Page 64 of The Work Husband

Jamie looked down into his glass like it was a portal into an alternate universe. ‘Shit. Imagine being responsible for a kid. Imagine it dying on you. The whole rest of your life would be fucked.’

Which was pretty much the same thought I’d had the previous evening, although I wouldn’t have put it in those exact words.

‘No plans for fatherhood any time soon, then?’ I asked wryly.

‘Hell, no. What about you? Get another round in, then you can tell me.’

Obediently, I headed to the bar.

When I returned with our drinks, I said, ‘Actually, I would like to have kids. Or I thought I would anyway. With Sam, before things… I always thought he’d make a great dad.’

Saying Sam’s name made me feel hollowed out with sadness. Although I’d texted him to tell him about Arthur, and he’d responded full of concern for the baby, sympathy for Molly and Ben, and later with relief that a corner seemed to have been turned, he’d said nothing about our conversation. Nothing about Ava. Nothing about whether or not our relationship might be salvageable.

‘I note the past tense,’ Jamie said.

I nodded. ‘I don’t know what’s going to happen. He’s… he’s moved out. For now. I don’t know if he’ll come back, or what’ll happen if he doesn’t. With the flat and stuff, I mean. I haven’t thought that far ahead.’

‘So much for my cunning plan.’ Jamie swished the ice around in his drink. ‘I’m sorry, Georgia. I meant well. But I guess it just didn’t work.’

‘It’s not your fault. It’s mine. I guess I…’

I thought about what I’d learned about Jamie last week: his leaking of stories about Devereaux Partners’ clients to the Gossip Guru, his casual assumption that I wouldn’t betray him to Jasper. I wondered whether I should reassess whether he was really somebody I could trust or confide in.

But I hadn’t been able to talk to Molly. It would be a while before she was able to focus on anything other than her baby’s recovery and her own survival of the experience, which was totally understandable.

I thought fleetingly of Zahra, but she had problems of her own to deal with – problems I hoped I could help her solve, just as soon as I figured out a way to do that. Besides, she was a client first and foremost, and there was no way I could burden her with my personal issues.

And Sam, with whom I’d shared all my problems for the past four years, now was the problem. I had no one else.

‘You guess you what?’ Jamie asked.

‘I guess I don’t know how to make relationships work,’ I admitted. ‘My mum and dad – they hated each other. I never had that kind of example, growing up – you know, parents who loved each other. Advanced-level stuff like that. When I met Sam, I thought I had it all figured out. I thought I’d been able to skip the learning-how bit and get straight into the doing. I thought I could just wing it, and if things went wrong, we’d just sort of get through it.’

‘Then the shit hit the fan and you couldn’t find the off switch?’ Jamie said.

The second cocktail was going to my head, making me feel lightheaded and almost carefree. Although after yesterday, the most normal, pedestrian things felt weirdly joyous because Arthur wasn’t going to die.

I laughed. ‘That’s pretty much it.’

‘My parents packed me off to boarding school when I was ten.’ Jamie looked down into his glass again. ‘Dad was working in Kuala Lumpur and they wanted me to be educated in England, so off I went. No choice in the matter.’

‘Jesus.’

Again, I thought of Molly. Last night, when she’d finished crying, she’d said, I never want to let Artie go. I just want to hold him in my arms forever and ever. My parents hadn’t felt that way about me, and clearly Jamie’s hadn’t about him either.

‘Ten years old, though.’ I shook my head in bewilderment. ‘That’s tiny. It must’ve been awful.’

‘It wasn’t so bad. Mum and Dad weren’t all that anyway. I was kind of glad to get away from them. And I learned to play cricket and read Ancient Greek – all the useful life skills. Another drink?’

This is not a good idea, a voice somewhere in my head warned me. But what was the alternative? Going back home and sitting alone in the flat wondering where Sam was, what he was doing and whether he was missing me as much as I was missing him?

‘I will if you will,’ I said.

He grinned. ‘When do I ever not?’

When he returned from the bar with our drinks, we talked about ordinary, less personal things. Arsenal’s chances in the Premiership in the upcoming season. How much larger Jasper’s moustache could get before it needed its own postcode. A new restaurant where it was currently impossible to get a table, no matter who you were.

‘You’ll have to start dating one of the reservations team,’ I joked, remembering how he’d secured Cormac Kennedy’s booking at Ash and Brine all those weeks ago, back when everything had felt normal and safe.