bickered, but who ran off with the bride’s toddlers to drop Pooh sticks in the river without telling anyone?
Okay. Fine. There was a part of her that would always be a bit funny about the fact Monty dated Izzy before her. Clarification. Monty and Izzy had hit all of the bases. Done it. Had actual sex. Hopefully enough time had passed that it would no longer be weird that one of the most beautiful women in the world had seen her husband’s penis. Sure. It had been actual years prior to Freya’s access to said penis, but still. Yup. Feeling extra grown-up now. She’d definitely moved on. That’s right. Moved on from the fact that her blue-eyed, Poldark-esque husband and one of her best mates had had sex. With each other. In the nude.
As she turned, something caught her attention. Was that …?
It looked like a drunken hedgehog.
They were nocturnal, so what was it doing out here in broad daylight? Surely, it wasn’t … was it?
Yes. It was definitely lurching around. Dehydrated? Starving?
Freya grabbed Monty’s Pearl Jam hoodie from the pile of clothes he’d stuffed into the back of the car and scooped it up into the thick cotton.
‘Kids!’ She beckoned for them to come out. ‘We’ve got a medical emergency here.’
Freya held the hedgehog’s tiny little face in front of her own and cooed, ‘It’s okay, darlin’. We’ve got you.’
A premonition jolted through her.
Babies.
It was technically too early, but … climate change. She gently tipped the hedgehog over and exposed her stomach. It looked swollen. She traced her finger along the creature’s tiny pink feet, then atop the soft white arc of her belly. ‘Do you have some hoglets growing inside you?’
‘She’s pregnant?’ Regan looked as if she’d found a treasure chest.
Freya secretly wished her daughter would become a vet. Between the mice, the budgies, the runaway tortoise, and, of course, Dumbledore, the family Labradoodle, Regan was definitely the family’s number-one animal lover. Maybe a proper summer at her family’s farm would do the trick.
‘Should we ring the RSPCA?’ Her daughter’s delicate fingers hovered above the hedgehog’s spines.
‘Yes. Definitely. Unless they have a wildlife clinic here. Felix, love. Can you grab Dad’s woolly hat, please?’
Her gangly son tripped on his way to the back of the car. Poor lad. All limbs and no coordination.
‘She’s soooooo cute!’ Regan lightly brushed her fingers along the hedgehog’s spines.
‘I’m pretty sure she’s pregnant.’
‘Can we call her Persephone?’ Felix asked.
‘We can call her whatever you like, darlin’’
‘This is great,’ Regan cooed. ‘I love it here already.’
And just like that … the long weekend stretched before Freya as a place of wide, joyful possibility.
Izzy couldn’t move.
C’mon Yeats. Get out of the van!
An overwhelming instinct to turn round and head straight back to the airport hit so powerfully it made her light-headed. Why was she doing this, again?
‘Mom?’ Luna whispered from the back seat, puppy firmly nestled in her lap despite Izzy’s entreaties to keep him in his newly purchased crate. ‘They’re staring at us.’
Freya and Charlotte were, indeed, staring. Well. Smiling. Waving. Beckoning. Wondering why the hell Izzy wasn’t running towards them like a lunatic and joyously screaming her head off like she would’ve back in the day.
Get a grip, big breath in and … she flung the car door open, ran towards her friends, arms wide open and shouting at the top of her voice. ‘Aloha, ladies!’ She threw in a whoop. Ten years in America taught her a whoop always helped.
They countered with some British-style whoops. A bit perplexed. A bit delighted. Mostly uncomfortable.
Bless. Despite the jitterbugs, it was great to see them. If she kept making a big show of things, it’d be no big deal. Same ol’ Dizzy Izzy.
‘Hey hey, girlies!’
As the space between them diminished, Izzy just managed to keep her game face on. Charlotte looked like a proper grown-up now. Blonde, in good shape, and immaculately put together with a splash of … Stepford Wife wasn’t exactly right because Charlotte was too damn sweet, but … hmmm. She’d have to think on that. As usual, Freya was pulling off something mere mortals couldn’t. An asymmetrical pastel-striped skirt, a camouflage tank top sporting a skunk sitting on top of a landmine, and a pair of Converse. As she got closer she clocked a few more crinkles round her eyes, a proper divot between her brows, and just a hint of the softness that came with the passage of time. Like, she could talk. Should she stick with the plan to blame her own eye crinkles on Hawaii or ruin everyone’s weekend with some blunt honesty?
Before she could decide, she was enveloped in one of Charlotte’s trademark hugs. Charlotte held onto her for just slightly longer than most people would; the type of hug that reminded Izzy of the three years Charlotte had been big sister and mother all rolled into one. Izzy breathed her in, her familiar scent filling her nostrils: expensive hair product mixed with Miss Dior.
Izzy took a step back and gave Charlotte a proper wow! look at you scan. Pretty as ever. A tiny bit stressy, but Charlotte had always been a bit gah! whenever there was an event on the horizon.
Freya stood awkwardly to the side, curling one of her purple-dipped curls round her finger. When Izzy opened her arms wide, Freya stepped into them, giving Izzy that astonishingly familiar ‘I hate you but I love you too’ hug that meant she still hadn’t got over the fact she and Monty had done it. Ah well.
Izzy put Freya out of her misery and stepped back. ‘You both looking amazing. Not aged a day.’
They protested and Izzy pretended she hadn’t been lying.
The women were standing in front of a rather impressive selection of wheelbarrows. Every colour of the rainbow, the barrows were bedecked with hand-painted flowers and names. Mabel. Ruth. Esmerelda.
‘Look what we’ve found!’ They parted as one and revealed an Isabelle.
‘Awwww, girlfriends! You shouldn’t have.’ Izzy pressed her mountain of coils back from her face and went to stuff her hands in her back pockets, only to remember she had dressed up for her friends in one of her two maxi-dresses rather than wearing her go-to cargos.
‘Your hair looks nice,’ said Freya.
Izzy lifted her hand self-consciously to the coif. Kind, but no one was fooling anyone. She looked like a train wreck. The years of surfing had kept her fit, but the last couple of years? Ugh … She couldn’t even go there. ‘Where’s Emms?’
‘Not here yet.’ Charlotte’s mouth looked
