‘I’ll have it all out as soon as,’ she said as she tapped it all into the iPad in front of her. ‘Nice to meet you properly, Ros.’
‘Nice to meet you too,’ I said, catching her boss’s eye again and wishing I could say the same for him.
‘Remember when our idea of a dream meal was a fish finger sandwich and an entire box of potato waffles?’ I said loudly, once I was safely back at the table. ‘Oh, to be twenty-two again.’
‘You couldn’t pay me to go back to my twenties,’ Adrian declared. ‘Not for every fish finger on the face of the earth. Too many fuck-ups, too many lessons learned the hard way.’
‘Nor me, I’m so glad life is easier now,’ Sumi agreed, even though she’d taken four Nurofen Plus since she’d arrived and had dark circles under her eyes that would have had Nosferatu asking if she was feeling OK. ‘I couldn’t go through it again. All those hours studying? No one taking you seriously? The five years it took to convince my grandmother I was gay? No thank you.’
‘You work every hour god sends, you constantly complain about the other partners taking the piss out of you and your gran still thinks you’re just waiting for the right man,’ I reminded her. ‘Lucy? Back me up.’
‘I did love my twenties,’ she agreed, running her palm over her belly in soothing circles. ‘But, you know.’
I did know. We all knew. Lucy was the most pregnant pregnant woman that had ever existed.
‘If you had to relive one year over again, which one would you choose?’ I asked. They all muttered and shrugged. ‘I would be twenty-eight in a heartbeat,’ I said, answering my own question. ‘All of us living together, loving my job, not having to worry whether or not Friends is problematic …’
‘Cough, straight white privilege, cough,’ Sumi spluttered. Lucy immediately reached out to rub her back as though she really had a cough and I smothered a smile with my hand.
‘Not to mention that’s when you met Pa—’ Adrian began before he squealed and grabbed himself under the table. Someone had clearly given him a swift kick. ‘Ow, what was that for?’
‘We don’t. Mention. Him,’ said Sumi, shooting a warning look in Adrian’s direction.
‘Oh, come on,’ I said with a light laugh even as I felt myself flush. ‘It’s fine. It’s the past. I’m not going to start sobbing if someone says his name.’
‘Really?’ Lucy asked, one eye on me and my steak knife.
‘It’s been years,’ I laid it on as thick as I could. ‘Do I wonder what might have happened if I hadn’t taken the job in America? Yes. Was he the love of my life? Probably. Is this a conversation I want to have right now or ever? No.’
They all gazed back at me, the same doubtful expression on three different faces.
‘I am completely and utterly over Patrick Parker,’ I declared. ‘I am fine.’
‘Good, I’m glad to hear it,’ Sumi replied. ‘He led you up and down the garden path so many times it was ready for repaving.’
‘He was always all right with me,’ Adrian said. ‘I liked him.’
‘You mean you were totally in love with him because he got you tickets to the FA Cup Final,’ I corrected. Adrian didn’t argue.
‘I remember the first time we met him,’ Lucy said, pressing her hand on top of mine. ‘You brought him to that Christmas party and I thought, oh gosh, what a stone-cold fox. But I still think you did the right thing by leaving. You’d have regretted it if you hadn’t.’
‘You definitely did the right thing,’ Sumi agreed. ‘Imagine if you’d turned down an amazing job in America for a man.’
‘Imagine,’ I agreed, as if I didn’t imagine it all the time.
‘Everyone has a Patrick,’ Adrian reasoned. ‘Someone you’ll always wonder about, imagine what might have been. You’re contractually obliged as a human. He’s the one that got away.’
‘More like a bullet dodged,’ Sumi muttered into her drink. ‘I never saw the appeal myself.’
‘He was very clever,’ Lucy answered on my behalf. ‘And he was a writer, that’s very alluring.’
‘And he was incredibly sexy,’ Adrian added as we all gave him a look. ‘What? A straight man can’t say when another straight man is fit as? I’m secure in my masculinity, Patrick was a sexy man.’
‘It wasn’t just a physical thing,’ I said, twisting a strand of hair between my fingers. ‘His writing was beautiful and he was passionate and confident and—’
‘He was horny and arrogant and up his own arse,’ Sumi corrected. ‘But then that’s always been your type.’
‘Patrick isn’t why I’d go back to being twenty-eight, anyway,’ I said, not wanting to argue about it. She wasn’t necessarily wrong, I did have a type and that type was terrible. ‘Twenty-eight is the perfect age. People stop treating you like you’re too young to be taken seriously but you’re not too old either, there’s still so much potential to do things. Or undo things.’
‘Like terrible romantic decisions,’ Adrian suggested brightly. ‘And liver damage.’
‘It wasn’t terrible with Patrick,’ I said, my voice cracking just a little. ‘Until the end.’
‘Doesn’t matter, does it? It’s the past,’ Sumi held up her hands to wrap up that conversation. ‘You can’t go back, even if you wanted to.’
‘Who would want to? We’re all killing it,’ Adrian replied. Me and the girls exchanged a look. All of us? ‘Well bloody done on getting a new job so soon.’
‘I knew she’d find something right away, she’s brilliant,’ Sumi said proudly before she leaned across the table to smile at my oldest friend. ‘But what about you, Adrian, had any more thoughts about getting one of those job-type jobs like the rest of us?’
‘Lucy hasn’t got a job!’ he protested.
‘I’m on maternity leave,’ she exclaimed, clutching her belly to protect it from his accusations. ‘You try giving people a facial when you’ve got a belly bigger than Santa’s and you have to go for a wee every fifteen minutes.’
‘Good try, Adrian,’ I said with a smile. ‘When was the last time you had a job?’
‘I work!’ he insisted. ‘I drove for Uber last year, remember?’
A shiver ran down my spine as I imagined Adrian pulling up as my Uber driver. He was the worst driver on the face of the Earth. It would be like getting into a taxi driven by Mr Bean after he’d taken a Glastonbury’s worth of Molly.
‘And I’m working on my screenplay again.’
We all groaned as one.
‘My baby is going to be doing its GCSEs before you get that thing finished,’ Lucy predicted. ‘If not its degree.’
‘As if your kid is getting into university,’ he replied with a snippy grin.
Lucy shrugged and carried on stroking her stomach. Lucy never rose to anything. Lucy was an actual saint.
I listened as they bickered back and forth, laughing and poking and prodding at each other, just like they always did. Lucy beamed as she cradled her belly and, for a moment,