The Bucket List to Mend a Broken Heart (27 page)

‘But, honestly, I thought he was into you.’

‘Told you you were wrong,’ I say, sliding my feet into my slippers and following Sian as she walks out of the bedroom.

We walk into the corridor and bump straight into Tammy and Ben. She’s got her arms wrapped around his neck, stroking the nape of his neck. She’s giving him a look that’s so seductive that I don’t think even Sian
the man-eater could pull it off.

Ben looks up and takes a step back from her and she turns and gives me a sly look. It’s a territory thing and whatever Sian and I might have thought, Ben is Tammy’s property. She made her feelings more than clear on Thursday, and it’s as if she’s shown up today to flex her muscles and show me how serious she was.

It dawns on me that I’ve been using Ben as my
surrogate boyfriend, but he was never mine to use.

I try and focus my mind on this weekend’s objective. It wasn’t to spend time with Ben – it was to climb Snowdon and I’ve done that. I’ve ticked another item off my list and that will hopefully lead me one step closer to Joseph. Although, right now, not even the thought of us reuniting is cheering me up.

Chapter Nineteen

Two weeks, four days left, and I’m trying to come up with an excuse to get out of this abseil, but my mind is blank. Maybe Fran was onto something with the baby bump after all . . .

‘It was a shame that Ben bailed on Sunday night. Wasn’t the same after he left,’ says Giles as he puts a capsule into the Nespresso machine.

‘It certainly wasn’t.’

With Ben out of the way, there
was an even number of men to women and it made the rest of the weekend feel a bit couply. Obviously Giles and Laura were their adorable selves – the more wine they drank the more canoodling they did – and Sian did her best impression of a bitch on heat in her unsuccessful pursuit of Pete. But poor old Doug and I were left giving each other looks of sympathy, like a mismatched couple at a dinner
party.

‘I mean, it just changed the dynamics. And what with Sian throwing herself at Pete.’

‘Hmmm,’ says Giles, raising his eyebrows.

Sian had really ramped it up a gear on Sunday night. She had kept Pete’s wine glass permanently topped up and worn a spaghetti-strapped vest top that didn’t leave much to the imagination, and at one point she was practically sitting on Pete’s lap. But all to
no avail.

Pete did seem into her, but whereas she was all about the night, he seemed to be in no rush to get it on. As a consequence, Sian’s been hounding me about him ever since.

‘She was certainly forward,’ says Giles, grinning.

‘She was so forward she was practically in fifth gear driving down a motorway.’

Giles lets out a little laugh and stirs his coffee. ‘It was a shame Ben missed it
all.’

‘Oh, well,’ I say shrugging. ‘I’m sure he had a nice time in his luxury B&B.’

‘I spoke to him last night and he was gutted to have left the bunkhouse.’

‘Really? Didn’t he want to spend time with Tammy?’

‘I think he needed to spend time with her, but I think he felt like she’d railroaded his weekend. He’d planned to spend it with us and all of a sudden she was there.’

‘I guess it was
a bit
Fatal Attraction
.’

‘Yeah, it’s a good job Ben doesn’t have any pets as she is definitely leaning towards the bunny boiler.’

A laugh escapes my lips, and I catch Linz’s eye across the office. I cough as I try to get my giggles under control. I have to remind myself that I’m at work.

I quickly busy myself making a cup of coffee to legitimise my water-cooler chat.

‘I always got the impression
that she was supposed to be this laid-back type of woman, but she was something quite different on Sunday,’ I say, dipping my toe into the water. I’ve been dying to ask Giles about their relationship but never dared in case it’s breaking some unspoken bro code.

‘Yeah, Tammy is . . .’ Giles pauses as if he’s trying to find the right word. ‘Well, to be honest, she’s perplexing. I’ve known her since
she and Ben first got together about three years ago and I still don’t feel like I know her. One minute she’s so laid-back she’s horizontal and the next she’s like she was on Sunday.’

‘They’ve been together three years?’ I don’t know why but I assumed that they hadn’t been together for very long. Three years doesn’t scream casual.

‘Yeah, but it’s always on and off with those two, one month they’re
together, the next they’re on a break. It’s not like a normal relationship.’

I pretend that I’m concentrating on stirring my coffee instead of hanging off Giles’s every word.

‘I couldn’t do that,’ I say, honestly. ‘I’m one of those people that when I’m in a relationship then I’m really in one. Perhaps that’s where I went wrong with Joseph – maybe I was too into it. Scared him off.’

‘I doubt
it, Abs. As a happily married man, believe me, if the right woman is into you, you can’t get enough of them. It’s only the crazy ones that can scare you off.’ Giles’s mouth drops open for a second. ‘I don’t mean that you were crazy in your relationship with Joseph. I just mean that if he was the one, he wouldn’t care that you were too into him. In fact, he would have loved it.’

I think for a
moment about whether that’s true. I hope it isn’t or else I’m well and truly wasting my time with this list and trying to get him back.

‘But you’re right, I couldn’t do it either,’ he says, continuing with the Ben and Tammy conversation.

‘Then why do you think he puts up with it?’

I know I should be doing my work. I’ve got a huge meeting later on this morning and I still need to print off stuff
for it, but now that I’ve opened this can of worms with Giles, I don’t feel like I can close it again. Not until I’ve got the dirt.

‘Well, there was this ex of his that messed him up pretty badly, and since then he’s not really committed to anyone.’

I think of Sian and how damaged she is for the same reason, and I think of my own pathetic break-up. For a minute I wonder why we ever try this
love game when a heartbreak can have that effect on the rest of your life. Maybe Ben’s got a point, saving himself the heartache.

‘He told me about her,’ I say, nodding. ‘Sounds like he really lost someone he loved.’

‘Yeah, and then there’s everything that happened with his mum. So when he met Tammy at some biking event they started dating and it quickly became apparent that she wasn’t the type
of girl to settle down. She was never at home, always off somewhere at a race and it didn’t take long for Ben to realise that she blew hot and cold like the wind. But much to our amazement, he put up with it. It’s a shame as we’d like nothing more than to see Ben settle down with someone nice – he deserves it.’

Giles gives me a fleeting look, before opening a cupboard and pulling out the biscuit
tin.

‘I’m not saying that Tammy isn’t nice,’ he says quickly. ‘She’s usually all right. It’s just that none of us like the way she walks in and out of Ben’s life.’

‘None of you like her? Not Pete, not Doug?’

‘Don’t like is probably a bit strong, but no, none of us are impressed with how she treats him. Please don’t say anything to him, though. He’d hate to know how we feel.’

‘Of course not,’
I say. ‘Your secret’s safe with me.’

He grabs a handful of biscuits and offers me the tub, but there are only Garabaldis filled with evil raisins left, so I shake my head. He slams the lid shut, putting it back in the cupboard.

I can’t help thinking him shutting the lid like that is a metaphor for our conversation about Ben and Tammy – firmly closed. Whether Giles feels guilty about going behind
his best friend’s back, I don’t know, but suddenly it’s as if there’s a super-injunction on the topic and Giles goes stony silent.

‘I better get ready for this meeting,’ I say, taking my cue to leave.

I settle myself at my desk and pull up my to-do list. But before I can get stuck into it, my phone buzzes.

I see it’s a text message from Sian.

Have you texted Ben yet about Sunday? x

I sigh.
This is probably my third text of the day from her, all along the same lines. On the long, long drive back from Snowdonia, where the topic of conversation was pretty much exclusively about Pete, Sian came up with a plan. We’d all go and visit a vineyard in West Sussex on Sunday to tick wine tasting off my list.

I did try to point out that it would seem like I was suggesting a double date with
Ben, Pete, Sian and me, but I was overruled. It seemed that my list was the perfect excuse for Sian to legitimise seeing Pete again. I pointed out that I could just get his number from Ben and she could call and ask him out herself, but she was having none of it. His cool response to her friskiness at the weekend had made her doubt her mojo and she wanted to engineer an informal outing to see what
would happen between them.

I had wanted to keep Sunday free as Sian and I have got the Race for Life on Saturday and Ben and I are off to Paris on Tuesday. I was looking forward to having some downtime, but then I reasoned that wandering round a vineyard in the spring sunshine would be quite relaxing and I’ve only got two more weeks to tick it off my list before the abseil.

Besides, I don’t
think she’s going to give me any peace until I get it organised. So I fire off a quick text to Ben, using the words that Sian had so carefully crafted between Birmingham and Oxford. Apparently it needs to seem casual, but also be clear that it would work best if it was only the four of us. I can imagine Tammy’s wrath now . . .

‘Hey, Abi.’

I finish sending a quick text to Sian with the word ‘done’.
I look up and see Fran peering through the partition.

‘Hiya, you all right?’ I say, thinking that I don’t need any more interruptions this morning.

‘Yeah, just checking you were all set for the meeting with Vista later.’

‘More or less,’ I say, lying. Fran’s a real organised cookie who always has a neatly prepared folder for every meeting she attends.

‘Great. I was speaking to Rick about it
and he was waxing lyrical about you landing the account. It seems you’ve earned yourself a lot of brownie points.’

I’m still pleased as punch that I managed to snag my own client. It’s usually the account execs that bring in the business, not us designers.

‘I’m glad he noticed,’ I say, looking over at him in the far corner with Linz.

Fran follows my gaze.

‘Quite,’ she says. ‘When does Hayley
get back from maternity leave?’

We share a smile in solidarity.

‘I better get back to the preparation for this meeting,’ I say to Fran, when in reality I’m scanning Facebook to check if there has been any new Joseph activity.

‘Great, well, let me know if you need any help,’ she says as she disappears from the gap.

‘Thanks,’ I call, but I shouldn’t need any help. For once I feel in control.

I finished my designs late last week and I was ridiculously happy with them. I often like to tinker with work right up until the last moment, but something about these designs just clicked.

I hope that Lucinda and Thomas, the clients from my Spanish class, love them as much as I do.

I open InDesign to load up my files and I can’t stop the grin exploding on my face. I’m still brimming with enthusiasm
for my job and I really can’t help thanking the list.

For the first time in what feels like months, my life seems on the up. My job’s going well, my boss is pleased with me, I’ve done amazing feats that I never thought I’d be brave enough to do, and I’m hopefully starting to impress Joseph and am therefore closer to getting him back.

I’m practically whistling with joy as I navigate finder looking
for my client folder. I open it up and am gobsmacked to find it’s empty.

‘It can’t be,’ I say, clicking out of the folder and back in.

I might be messy in the real world, but in my virtual world I’m a total neat freak.

I start to look at folders either side in case I’ve accidentally dragged or dropped the files somewhere else. But there’s nothing – only what’s supposed to be in there.

My heart
starts to race and I’m finding it difficult to breathe.

I know the files have to be here somewhere. They couldn’t have just disappeared, could they?

Think, Abi, think.

It’s not only my designs that are missing from the folder but the initial client brief isn’t there either, and neither is the outline of my work I’d sent to Rick at the beginning.

I can feel the beads of sweat starting to collect
on my forehead.

I try and think logically, or as logically as my brain will let me.

I bring up the search button and type in the file name.

The wheel of death appears on my Mac for a moment and I close my eyes, unable to watch its progress.

When the search comes up empty I start to inwardly panic.

‘Hi, Abi, everything ready for the meeting?’ says Rick.

Why is everyone asking me that question
today?

‘Um, doing the last-minute changes now,’ I lie.

There’s no point in worrying him unnecessarily. They’re going to turn up – they have to.

‘Perfect. Well, I’ll see you in the meeting room in twenty minutes then.’

Twenty minutes!

I look up in shock at the clock and realise the time. Why on earth did I leave the printing so late in the first place? It was so late last Friday when I finished
them and I couldn’t face waiting for the printer to warm up and do its slow-time printing. I should have printed them when I came into the office first thing this morning, instead of grilling Giles about Ben or trying to tackle the mountain of emails from when I took yesterday off travelling back from Snowdon.

I pick up the phone and wonder who I’m going to call. I don’t really want anyone else
in the office to get a whiff of what’s going on, but at the same time my technical knowledge in the field of locating missing work is pretty non-existent.

I look over to Giles’s side of the office as he’s a computer whizz kid, but it’s empty.

I stare up at the big clock hanging on the office wall and the second hand seems to tick loudly, reminding me that I’m ever closer to my impending doom.
I can’t go to this big client meeting empty-handed and it’s way too late to postpone it.