beginning and moved away from him as quickly as she could.
‘No more than usual,’ she said, and mustered a more genuine smile before turning to the table. ‘Everybody, this is my friend Gabriel. Gabriel, this is Digger and Kate, and Yabba and Suzy. Digger and Yabba play football with Ed.’ Nods were exchanged around the table. ‘And this is Joanna.’ Lucy gestured towards the blonde at the end of the table, who was apparently unable to tear her gaze away from Gabriel. ‘And you know Ed, of course.’ Ed raised his whisky glass in a perfunctory hello gesture from the other end of the table.
She sat down as Gabriel hooked a spare chair from a nearby table. Fully expecting him to sit next to her, she felt a little piqued as he dragged it two spaces away and sat down between Joanna and Yabba. She was left to continue the conversation with Kate, who was sitting on her left, about the plans she was making for the summer holidays later in the year.
Gabriel lost no time in buying a round of drinks and then quickly immersed himself in quiet conversation with Joanna. Ed was steadily getting drunker at the other end of the table and Lucy sipped her own glass of orange juice defiantly. If this was the way the evening was going to go, with her boyfriend and her best friend both apparently having no need of her to have a good time, she would damn well make the most of her own company.
Time and again her eyes strayed to Gabriel. She found she was able to largely tune out the ongoing conversation with Kate and Suzy, who were planning a shopping trip in the next few weeks, and who invited her along with no real conviction because they were both fully aware that Saturdays were one of the busiest days of the week for the cake shop. The occasional yes or no seemed to maintain her part in the discussion perfectly well. Joanna’s curtain of blonde hair swung glossily as she leaned in towards Gabriel. She seemed oblivious to the rest of the table. Lucy felt a stab of annoyance. And she had every right to feel annoyed, she told herself. She’d invited him out after all, to watch her interact with Ed, and yet he’d barely glanced her way even once. Lucy found she was able to make out the occasional snatch of conversation between them.
‘… go out for dinner some time… nothing heavy, just a relaxing evening…’ she heard Gabriel saying. She picked up her orange juice, trying to keep the smug smile from her face. Same old Gabriel. Get the caveat in up front. No chance of the relationship being any more than a couple of dates, so make it clear from the outset. She noticed the firm set of his jaw at this angle and the way his dark hair curled a little over his collar. He was truly gorgeous. No wonder Joanna was mesmerised. And he certainly seemed to have the gift of making her feel as if she was the only woman in the room for him. Because it didn’t appear to matter how often Lucy glanced his way, she might as well have been invisible for all the notice he took of her. She stood up and went to the bar to get another drink, deliberately ignoring them as she passed. Why should she care if Gabriel chatted up yet another woman? It wasn’t as if it were anything she hadn’t seen before, after all. She picked up the menu at the bar and looked through the fat-laden snack list. If this was going to be a long and extremely dull evening, she’d need something to get her through.
Lucy checked her watch. Six forty-five. They’d only been jogging for five minutes and already she was flagging. She’d had hardly any sleep, tossing and turning half the night, unable to switch off. When she’d eventually dropped off at about three it had felt as if her alarm had gone off ten minutes later. Her head ached horribly. Gabriel seemed as fresh as a daisy however, despite the fact it was so early in the morning. She wondered if he’d be seeing Joanna again and mentally slapped herself down. It was nothing to do with her and she absolutely didn’t care.
‘So what conclusions did you get from last night, Relationship Guru?’ she panted, more to bring her mind back on task than because she really wanted to speak.
Gabriel glanced sideways at her and then slowed to a stop. There was a bench a short way off and he slowed her down too by grabbing her arm, then pointed at the bench as they approached it. ‘Let’s sit down for a bit, shall we? You look beat.’
She was too out of breath to argue, and frankly the idea of sitting down for a few minutes sounded wonderful. She followed him to the bench and they sat down and gazed out across the still river. The early morning was fresh and cold and she could see her breath, the clouds from her mouth diminishing slowly as her breathing recovered from the run. Gabriel opened a bottle of water and handed it to her.
‘It was an interesting evening,’ he began.
‘I’m surprised you noticed anything that went on between Ed and me,’ she grumbled. ‘You spent the entire time trying to prise Joanna’s phone number out of her.’
‘Just setting up my cover,’ he protested with a grin. ‘Don’t want Ed to work out there’s something going on, do you? Don’t you think he would have wondered what the hell was going on if I’d spent the entire evening watching the two of you interact? Not that you really did,’ he added pointedly.
‘Hmm,’ she said, unconvinced. ‘What are your conclusions, then? Tell me there was a point to it all.’
‘Of course there was a point to it. I spent a couple of very useful hours observing you and Ed, and what I saw confirmed what I already thought.’
‘Which was…?’
‘The reason it doesn’t occur to Ed to propose to you is because it won’t give him anything more than he already has. Except perhaps a large bill for wedding costs.’
Lucy groaned. ‘Frankly I was expecting something a bit more insightful than that.’
‘I can give you insights. That was just the concise version.’ He took a swig from his bottle of water and glanced at his watch.
‘Go on, then.’
‘OK…’ He stood back up and began stretching to keep warm. Lucy made no move to join him. The way her muscles felt this morning a few stretches were going to make no difference. She might as well give up right now and walk home. But not before she’d heard him out.
‘First of all, just look at the people you are hanging out with,’ he said.
She frowned. ‘What about them? I didn’t see you moaning last night when you were chatting to Joanna over drinks and nibbles.’
He shook his head at her. ‘You’re missing the point. They’re all settled, aren’t they? Well, except for Joanna, but just from a quick conversation with her I can tell she wants to be settled, too. They’re all married or about to be married.’
‘I see where you’re going with this, but you’re wrong. Digger and Kate aren’t married, they live together—’
‘That’s only while Kate pushes Digger towards marriage. You can see the pattern with them—it’s the same as you and Ed. The only difference is that Digger has actually moved in with her while Ed’s hanging on for dear life to his bachelor pad. What I’m trying to say is that marriage is essentially a girl thing. Your average guy has no real drive to get tied down like that. He’s quite happy to live with his girl without all the trappings.’
‘Marriage isn’t just about trappings,’ she protested. ‘It’s a commitment. It gives proper, constant stability.’
‘Only if you choose to see it that way,’ he countered. ‘Living together is a commitment, too, you know. You just don’t have to spend a fortune on a wedding in order to do it. But that doesn’t make it any less significant.’
She shook her head to try and clear it. He always did this—confused the issue
