particularly safe telling you all my secrets,’ Tabby bit out, but sat down anyway, keeping a safe distance from Harry, and tucking her feet up under her. Which was no help, as he had his arm stretched along the back of the sofa, and gently tugged at a strand of her hair.

‘Come on, Mystery Girl. What’s the deal with the charming flatmate? Is your life always so dramatic?’

‘No, usually my life bores me to tears. It’s Rhi’s life that’s dramatic, what with the slogans and the chanting and the being outraged at The Man.’

Tabby suddenly felt like she’d betrayed her friend. ‘Not that it’s not important. It is. Rhi cares about a lot of issues…’

‘And you. That was clear.’ He turned his body to face her and once again she was struck by the fact that he was just too pretty to be sitting on her second-hand sofa, drinking from her mismatched wine glasses and listening to her problems. ‘Someone hurt you, Tabs?’

She supposed it was fair to tell him. He was working with her and dealing with her alternating surges in confidence and crashes into self-doubt. Plus, it was better to tell him now, when he was being all sweet and quiet, instead of saying stupid things that made her alternately want to kiss him or take a pick axe to his head.

‘I…My fall from grace at the paper, three years ago…’ she started, not really sure how much he knew.

‘The injunction thing…’ He grabbed the bottle from by his feet to top up her glass.

‘Thanks. Yeah, that.’ She sighed. ‘We heard an injunction was coming in so I told my editor, Richard, that we should hold on the story. He said I was being weak, that we could fight it, it was important news. Yadda yadda, blah blah. He convinced me to publish it, I got fired. End of.’

Harry’s eyes looked mournful and yet also a little inquisitive. He seemed to know there was more to the story. He had a knack for it. Not that Tabby had searched for his articles on Google or anything. But if she had, the articles she’d have found would have been honest stories, understanding the real point of what was happening and who mattered. Which made holding up under his scrutiny pretty damn tough.

‘The editor’s the last line of defence though. Shouldn’t it have been his arse on the line? It was his choice, right?’

Tabby could feel shame creeping up her neck in a flush. She kept her eyes on her wine really didn’t want to be talking about this. Harry already thought she was an irrational moron. To know that she’d thrown her career away…

‘He convinced me it was best for both of us. I…I thought I was in love with him. He spun a whole bunch of bullshit about how we’d get though it together. How I should publish it on my personal page, so the paper wasn’t to blame. How if his reputation remained untarnished he could help me get a job elsewhere…’

Harry pinched the bridge of his nose and tried not to explode. ‘And you believed him? You’re a reporter! You’re basically a human lie detector!’ He was incredulous. He may as well have called her an idiot.

‘I was twenty-three! I thought he loved me!’ Tabby argued. ‘Don’t you think I’ve spent the last three years lying awake at night berating myself? I was a fucking excellent reporter, OK? I was outstanding. And then it was gone.’

She felt herself deflate a little after her outburst, and worried that she might be on the verge of tears. She took a deep breath and looked up at him. Harry was a little too close for comfort, staring straight back at her with something in his eyes that looked like admiration.

He smiled at her, and gently pulled at that curl of her hair again, briefly brushing her cheek. ‘You are. Outstanding.’

Had he shifted closer to her? Because he suddenly seemed to be taking over all of her space, his hand still hovering near her cheek, and he thought she was outstanding. Her breathing went shallow and all she could think was, ‘Kiss me, please, just fucking kiss me.’ Except that would be bad. She’d already screwed one editor.

She met his eyes warily once again. It would almost be worth it. At least this time she’d know she was throwing away her career for a pointless fling. And like Chandra said, Harry looked like he knew how to show a girl a good time.