Nothing New for Sophie Drew: a heart-warming romantic comedy - Katey Lovell (best english novels for beginners .txt) 📗

“If it was him she was trying to set you up with then neither Max nor Darius would get a look in.”

Chapter 17

My eyes sprung open, despite my eyelids apparently being made of lead. I wasn’t used to sharing the duvet. There hadn’t been anyone since Darius, so being kicked in the shin as my bed-partner writhed through a bad dream was a pretty rude awakening.

“Eve,” I moaned sleepily, prodding her in the ribs. “Stop it.”

My friend jolted at the contact, all four of her limbs extending. I was not only kicked, but whacked around the face as well. Great. Some thank you for letting her stop over after getting totally sloshed.

After the dress fitting (which hadn’t been as awkward as I’d thought it might have been, because Tawna’s flattery about how much the dress suited me weakened my hard-nosed exterior) the three of us had come back to my house, watched a film and drunk into the early hours.

Three home-measure gin and tonics later I’d brought Darius into the conversation. I felt bad bringing up something that had the potential to ruin such a lovely night, but I couldn’t not.

“You understand though, don’t you, how inviting both of us to your place might make him think I want to get back with him?” I’d said.

Tawna had looked puzzled. “Why would he think that? It was me doing the inviting. It was nothing to do with you.”

“He doesn’t know that though, he probably thinks I put you up to it. You know how full of himself he is. He finds it difficult to believe anyone can resist him.”

“You used to be so happy together, Soph. I just want you to have that smile on your face again.”

“Stop trying to force my hand! If I do decide to get back with him it’ll not be down to you sticking your oar in.”

Tawna’s face puckered which in turn made me feel guilty. When Eve said she’d never deliberately want to hurt me she was right. We’d been friends since we were five and she’d scooped me up when I’d fallen over in the gravelly infant school playground, taking me to a dinner lady in a checked green pinafore who’d doused my knee in Dettol (which had hurt like nothing else). She’d been looking out for me in her own inimitable way ever since.

“I don’t need Darius to make me smile.” I took a swig of my G&T, swirling the clear liquid around in the glass so the ice cubes jangled against the sides. “I’m capable of finding my own happiness.” The words were nothing more than bravado really, but perhaps if I said them enough I’d start to believe them?

“You are,” Eve agreed, “which is why I want to hear more about Max. Are you going to call him? And when do we get to meet him properly and see if he’s worthy of our Sophie?”

“We kind of left it up in the air,” I admitted. “You can meet him at some point, but not yet, it’ll only scare him off.”

“You met his friends,” Eve stated, “and what are you trying to say? That we’re scary?”

“Not scary, but when it comes to my boyfriends the pair of you act like my gatekeepers. Just this once I want to do things my own way and at my own pace rather than be swayed by your opinions, good or bad.” I knew my friends were still in opposite corners of the boxing ring, with my heart in the middle. If it was going to get pummelled, I needed it to be on my own terms. “Can you both promise that from now on you’ll let me get on with it? I might make the wrong choices, I might make my own mistakes, but that’s what they need to be – mine. What I need from you two, more than anything else, is support. Unconditionally. Can I rely on you for that?”

Tawna and Eve smiled and nodded, and my heart burst with love for these women, the friends I’d walked through life alongside for the past quarter of a century.

“You can rely on us.” Eve raised her glass in a toast.

“Unconditionally,” Tawna added, touching her glass to Eve’s.

A tinkling sound rang out as my own glass chinked against theirs, a sense of contentment filling me as I knocked back the last of my drink.

The morning after, in the cold light of day, I wished I’d gone easier on the booze. It had been nearly two in the morning when Tawna had finally phoned Johnny to come and collect her. It had been easier for Eve to stay the night than go back to the bedroom of the terraced house she’d grown up in and never left. She’d climbed into my king-sized bed with me and we’d talked sleepy drunken nonsense until we couldn’t keep our eyes open a moment longer.

Eve claimed the candyfloss pink cover as her own as she spun around, pulling the duvet over her head until she resembled an enormous marshmallow. I gave up trying to sleep.

My brain jiggled within my skull, like a bolt had come loose somewhere, as I climbed out of bed. I wondered if I may actually be falling apart. The order of the day was a couple of paracetamol and a vat full of coffee.

Two large mugs of coffee and two painkillers later, I felt marginally more human. Being the kind and generous soul I am I poured another coffee to take to Eve, and popped two slices of bread in the toaster. After a slow start I was just about up to stomaching solids. Whether Eve would be remained to be seen.

When the toast sprang up I added a thick, gloopy layer of Nutella. The joy I’d had at finding a reduced jar of the real stuff rather than settling for a supermarket-own brand had been ridiculous. It came to something