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

“I went for a walk, that’s all. I wanted to clear my head.”

“I’d have walked with you,” Eve wailed. “Don’t you ever scare me like that again, Soph. Promise?”

Guilt flooded through me. “I promise. And I’m sorry for what I said earlier.” My eyes connected with Tawna’s zombie eyes. “I was angry, but I shouldn’t have let my mouth run away with me.”

“You were right,” Tawna said, her voice croaky with sleep. “I haven’t been a good friend to you two lately, but that’s going to change, starting now. I know how lucky I am to have you both. Your friendship means the world to me, and that’s not going to change when I get married. Friendship never ends.”

She looked so serious, even though she’d ended her heartfelt speech by quoting the Spice Girls.

“We’re all lucky,” I added, “but we need to learn to be one hundred per cent honest. If we can’t be ourselves with each other, then who can we be ourselves with?”

“True,” Eve affirmed, having regained her composure. She raised her glass of water in a toast. “To honesty.”

“To honesty,” Tawna and I repeated, holding imaginary glasses aloft.

“And now,” Tawna said, burying her bleary-eyed face into her pillow, “sleep.”

“How are you feeling this morning, sleepyhead?” Tawna asked, placing a mug of steaming coffee on the bedside table.

“Rough as,” I moaned, as she ruffled my bedhead hair.

“You’ve looked better,” Eve said with a laugh, before clutching her head and saying, “owww.” She couldn’t laugh too long or too hard. Her hair was looking wild too.

“Shut up,” I growled affectionately, plumping up a pillow and pulling myself into a seated position. Even that hurt.

I was amazed by how good Tawna looked, fresh as the proverbial daisy, her hair washed and blow-dried, her barely-there day make-up applied to perfection. It was as though the tired, bloodshot eyes of the previous night never existed. “Thank you for opening up to me, and I’m sorry I’ve been such a crap friend lately. I won’t shut you out again.”

“It’s in the past.” Eve yawned, her mouth stretching into a wide tunnel-like O. “And now we’re all up to date on each other’s lives so none of us need to struggle alone.”

“Too right.” I made myself take a sip of the coffee. It burned, but as the caffeine jolted through my bloodstream I felt fractionally more human again. Perhaps I would be able to drag my sorry arse out of bed after all. “Although there is something else I need to share with you.”

I took a deep breath before telling them about Darius and the money. Eve looked horrified when I told her about my middle-of-the-night bank transfer, and even Tawna couldn’t conceal her shock.

“He never mentioned any of this to me,” she said, “although nothing would surprise me when it comes to Nadia. I’m surprised he hasn’t told Johnny though.”

“Maybe he has, but told Johnny not to tell you?” Eve suggested, stifling a yawn. “You know Darius. Typical alpha male. He wouldn’t want to admit to being under Nadia’s thumb.”

“There are no secrets between me and Johnny!” Tawna spluttered. “He’d tell me anything. Maybe you’re right though, Darius doesn’t like to come across as needy. It must show that he trusts you, Sophie, to approach you. That takes guts.”

“Max messaged me too,” I said quietly, scrolling through my phone to look at the message.

We need to talk.

Max.

Nothing about the message filled me with hope, but I held it up for my friends to read.

“You were desperate to hear from him, Soph, and now you have. That’s great!” Eve said.

“I don’t know. It sounds ominous to me.”

“You wanted him to reach out first and he has. Have you messaged him back?” Tawna asked.

I shook my head. “I think I’m going to leave it, at least until we get back home. This week’s been traumatic enough without long-distance arguments making it worse. I think I’m going to switch my phone off for the rest of the holiday, actually.”

Tawna gave me a disbelieving look. “You’d never manage without it. And how would you take photos without your phone?”

“I’ll pinch yours off Instagram,” I said with a shrug, and then I held my finger against my phone’s power button. When the screen went black, I threw my handset into my suitcase, which was lying open at the foot of my bed.

“Do you still want to go to The Statue of Liberty today?” I knew that was the one landmark Tawna had her heart set on seeing.

She nodded, then said, “But let’s get brunch first. I could do with a stack of pancakes drowned in maple syrup to set me up for the day.”

I couldn’t decide if that sounded amazing or awful. Pancakes would normally be my dream breakfast, but my stomach was still lurching up and down as though I was riding the Cyclone rollercoaster at Coney Island.

“I’m up for that. My stomach feels as though it’s been hollowed out.” Apparently the mere mention of pancakes was all that was needed to get Eve stripping off and preparing to get in the shower. “Aim to leave in half an hour?”

I groaned. Having to force myself out of my pit wasn’t appealing when my head was having its own private disco.

“We’re in New York!” Tawna reminded us, punching the air. “The best city in the world. Surely you don’t want to waste our time here lying in bed.”

“You encouraged it by getting me rollicking drunk.” I smiled, but her words hit home and I swung my legs out from under the covers. It’s not every day I wake up in one of the greatest cities in the world. “You said it yourself, I’m a lightweight.”

“Maybe we should stick to just a few cocktails tonight,” Tawna said thoughtfully. “Can’t have you feeling this rough in the morning. We’ve got an early start tomorrow.” She clamped her hand over her mouth then mumbled through her fingers, “Oops, I shouldn’t have said that.”

My eyebrows slid down