‘Yeah, Becky,’ says Alex. He shoves the bottle on the wonky wooden shelf over the kitchen sink and grabs a plate, turning to look at her, jokingly. ‘What’s the story with Rob?’
‘He is real, I promise you.’ Becky shakes her head, laughing.
‘Of course. Man of few words and many knives.’ Emma points to the kitchen counter. ‘Where are they, Becky? They were there the other day when I had breakfast then they disappeared.’
But Becky has her head in the freezer, trying to find a bag of ice, and doesn’t reply.
I take a look at Emma while she’s occupied with assembling a fajita wrap. She’s properly beautiful. She has a very attractive, angular face, with an aquiline nose and huge doe eyes. She looks like she’s made to swan about in Notting Hill, hanging out in expensive restaurants, being treated to expensive lunches. I pull up a chair at the big table and have a moment of feeling scruffy, freckled, and very suburban. Almost like someone who’s been living with their grandparents and working in an office in a seaside town a million miles from London, which isn’t surprising.
‘So what we know is this: Rob’s a chef, which means he works really long hours and we never see him because he’s home when we’re all out at work, and then out when we get back,’ Emma begins. ‘He turned up the other day, dumped all this expensive-looking kitchen kit on the table, then looked at his watch and said he had to run.’
‘Then I put his stuff in the big larder cupboard,’ Becky continues, banging a bag of ice against the edge of the table until the cubes separate. ‘Because three blocks of intimidating kitchen knives sitting out on the work surface was going to give me nightmares and I had visions of a serial killer turning up and murdering us all in our beds.’
‘I think a serial killer would probably have their own kit, don’t you?’ Alex says, looking thoughtful.
The three of them look at each other and laugh and I do too, but a split second behind. It’s weird – like being back at school or when you start a new job and you have that new-girl feeling when you’ve missed the boat a little bit. I watch as Alex, Emma and Becky make themselves fajitas from the food laid out on the table.
‘Dig in, Jess,’ Becky says, shoving the bowl of guacamole towards me.
I’m still reeling a bit from the unexpected handsomeness of Alex, and trying not to look at him. Except I can’t help taking a sneaky look when I think he won’t notice, and he glances in my direction and our eyes meet and I think that there’s a very strong possibility that I might inadvertently shout ‘PHWOAR’ by mistake because really he is very handsome indeed and the other two seem to be completely oblivious.
Becky’s telling a story about something that happened at work and the two of them are listening and laughing. Becky’s always been the most sociable of my university friends. We met in fresher’s week and we’ve been friends ever since. I studied English lit, she studied law, but whereas I left and found myself back in Bournemouth working for a perfectly nice, safe little marketing company, and ensconced in a relationship with Neil, Becks headed to London where she got a job with a law firm and started working her way up the ladder. And then it all went slightly pear-shaped for me back home, and it turned out to be a (mostly) good thing and now, I still can’t believe that this – I look out the window at the rainy street below, cars splashing past and the streetlights lighting everything with an orange glow – is my new life.
I let the evening wash over me for a while, and because they’re all so chatty, nobody really notices that I’m not saying much. Emma hands me a drink. She’s still in work clothes – very neat in expensive-looking boots and a shirt dress printed all over with tiny foxes.
‘So. When are you joining us?’ she asks.
She’s very formal, I think, watching her as I take a sip. Alex and Becky have whizzed up some sort of pomegranate cocktail with the ice and tequila he brought. It tastes like something you’d drink by the pool, instead of on a rainy December evening in London.
‘Not until after New Year. I’ve got a holiday booked with friends – we’re going skiing.’
‘Ooh, lovely. Christmas skiing.’ She looks impressed.
‘It’s not quite as fancy as it sounds. My friend Gen got a last-minute deal through a contact of hers, so we’re going to Val d’Isère on a coach.’
Gen’s friend – an actor, like her – was working in a call centre for a travel company when the deal had come through. We’d been making promises to each other for years that we’d go skiing again, after a school trip to Andorra a million years ago, and when this came up it felt like the perfect time. As soon as I’d said yes, the prospect of living every moment on a twenty-one-hour-long coach ride had started to pall slightly, but that was a minor detail.
‘Ouch.’ Emma looked sympathetic. ‘That’s a whole day on a coach. Still, it’ll be worth it for all the apres-ski and the gorgeous posh ski totty. You might meet a millionaire.’
I steal a quick look in Alex’s direction, thinking that actually, I’d be quite happy with someone like him, thank you very much, but give Emma a smile of agreement. ‘You never know.’
Becky fiddles with her phone, changing the music. She’s wrapped some silvery Christmas ribbon around her head like a halo, and starts singing along as Michael Bublé begins crooning from the speaker on the shelf above the sink.
‘Oh God, Becks,’ I groan. ‘Do we have to have Bublé again?’
‘It’s Christmas,’ she says, pulling me up by the waist and waltzing me out of the kitchen door and into the hall. She puts a finger to her lips, shushing me before I can protest. The hall is painted an odd shade, somewhere between violet and grey, and hung with a collection of floral paintings that must’ve belonged to Becky’s grandparents. There’s a huge spiky-leaved plant towering over us in the corner by the stairs. I dodge sideways before Becky waltzes me straight into it.
‘What d’you reckon?’ Her voice is an urgent whisper.
‘They seem nice.’ I try to sound non-committal when what I want to know is why on earth she’d omitted to mention that one of our flatmates was ridiculously gorgeous. ‘How’d you know Emma again?’ I ask.
‘Oh, she’s one of those friend-of-a-friend people. You know, you’re in the same pubs, vaguely know each other through a WhatsApp group, that sort of thing. I can’t remember how we met in the first place. But she was looking for somewhere because the girl she was flat-sharing was moving her boyfriend in, and I had one room left. I’d already sorted you and Alex—’ my stomach does a disobedient sort of swooping thing ‘—and it just seemed like she’d be a nice addition. Everyone’s pretty chilled out, so it should be quite a nice laid-back sort of house.’
‘She seems nice,’ I say, lamely.
‘God, I must pee,’ says Becky, and leaves me standing in the hallway.
I hadn’t noticed, but the carpet looks like someone threw up on a giraffe – it’s yellow and brown with greenish swirls and it clashes so badly with the lilac walls that it must have been the height of fashion at some point in the 1970s. Nobody could choose that colour scheme just randomly, surely?
I head back to the kitchen, realising that I’m feeling a bit fuzzy round the edges. Emma’s kicked off her boots now, and she’s sitting at the table chatting animatedly to Alex, who is sitting opposite. He pushes out the dining chair next to him, beckoning me to join them.
‘Come and get something else to eat.’
He passes me a plate stacked high with tortillas. I think perhaps it’ll soak up some of the alcohol.
‘So how do you know Becky?’