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Forty-Three

New York City, fourteen hours later

The hazy, early evening sun stretched through the large windows of Budgie’s three-bedroom loft in New York’s West Village. Alex picked one of the smaller bedrooms, reserving the large king-sized suite for Lucy and Harry. She turned on the air conditioning, plugged in her dead phone, and started to fill the closet with her clothes.

Her phone came alive like it was possessed, buzzing and then switching to the Sherlock theme and then back to buzzing again.

“Shit. Okay, Lucy, I’m coming!” She hollered over her shoulder, leaving her wrap dress to swing from a wooden hanger in the sizeable closet. She ran around the bed and pounced on her phone, not stopping to read the texts, phone alerts, and FaceTime requests that battled for space on the screen.

She typed quickly and hit send: Sorry! Phone died. Here safe.

Lucy replied within seconds. We’re FaceTiming NOW.

“Wait!” Alex shouted aloud. Tarquin’s escapades must have turned Harry’s world upside down. She didn’t have time to dig out her iPad from her computer bag before the FaceTime request appeared, but it was from…Freddie?

“Lex!” Freddie looked so tiny on her phone’s screen. His chest rose and fell like he had sprinted up the steep escalators at Angel Tube station. “Thank GOD. I can’t hold it any longer.”

Simon squeezed in from Freddie’s left. Lucy was sat on an armrest. Harry was…missing.

“Where’s Harry? Is he okay?”

Lucy nodded. “He’s on his way back from Tarquin’s.”

Alex bit her nails. “Guys, what happened?”

“Lex!” Freddie leaned forward, hogging the entire screen. “Are you sitting down?” He was on the verge of hyperventilating.

She sat on the edge of the bare mattress. “Freddie, take a breath…you’re scaring me—”

“Lex…” Simon yanked Freddie back. “New Year’s—it never happened.”

Alex’s brain had to backpedal. New Year’s…? “What?”

“Mark didn’t have sex with Fallon in Dublin!” Freddie yelled, bouncing up and down on Lucy’s loveseat.