It was dusty enough to suggest it had been up there for a couple of months, but it wasn’t off-putting enough to stop me from tearing off the ribbon, chucking the lid on the floor and shovelling the chocolates into my mouth three at a time.
‘Bloody hell, Jenny,’ I yelled through the gooey chocolatey goodness. ‘These are amazing. You should get your lazy arse out of bed before I eat them all.’
I contorted myself around to mash my tea, twisting over the sink to reach the kettle, and made a mental note to take up yoga classes soon. Again. And then stuffed another fistful of chocolates into my gob while trying unsuccessfully to pull my skirt over my knickers.
‘Any left for me?’
If hearing a distinctly masculine voice wasn’t enough to topple me from my countertop perch, spinning around to see a half-naked man grinning at me was. But that grin didn’t last long. As soon as he recognized me.
Tyler.
I slapped a hand over my chocolate-filled mouth and inadvertently propelled myself over the kitchen counter and onto the living-room floor.
‘Holy shit.’ It took him half a second to compose himself before running around to help me up. I coughed, choking down a particularly chewy caramel. ‘Bad spill. Did you break anything?’
For a couple of seconds I lay on the floor, dazed, wondering if I’d been hit by a taxi or fallen downstairs and woken up in a coma. Or purgatory. Or out-and-out fire and brimstone, seventh circle of hell. But no, here I was on the floor of Jenny’s apartment, chocolate smeared all over my face and my less than best underwear on display, while my former boyfriend − no, that was too strong a word; former fling − loomed over me in his very best underwear with nothing on his face but a shit-eating grin.
‘Annie?’
Oh, now that was just rude.
Tyler stroked his abs with an absent-minded hand and looked around the apartment with new eyes. ‘I thought this place seemed familiar.’
‘It’s Angela.’ I pushed myself upright and did the best I could to put everything where it was supposed to be. Skirt over knickers, chocolate off face, hair − well, the best I could do was on head. ‘I need to speak to Jenny.’
‘Right, right. English chick. So this is weird, huh?’ he shrugged, still smiling. Actually smiling broader and brighter if possible. What a wanker. ‘She’s in bed.’
I stared hard, willing him to vanish. Willing this not to be happening. Willing myself not to be true to my word and throw up all those chocolates.
‘I guess I’ll jump in the shower,’ he said. His eyes twinkled in a way that, once upon a time, I had found incredibly attractive. At that moment it was all I could do to hold onto my New Year’s resolution to punch fewer people. ‘See you later, Annie.’
As Tyler sauntered off into the bathroom, I was frozen to the spot. My brain was a screaming mess of confusion and, for some reason, I really wanted a wee. But with the bathroom out of action, there was only one thing to do.
‘Get up!’ I ran into Jenny’s room, spotted her sitting on the edge of the bed half dressed, and saw red. I picked up a pillow, flew at my best friend like a Britney scorned and proceeded to bash her about the head with it. ‘Get up. Get out of bed. Get up now.’
‘What? Angela, what the fuck?’ She held her hands up over her face against my sad little assault. I was both weak and feeble. It didn’t take more than a couple of seconds for Jenny to overpower me, grab the pillow and shove me across the bed. ‘Why aren’t you at Vera Wang?’
‘I was at Vera Wang but everyone was so worried about you,’ I howled from the floor beside the bed. ‘I said I’d come and get you. But clearly there was no reason to be worried because nothing was wrong, you were just too busy shagging my ex to be there with me while I tried on wedding dresses.’
‘What?’ Even from my position on the floor, which badly needed hoovering, I saw the colour drain from her face.
‘Worst. Bridesmaid. Ever,’ I shouted.
‘Seriously, what are you talking about?’ Jenny reached down and pulled me up onto the bed. ‘I was on my way, I swear.’
‘Tyler.’ Suddenly remembering there was someone else in the apartment, I lowered my voice to a hiss and stood up, too angry to sit beside Jenny on the bed. ‘You slept with Tyler?’
‘Uh, the blond guy?’ All the colour she had lost came back in a bright red flush. ‘You know him?’
‘The blond …?’ I went from being incredibly angry to incredibly worried in a heartbeat. With a side portion of pissed-off still hanging around for good measure. ‘Jenny, I used to date him. Remember when I first moved here? Tall? Blond? Sleazy bastard?’
Jenny’s eyes widened to the point where she made Disney heroines look a bit squinty.
‘You?’ I could see her searching for recollection. ‘Tyler. You dated a Tyler. He bought you Tiffany.’
And then I saw her weighing up her options.
‘And he was an asshole.’ Jenny pressed her hands against her face and groaned. ‘I met him in the bar last night. He seemed OK − he was funny. He was hot. I can’t believe it’s your Tyler.’
‘Yeah.’ My nervous energy ran out and I collapsed on the bed beside her. Then remembered what had happened in that bed and jumped back up. ‘Jenny, this is really, really disgusting. As in, I want to have a shower disgusting. Only I can’t because the man we’ve both had sex with is in the shower.’
‘Oh, man.’ She doubled up, dropping her head to her knees. ‘I’m gonna puke. I didn’t know. How could I know?’
‘I suppose you couldn’t,’ I admitted. ‘But when you’ve shagged enough people to accidentally get around to the only other person in the city I’ve slept with aside from Alex, I reckon you’ve probably shagged too many.’
She rested her hands on her thighs, which I noticed were covered in jeans. And she had one sock on. And a tank top. And her phone, on the nightstand, showed the location of Vera Wang on Google Maps. So she really was on her way to meet me. After she’d finished shagging my ex.
‘Angela?’ she said in a soft, quiet voice I hadn’t heard in a long time. ‘I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know what to do.’
Taking a deep breath and trying very hard not to think about bed-based high jinks, I sat down next to her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. Most of the time Jenny seemed like an Amazon to me, all long legs, shiny hair and glamour, but sometimes, when you took away the high heels and confidence, you remembered how tiny she really was. Right now, without so much as a swipe of mascara or an ounce of confidence, she looked like any other little lost girl with a broken heart.
‘It’s going to be OK,’ I promised, pressing my lips into her hair and not even knowing whether or not it was true. ‘I know things are hard, I know it hurts, but it will get better.’
‘I want it to stop hurting so much.’ Her voice broke with tears as she spoke and it made my heart hurt for her. ‘It’s been so long and it doesn’t change. I thought dating other people
