Page 133 of The Sunrise Sisterhood

This called for a celebration. She could sit outside and watch the world go by with a glass of wine.

The thought brought her up short. No. She mustn’t. She’d been doing so well.

Her heart started to race. No one would know. She could open a bottle, just have one glass and pour the rest away, no one would be any the wiser. She deserved it.

Liz laughed at herself and shook her head. She wasn’t even sure why she was being so puritanical about it, she was a grown woman, for heaven’s sake. And drinking to celebrate something was a completely different thing from drinking to escape.

She almost ran down the stairs, her mouth watering at the thought of that delicious first sip. There was a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc in the cupboard under the stairs which the girls didn’t know about. It wouldn’t be cold, but an ice cube would soon remedy that. Liz dived into the cupboard head first, shifting stuff out of the way until she found the wine.

‘Jackpot.’ She shimmied backwards out of the cupboard.

She got as far as dropping an ice cube into her glass and opening the drawer to find the corkscrew and froze.

‘No, Liz. No way.’

She was shocked at how easily she’d almost slipped back into her old habit. Boredom, loneliness, grief or, as in this case, celebration; she’d promised herself she wouldn’t use drinking as her go-to response anymore and yet here she was.

She slammed the drawer shut, annoyed with herself. She wasn’t going to succumb. She had to break this cycle. She couldn’t rely on Clare and Skye to police her drinking, it wasn’t fair on them. She had to hold herself accountable.

She pushed the bottle of wine away unopened, filled the glass with tap water and drank it down.

Take a minute, Liz, think about what your body really needs right now. Instead of drinking alone, how about celebrating in a different way, a better way?

A face flashed up in her mind. Patrick.

She liked him very much and it seemed that he liked her. And he had said that he was her man, any time she needed him. So what if he wasn’t expecting to see her until tomorrow?

‘What do you reckon, Jen?’ she mused. ‘Shall I go for it?’

Liz smiled, knowing exactly what her best friend would be yelling at her right now. She scribbled a note for the girls, telling them where she was going, grabbed her car keys and left the house.

Fifty minutes later, Liz arrived in East Portlemouth, belatedly realising as she caught a glimpse of herself in her visor mirror that perhaps she should have at least washed her face and brushed her hair.

Too late, she thought, getting out of the car. She was here now, and he’d have to take her as he found her, and vice versa.

Her nerves were zinging about all over the place as she waited for Patrick to answer the door.

‘Liz?’ His gentle, kind face broke into a smile when he saw her.

‘Surprise!’ she said with a hopeful smile.

He looked over her shoulder, checking she was alone. ‘A lovely one!’

He was in his usual uniform of crumpled linen shirt and shorts, his feet were bare and he had some sort of white powder on his chin and in his hair.

‘I know I’m meant to be seeing you tomorrow, but I wanted to give you something.’ She took a step towards him.

He looked amused as his gaze dropped towards her empty hands. ‘Give me what?’

She took another step and closed the gap between their bodies . Placing her hands on his shirt, she tilted her face up to his. ‘This,’ she said, kissing him.

‘Wow, thank you,’ he whispered.

To her relief, he gathered her to him, bringing his hands to her hair, and they kissed again.

‘That was a good kiss,’ she whispered back, looking into his dark blue eyes.

‘It was. Would it be very presumptuous of me to invite you in?’ Patrick murmured against her lips.