“I know. I’m wallowing. Haven’t moved for two weeks.”

  Cautiously, he shuffled towards the window and cracked it open. “Two weeks is nothing. Queen Victoria kept it up for forty years after she lost her Prince Albert.”

  “Mine is still in fine fettle, thank you. If not a little… under-stimulated in recent months.” A waft of cool air drifted across the bed, and I groaned. “You’ve come to tell me to get up and face the world again, haven’t you?”

  “Yep. Starting with getting your scrawny arse into the shower.”

  He’d have to try harder. I’d jolly well stay here until I developed pressure sores. “Jog on, flower.”

  “I’m prepared to drag you into it.”

  “You and whose army?” I scoffed. “I’d like to see you attempt a fireman’s lift.”

  “I don’t need to, mate.” His evil little face lit up. “I’ve recently made a new acquaintance. A guy who would love nothing more. You’ve got yourself an admirer, Milo.”

  Bringing his fingers to his lips, he blew loudly. A burst eardrum would get me if pressure sores and leg clots didn’t first.

  A herd of elephants charged up the stairs. Well, a brawny fireman did, anyhow. An admirer? Tris was way off the mark.

  Simon filled the doorway. In his uniform, too, all ripple-y and powerful. He threw me a wolfish grin, like he couldn’t fucking wait to turf me out of my pit. Or do something physical with me, at any rate, from how his eyes licked across my scantily clad body. Really, Simon? Now? My dick stirred all on its own for the first time in weeks. My heart, however, remained an immoveable rock clasped in someone else’s hands.

  “Lawyer boy. Are we doing this the hard way or the easy way?” Under his tight, navy short-sleeved tee, his muscles flexed enticingly. If his biceps' peaks grew any bigger, they’d be covered in snow.

  Sometimes, acknowledging defeat was a noble course of action. Maybe I had wallowed for long enough, after all.

  “Christ, flower. Need you ask? The hard way. Obviously. You’re going to have to take me kicking and screaming. I’m going to have to climb you like a ladder, and you’re going to have to wrestle me across your back while pumping that hydrant until I scream louder than a siren and…”

  “Milo?” interrupted Tristan. “Get in the fucking shower.”

  By the time, coiffed and fragrant, I joined everyone downstairs, quite a welcoming party awaited me. Simon, Tristan, Dom, Danny, and Reuben. Tristan, slotted nicely between Dom and Simon, appeared mighty pleased with himself. His lips curled smugly.

  “Now what?” I gave him a filthy glare. “You’ve badgered me out of bed. You’ve improved my hygiene. You’ve insisted I allow a smoking-hot fireman to manhandle me into the bathroom. Honestly, it just gets worse and worse. What next? A lecture on looking misery in the face and asking it to step aside? Because, trust me, that might be a step too far. I shan’t be terribly receptive.”

  Unimpressed, he twiddled one of his walking sticks. “No. I’m bringing glad tidings, actually.”

  “Of comfort and joy?” I huffed. “I very much doubt it.”

  He rolled his eyes. “If you’d hung around long enough at the restaurant last Saturday, or turned your phone on since, then you’d know Mungo said no. He turned Cav down. We were wrong about the tiramisu, by the way. He proposed to him before the main course.”

  A pleasant train of thought, centred around getting rid of everybody, then sneaking out to Mrs E.’s for a greasy kebab and taking it back to bed, skittered to a fast halt. “He what?”

  Tristan shrugged half-heartedly, like my world imploding didn’t fucking matter. “He proposed before the main course, and Mungo said no. Well, not exactly. The ring felt out of his napkin and rolled across the table. Cav got down on one knee and did the deed, everyone cheered, and Mungo very politely said thank you but no thank you, gave him a hug, then strolled out. You should have stuck around. It was spectacularly awful.”

  Schadenfreude. A devilishly nutritious sensation. And… surprisingly absent. My poor Mungo. How he’d have hated being backed into a corner. Having to lay out his truth in public, not private, spot lit by an audience of hungry eyes. Before he’d even had the time and space to acknowledge it as the truth himself.

  “So the… the engagement is off? Why the fuck didn’t you tell me sooner?”

  Tristan shrugged again. “Because you turned off your phone? And anyhow, he said no in the restaurant, but we didn't know for certain what happened afterwards. He didn’t offer an explanation—he just walked out. Frankie wanted to follow, but Lys stopped them. Mungo’s a private person. It wasn’t our business. I wasn’t going to come racing over here without all the facts.”

  Clearly, Tris and I responded very differently in a crisis. “What do you mean, it wasn’t our business? We’re his best friends! You should have made Frankie run out of the restaurant after him!”

  He shook his head. “No. This was not our decision to make. Mungs needed space to reflect. And now he has, and, thank fuck, the answer is still no. Cav’s kicked him out. He’s been staying in my old room at Frankie and Lysander’s.”

  “He tried to kiss me outside the restaurant. When I told him I loved him. Before the proposal.” Grabbing my house keys, I stood, kebab-related plans abandoned. “I’ve caused all this. I need to see him.”

  Tris raised a stilling hand. “No. You don’t. Give him a few more days.” His tone was soft but firm. “He’s sad. Gutted actually. He’s lost his home and everything he thought he wanted. Don’t pressure him. Allow him time to grieve.”

  Tristan’s cool blue eyes locked on to mine. For once, Danny stayed silent. As did Dom, Reuben, and Simon. Because whenever Tris offered strong opinions, he tended to be right.

  But did I listen? Did I bollocks.

  CHAPTER 14

  MUNGO

  “Mungo. Petal. I’m going to say this only once. And I promise, cross my heart on my fave black Manolos and hope to die, that I’ll never bring it up again.” Frankie paused dramatically. “Shirley! Shirley Herbert! Fucking—and I can’t stress this enough—hell, Mungo! How on earth did you manage to keep that hideousness a secret from us all these years?”

  Frankie had been trying to coax a smile out of me since the moment, two weeks ago, I ran out of the restaurant. Not passing go, not collecting two hundred pounds, not even collecting a few belongings from our apartment. My presence in my own home was not welcome.

  Nope, having rolled the dice, I went straight to jail. Or rather, Tristan’s old room in Frankie and Lysander’s penthouse, which obviously wasn’t jail-like at all. Quite the reverse, not that I felt particularly comfortable. Via text, Cav had curtly informed me of the hours he’d be absent from the flat. This morning, I’d driven over with Frankie and quickly picked up everything I could squeeze into the car. The rest he could chuck in a skip for all I cared; I wasn’t ever going back.

  “Force of habit.” I managed a weak smile back. “Being a child saddled with ‘Mungo’ was bad enough. Milo accidentally discovered my middle names years ago and was sworn to secrecy.”

  “But Cav wasn’t?”

  “No, not really. I’m too old for that. But he knew how much I hated them. I mean, obviously, it doesn’t bother me much now, but childhood teases tend to stay with you, don’t they? He used to drop it into conversation whenever he could, to get a rise out of me.”

  Simply one of the tens of things I used to grit my teeth about and swallow down because it was easier than not.

  Frankie huffed. “Pretty bloody rich coming from someone named Cavendish. Sounds like a bespoke furniture maker. People in glass houses and all that.”

  I was lying on Tristan’s old bed, doing fuck all except stare at the ceiling. Frankie twitched in the doorway, no doubt itching to organise the pile of belongings dumped in the middle of the floor. Despite being grateful to the couple for putting me up, I couldn’t help missing my own bed in my own bedroom. And, although it felt wrong, also the man I’d shared that bed with. Or our cohabiting rhythms, at least. Even if I had been the one who walked away.

  These feelings were normal, right? Love wasn’t binary, even though its flip side was hate; I’d been around the block enough times to appreciate that. I met Cav through a mutual friend, attracted initially to his looks. Both seeking a long-term thing, we’d taken the relationship cautiously at first, wined and dined, felt each other out. We worked up to sex slowly, enjoying the anticipation of the journey almost as much as arriving. Over time, attraction turned to fondness, fondness to caring, and caring to what I’d believed to be love. And it probably was love, of a sort, but an everyday kind of love. A love of convenience, rooted in a desire to be part of a couple, to belong, to have somewhere to call home.

  Last night, dragged out of my room to watch a movie with Frankie and Lys, I’d spent more time covertly watching them than the film. The sight reinforced what I’d been deliberately ignoring for far too long: the love Cav and I shared wasn’t where the journey ended for everyone. Love harboured a higher, secret level, accessed only by a lucky few, like an old-fashioned platform computer game. By couples like Frankie and Lysander, quietly conversing throughout the film without ever opening their mouths. Like Tristan and Dom, each providing a solid foundation for the other. A plane of love instantly recognisable when you saw it, but inaccessible unless you both held the same key to the secret level at the same time.

  “I miss Cav,” I admitted to Frankie. And then looked away from them. “Crazy, isn’t it? I miss being at home with him. Our routines. And the sex, of course. I miss everything, even though I know he’s not right for me.”

  The moment stretched. “I think that’s understandable?” they answered eventually. “I mean, you liked him enough to buy a place with him. So, he wasn’t all bad, was he?”

  “No. Far from it. Mostly, we rubbed along okay—as long as we did things his way, of course.”

  At this, Frankie gave a wry smile.

  “And I wonder that if… if… Milo hadn’t…” I trailed off.

  For me, it’s always been you.

  “If Milo hadn’t told you how he felt,” Frankie interrupted gently. “Is that what you were going to say?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. If he hadn’t, then I’d probably still be with Cav.”

  “So do you think you would have said yes?”

  “I have no idea,” I answered honestly. “Maybe, if he persisted. Maybe not.”

  Frankie sighed. “Then it sounds like you’ve done the right thing.”

  They perched on the bed, automatically straightening the cover because they couldn’t help themselves. “For what it’s worth, you have all of our support. You can stay here as long as you need. I’m so cross Cav sprung that proposal on you in front of such a big audience—you managed it brilliantly. Plenty of people would have bowed to the peer pressure. You were so brave to stick to your guns.”

  I didn’t feel very brave. I felt sick and miserable. “It should have been instinctual, though, shouldn’t it?” I countered. “To say yes?”

  They didn’t have an answer to that, which was all the answer I needed.

  “Cav wants to come over tonight,” I told them. “He’s calmed down and wants to talk. Is that okay?”

  “Yes, of course. Is it okay with you, though? Are you ready?”

  “I’ll never be ready.” I threw him a grim look. Truth be told, I was nervous as hell. I’d never been a fan of confrontation, and if that made me weak, then so be it. “But I suppose I owe him that.”

  Seeing as my brain had turned to cottage cheese, I’d called in sick at work these last couple of weeks, unable to haul myself through the busy days. At least here my friends gave me breathing space. And time to mourn our lost ordinary love and carefully untangle my life, the practical, unsexy bits, from someone else’s. However it ended, Cav and I had lain down some good memories.

  But not great ones. Not like Frankie built with Lys, not like Tris and Dom were forging on the other side of the world.

  “Lys and I are supposed to be attending a big reception in Oxford tonight,” Frankie said, “and we were going to be staying over. But he can go without me if you prefer that I hang around?”

  God, I wish. Even better if they conducted the conversation on my behalf. I would need every shred of someone like Frankie’s quick wits. But regretfully, I shook my head. Some things a man needed to face up to on his own.

  Cav looked how I felt. And shrunken too, or maybe I was just used to his rangy presence filling up our own more compact sitting room. We faced each other from separate sofas and across an ocean of beautifully polished parquet. Dark hollows cupped his eyes; his face was drawn. Our coffees sat untouched on a low glass table next to a delicate bouquet of blush-pink roses Lysander had surprised Frankie with, just for the hell of it.

  Wrecked Cav might be, but if I thought he would be rational and conciliatory, I was sorely mistaken.

  “Good to see you made an effort.”

  His eyes assessed me coldly as I scratched at my stubble. As a matter of fact, I had. I’d showered and put on clean clothes, for the first time in forty-eight hours. But not shaved.

  “I’ve decided to grow my beard back.”

  Cav shrugged. “Suit yourself. Personally, I think you look better clean-shaven.”

  “I know you do.” He’d only mentioned it two or three times every fucking day.

  “I wouldn’t say these things if I didn’t care, right?”

  Hand trembling, he made a move towards his coffee cup, then withdrew, as if determined not to give himself away. Perhaps his appetite had vanished too.

  “I know you care, Cav. I care about you, too.”

  He barked a tight laugh. “But not enough, eh? Congratulations, by the way, on making our aborted engagement the most humiliating evening of my entire bloody life.”

  “I’m so sorry. I didn’t plan for that to happen. I don’t know what else I can say except sorry.”

  He swept away my apology. “I can’t look any of my friends in the face again! And I’ll never set foot inside that bloody restaurant, ever, that’s for sure. Thanks to you.”

  I hadn’t asked him to get down on one knee. I bit my tongue. “Is that all you’re bothered about?”

  “Of course it fucking isn’t!” A fleck of spittle flew from his mouth. He was almost yelling. “But Christ, Mungo! What the hell were you thinking?”

  Leaping from the sofa, he turned his back on me and strode to the sheet of floor-length glass, offering a breathtaking view across the city. I rubbed a hand across my gritty chin, determined to stay calm for as long as possible. Already, a slanging match wasn’t far off. I sensed it building.

  “I was thinking you’d sprung something on me I wasn’t ready to commit to,” I answered levelly. “We hadn’t ever discussed marriage. I didn’t think we had reached that point in our relationship. I thought we were still getting to know each other.”

  “Hah! Seems I didn’t know you as well as I’d imagined.” His voice was a tight snarl. “My bad.”

  “And I’ve never been good at surprises. Especially in front of an audience. It’s not my style.”

  He huffed with contempt. “You made that exceptionally clear. Shame you hadn’t clued me in on it earlier.”

  “I thought you knew. I’m really sorry.” I was going to be using that phrase a lot.

  He twisted, glaring at me from over his shoulder. “And if I’d have asked you in private?”

  Unable to meet his eye, I looked down at my hands, folded in my lap. I thought back to my earlier conversation with Frankie. Maybe? Who was I kidding? “I’d have given the same answer.”

  “Huh.” He turned back to the view. “Do you know what really grinds my gears?”

  I didn’t but was about to be enlightened.

  “That your fucking smug mates were all there to see it. Apart from your precious Milo, thank God. I bet they loved it, didn’t they?”

  Christ, was that really what bothered him? Losing face?

  “No, of course they didn’t! They hated it. They were upset, just like your friends. Devastated, to be honest. Everyone was. Frankie was practically in tears.”

  “Hah!” Cav smirked. “Tears of joy, more like. The only thing that fucking genderless goblin has ever wanted is to be able to click his fingers and have all his friends on tap, dancing to his tune. Me coming along spoiled that party, didn’t I?”

  My temper, in check until now, started to unravel. I’d managed to stay exceptionally calm but if anything cemented my decision in my mind, comments like that could. I didn’t care how hurt Cav felt. There was no excuse for plain fucking nastiness.

  “Please use Frankie’s correct pronouns,” I snapped. “It’s not difficult. And if you came here to abuse my friends, you can leave now. Especially as you are in their home. And, for the record, none of them have ever hated you. They have done everything they can to welcome you.”

  He huffed, then went quiet, looking out across the cityscape. Grey and rainy tonight. On summer evenings, you could see all the way to the lush green outskirts of Windsor. I stared at the tight rod of his backbone and his athletic shoulders locked tense, wound like a spring.

  I should have anticipated this anger. Lashing out at anything and everyone, blaming anyone but himself when things turned out badly. It was his default, a mask against hurt and humiliation, although usually he controlled it better. The cruelty came as a shock, though. Had it been there all along? Had I been naïve all this time? Blinkered by good sex and a hot body?

  “Listen,” I began, in a kindlier tone. “Your… your proposal caught me unexpectedly. It was a lovely gesture, a lovely romantic idea… maybe something another guy would have wanted. But not me. Even if the time had been right to say yes. The attention, being put on the spot, all those people expecting… it was too much.”

  For a moment, he said nothing, but at least he’d stopped shouting. Maybe he’d come back to sit on the sofa, and we’d be able to discuss this reasonably. Maybe even manage to part as friends, or at least not rule friendship out.