Strangers

Chapter 29: Brunchin'

“Play nice.” Harry reminds me, leaning across the gear shift to kiss my forehead.

“I always do.” I scrunch my face up at him, sticking out my tongue.

“You know what I mean.” He says, a more serious tone taking over his voice.

“I feel like I’m getting thrown into the lion’s den. Who knows what Gemma’s gonna be like after last night?”

“Just maybe don’t bring up last night.” Harry says with a hopeful smile before gesturing behind me to where Gem and Linda are waiting outside the café.

After kissing Harry's cheek and closing the car door, I approach the two girls, both rugged up in long coats to protect themselves from the cold air.

Linda pulls me into a huge hug and out of habit I go to hug Gemma next, our eyes having a silent conversation as we hug. Basically the words unspoken are I’m not mad at you if you’re not mad at me, and we probably should talk.

After getting directed to a corner booth looking out onto the street, we all order fresh juice and silently flick through the menu while we wait for our drinks.

“You two are so cute.” Linda chuckles to herself, shaking her head. Gemma and I are simultaneously looking anywhere other than at the person sitting at the table opposite us. I’m preoccupying my eye line with the lanterns hanging from the roof, and Gemma is pretending to people watch out the window - both of us attempting to ignore the building tension.

“Excuse me?” I raise my eyebrows at Linda, almost daring her to address the elephant in the room.

“What?” Gemma says, pretending to act like she was snapped out of a daze by the inconvenience of conversation.

“You’re both avoiding something, which means you both have drama to tell me. Who wants to do the honours?” Linda says with a smirk, knowing by the caught-out look on our faces that she can read us like a book.

“I think you can take this one Gem.” I say, shrugging and pretending to look for the waiter over my shoulder.

“I don’t even know what happened last night.” Gemma huffs, crossing her arms across her chest.

“Well, long story short, my version of events goes- I got a text from Matty, Harry read it, assumed the worst, acted pissy all night, Ashton showed up, I tried to keep Ashton away from Gemma, I tell Gemma that Ashton slept with Talia after they broke up- which I found out from Talia herself; long story, Ashton LIES to Harry and says I’ve cheated on him with Louis, Harry storms out, not really sure what happened after that but I’m predicting Gemma went home with Ashton regardless of the fact he is and will always be the worst thing that’s ever happened to her. It was a fun night.” I say, all in one breath, sarcasm oozing through every word.

Silence.

“Well, Gem?” Linda looks at Gemma, with her patented ‘tell me everything’ look that never fails to elicit the best confessions.

“Lola’s right.” She says, her eyes glossing over vacantly and her face becomes expressionless.

“You went home with Ashton?” Linda clarifies, both of us sitting on the edge of our seat and staring at her with baited breath. Surely she didn’t fucking go home with him after that. I really want to believe she wouldn’t keep feeding that fire but God who knows anymore?

“No. She’s not right about that. I didn’t go home with him.” Gemma says, relieving Linda and myself of our fears.

“She’s right that he’s the worst thing that ever happened to me. The best and the worst, and I don’t know how you come back from this.”