Jill Mansell - Chapter 1

‘Sorry. Just checking. The afternoon you made a bit of an idiot of yourself ...’

‘An awful lot of an idiot of myself’ In fact, actually admitting it out loud felt quite cathartic.

‘OK, but was it a Sunday afternoon?’

Sally nodded and gritted her teeth, cringing at the memory. The ridiculous thing was, she no longer even thought about Lola’s dad. The crush had died as quickly as it had sprung up, almost as if subconsciously she’d always known it would never turn into anything more. ‘Yes, it was a Sunday. Lola was working. You were off out somewhere.’

‘And you and Nick were standing over there, by the window’ As he pointed, a glimmer of a smile appeared at the corners of Gabe’s mouth for the first time in what felt like months.

‘I suppose so. Yes.’ Admittedly she’d been slightly the worse for drink at the time but not so far gone that she couldn’t remember the way the winter sunlight had streamed through the window, lighting up the glints in Nick’s dark hair ... oh! The penny dropped. ‘You were outside the flat!’

Her mouth fell open. ‘You were watching me make a prat of myself!’

‘I didn’t know you were making a prat of yourself. He had his arms around you.’

‘He was keeping me upright. And I don’t know if I ever mentioned this, but I’ve had a bit of a bad leg.’ Sally couldn’t believe what she was witnessing; before her very eyes Gabe was metamorphosing from the tetchy grump of the past few weeks back into the old sparkly-eyed human Gabe she’d missed so desperately since the evil twin had taken his place.Chapter Chapter 51

’I thought you were shagging him.’ Gabe’s whole face had changed, cleared. He was smiling now with what appeared to be relief.

Glad the misunderstanding had been cleared up but mystified by the relief, Sally said, ‘Is that why you’ve been so stroppy and weird?’

He hesitated, then nodded. ‘You could say that.’

‘All because you thought I was having a thing with Nick? Would Lola really have hated it that much?’

There was that old familiar smile again, as if he knew something she didn’t. Shaking his hair out of his eyes, Gabe said, ‘No idea.’

‘But that’s why you were so iffy.’

A longer pause this time. Much longer. Finally he raked his hair back with his fingers.

‘Actually, that wasn’t why I was ... iffy. I just didn’t think you should be seeing him.’

‘You didn’t approve? Because of the age difference?’ Sally hazarded. Blimey, who’d have thought it? ‘But he’s only twelve years older than me.’

Gabe grinned, shook his head and looked ... well, to be honest she wasn’t absolutely sure how he looked. If it had been anyone else she might have said embarrassed.

Finally he took a deep breath. ‘OK, I can’t quite believe I’m standing here saying this, but the reason I wasn’t happy about it—’

‘Not happy about it? Ha, that’s an understatement!’

‘Don’t interrupt,’ Gabe ordered. ‘Let me get this out before I lose my nerve. The reason I was bloody furious about it was because I was . I was ...’

Encouragingly Sally said, ‘Spit it out.’

‘Oh, for crying out loud, it was because I was jealous.’ He threw both hands up in the air. ‘There.

Said it. Now you know.’ Sally stopped dead in her tracks. Surely not, surely not .. . Gabe shrugged. ‘Sorry.’

‘Oh my God. Gabe! That explains so much,’ Sally blurted out. ‘I even guessed! I asked Lola and she said I was wrong, but I knew, right from the word go!’

‘You did?’ It was Gabe’s turn to look stunned.

‘I knew before I even met you.’

‘What?’

‘The whole tidiness thing.’ She was triumphant. ‘Dead giveaway. Keeping everything neat and always nagging me to clear up my stuff. All that hassle about not leaving my plates on the carpet. Forever complaining when I forget to hang up the towels in the bathroom. It’s so obvious.’

‘You really think I’m gay?’

Flummoxed, Sally said, ‘Isn’t that what you’re telling me?’

‘No’ Gabe clutched his head, looking as if he was on the brink of tearing his hair out. His eyes, wide with disbelief, fixed on hers. The next moment he reached out and grabbed her.

Before Sally knew what was happening, she was being kissed. His warm mouth covered hers, her whole body was pressed against Gabe’s, her skin was zinging like sherbet and ... cut.

Just as abruptly as it had begun, the kiss ended. Gabe let her go and she was left standing there like a cartoon character, dazed and panting and with confusion in the form of giant question marks exploding out of her head.

‘I can’t believe you thought I was gay.’ Gabe was breathing, heavily too.

‘But ...’

‘Oh shit, this is all going wrong. I thought I could do it but I can’t.’

Before she could react, he was gone. The door of the flat slammed shut behind him and Sally heard his footsteps clattering down the staircase. She sank down onto the sofa and clutched her hands tightly together to stop them trembling. Her palms were damp too; desperate though she was for a glug of Pernod she knew the glass would slip through her fingers and crash to the floor.

OK, concentrate. Gabe had jumped to the wrong conclusion. And so had she. He wasn’t gay, she was certainly convinced of that now And if he wasn’t jealous at the thought of Nick being involved with someone else, then it stood to reason that he had to be jealous at the thought of her seeing another man...

Shaking now, Sally replayed the incredible thought in her mind. But how could this be happening, exploding like a bomb in front of her with no warning at all?

And why was she feeling, amongst all the confusion and disbelief, as if it was something she’d been longing to happen for months?

But so secretly that she’d barely even acknowledged it, because it was simply the most unlikely scenario on the planet.

Sally wrapped her arms around her waist, rocking back and forth in order to think more clearly.

Had she, deep down, been seriously attracted to Gabe since the first time she’d clapped eyes on him?

Yes.

Had she ever considered doing anything about it? No.

Never.

Because it was like fancying George Clooney from afar. Millions of women did, it was an absolutely harmless pastime. But they also knew that if they happened to bump into George Clooney, the chances were that he probably wouldn’t fancy the pants off them in return and pester them for a date.

And that was pretty much how it felt, inwardly acknowledging that Gabe was gorgeous and funny and pretty damn fanciable – if a bit over-zealous in the tidiness department.

However – and it was a big however – you didn’t expect for a millisecond that anything would ever come of it because you knew so categorically you weren’t Gabe’s type.

Stumbling awkwardly to her feet, Sally headed for the chair over which he’d flung his leather jacket. Her heart flip-flopping like a landed fish, she felt in the inside pocket and pulled out his keys. His wallet and phone were in there too. He wasn’t going to get far without them.

But she couldn’t bear to sit here waiting for Gabe to come back. She had to find him before he had time to change his mind about her. Limping across to the window and flinging it open, Sally leaned out and searched the street below.

It was one thirty in the morning and there was no one inRadley Road. How much of a start had he got on her? Lifting her head, she called out, ‘Gabe,’ as loud as she dared. Then, louder still,

‘Ga-aaaaaabe,’ like a lone wolf howling in the forest.

After a few seconds she heard a window being thrown open somewhere close by and a male voice bellow, ‘Shut the fuck up.’