I couldn’t say anything for a while. I didn’t know where the tears had come from or why they’d picked this moment to come, but I found I couldn’t stop them. My shoulders heaved with sobs and my nose and eyes streamed, and Dani sat there patiently, rubbing my shoulder and shushing me, while I cried on and on.
But you can’t cry forever, even when it feels like you’re going to, and eventually I felt the sobs easing in my aching throat, and I looked up and blew my nose.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I’m such a dick.’
‘You’re not,’ Dani said gently. ‘But you can tell me what’s wrong, if you like.’
‘I feel like I’ve wasted all this time. I’ve dated all these men that were wrong for me, and when I met Jude I thought he was right, and I did everything I possibly could to make it work, and then I realised he was wrong too.’
‘That’s good though, right? I mean, at least you realised and kicked him to the kerb before you got in too deep.’
Dani had told me a while back that work had sent her on a customer relations course, and that one of the things they’d been taught was active listening. That was what she was doing now, I reckoned – not really knowing what I was so upset about but trying to encourage me to keep talking until I told her.
‘The thing is, I told Adam I was done with dating. I told him I’m cool with being single and dying alone surrounded by cats. And clearly he’s taken that on board, even if he was interested in me in the first place.’
‘So talk to him! Tell him you’ve changed your mind. How hard can it be?’
‘I wish I could. But the app – I have this app on my phone that sends me horoscopes every day – it’s been getting really weird lately. Really dark. And the other day it said that some choices can’t be unmade and you’ve got to accept the consequences, and I know that’s true but it just made me feel really shitty. And today it told me I had my chance and I blew it, and I think it’s right.’
‘Ah, Zoë! Cop on! You can’t let some stupid app dictate how you feel. Good grief! Delete it and move on. What app is it anyway?’
I told her and her mouth opened in astonishment. ‘But that’s—’
Then we heard a voice above us.
‘What are you two doing, coffee-housing behind the weights rack? Don’t you know there are pubs for this sort of thing?’
We got to our feet hastily, like school kids caught smoking behind the bike sheds, even though we knew Mike was joking.
‘Have you seen this on Twitter, Dani? Your ex is trending all over the place. Load of stuff about some astrology app he started, and how he was paying writers in the Philippines to write content for it, not expert astrologers from NASA like he claimed. And he was using Chinese click farms to inflate the reviews on the app store.’ He shook his head in bewilderment. ‘It’s a whole different world out there.’
I looked from Dani to Mike and back again. Mike was smiling, faintly amused. Dani looked like someone had just chucked a bucket of cold water over her head.
‘I think I know the answer to this already,’ I said slowly, ‘but what’s the name of the app he started, again?’
‘Stargazer,’ Dani and Mike said together.
‘And speaking of which,’ Mike went on, ‘look what the cat dragged in.’
I considered telling him that even if Frazzle had been gifted with superpowers that enabled him to lift a fourteen-stone man as easily as he did a baby blackbird, he wouldn’t deign to put his mouth anywhere near Fabian Flatley. But I couldn’t, because, as always, Fabian’s presence seemed to have robbed me of the power of speech.
He was wearing his usual designer gym kit: a muscle top and skin-tight Lycra shorts. The former had a prominent logo on it that I’d googled once out of curiosity and discovered cost over a hundred quid; the latter showed off far more of Fabian’s anatomy than I or anyone else wanted to see. He smelled overpoweringly of the cedar deodorant he always used, which meant that he hadn’t started his workout yet, because then he’d have smelled overpoweringly of sweat.
He strolled over to us and gave Mike a slap on the shoulder that looked friendly but would have sent him flying if he hadn’t been such an absolute unit, then slipped an arm round Dani’s waist.
‘Hey, mate. Hey, baby. You over your huff yet? Fancy going out tonight?’
He ignored me, which I felt almost pathetically grateful for. But Dani froze, as if Fabian’s arm was made of lead rather than muscle and bone and had rooted her to the spot. I saw her turn her head and look at him, her eyes widening in a mix of fear and desire.
Fabian reached out and pinched her cheek. ‘Bit overemotional, were you? Silly girl. It’s okay, I’ll give you another chance. Just the one, mind.’
Dani reached up and touched the place he’d pinched like it hurt. But she didn’t say anything – it was like she physically couldn’t.
But Mike could. ‘Stop me if I’m wrong. But this woman asked you not to contact her again. I don’t know the details and I don’t want to. But I won’t have my clients being harassed in my gym.’
‘Am I harassing her? Does it look like that? Does it feel like that, baby?’
Dani found her voice, although it came out in a thin squeak, as if she could still feel Fabian’s hands around her neck, squeezing.
‘Yes, it does.’
‘Well, then,’ Mike said. ‘Looks like we’re pretty clear on that. This gym is a place where I want everyone to feel safe, and so you won’t be welcome here any longer. I’ll refund the balance of your membership.’
‘But… I pay for daily personal training sessions, and I don’t even use half of them!’ Fabian spluttered. ‘I’m worth almost twenty grand a year to you. These girls pay peanuts. Are you trying to destroy your business?’
Mike folded his arms over his chest. His hands barely reached his elbows because his pecs and biceps were so big. ‘Money isn’t everything. And I prefer clients who actually follow my advice. Wherever you go next, Fabian, listen to them when they tell you you need to do cardio as well as lift, and you need to have a healthy lifestyle, too. Maybe slow down on the Colombian marching powder and the little blue pills. No point having the best body in the morgue, right?’
Fabian looked at him like he was getting ready to protest, or even fight. But Mike’s face was implacable, and in that moment actually quite scary.
‘Fine.’ Fabian let go of Dani and spun around on his designer trainers. ‘There are plenty of better places than this. See if I care.’
And he flounced off through the gap in the metal shutters. I heard the roar of his car’s powerful engine, and then, instead of it fading into the distance, I heard a sickening crunch and a tinkle of glass. Through the open door, I could see the bollard he’d reversed into, his car’s crumpled bumper and a group of teenage boys outside the fried chicken shop breaking into ironic cheers.
Dani didn’t notice the unfolding drama, though. She was gazing at Mike, wide-eyed, like she’d never seen him before, a huge happy smile spreading over her face.
Twenty-Nine