‘I can’t be sorry that this has happened,’ he said softly, running his hand down the length of Margot’s spine. ‘But I’m aware that we both want different things, so I understand if you want to go back to just being two people who own a dog.’
Even as he said it, Will realised that there was no going back. At least, not for him. But he didn’t know what going forwards would mean when Margot so desperately wanted to settle down and Will still couldn’t work out what it was that he actually wanted.
‘Oh God, I’m naked in your bed and you’re already trying to get rid of me!’ Margot turned round so she could elbow Will in the ribs. ‘Was it that bad?’
Will was pretty sure she was teasing him, but not one hundred per cent sure. ‘You know it wasn’t. Definitely in my top five. Maybe even top three.’ He wound one of her wild curls around his finger like he’d been dying to do ever since they’d first kissed. ‘Are we okay?’
Margot didn’t answer at first. She was still sitting up, still half turned away, her face in profile so he could see her furrowed forehead. ‘Yeah, we’re okay,’ she said after a very long pause. ‘I still want what I want and that’s not going to change, but this could be . . .’ She shrugged. ‘One last hurrah? I mean, we’re both adults so there’s no reason why we can’t be adult about this.’
It wasn’t that easy. There were so many moving parts. So many opposing forces. Margot’s needs. Will’s issues. But it was hard to think about all that when Margot was naked in his bed and she was laying back down again as if she had no immediate plans to leave. Also, she was smiling. ‘Anyway, now that we’ve cleared that up, I’d love another cuppa.’
After the tea, they must have fallen asleep because Will was woken by a knocking on the door.
Not the bedroom door, thank God, but the front door. Margot’s head emerged from under the duvet as he pulled on his jeans, and called out, ‘I’m coming! Hang on!’
‘Wasn’t that what I said an hour ago?’ Margot asked. Her hair was going in all directions, her face was sleep-creased and puffy but still beautiful. Will hurried to the door; he could already hear a key in the lock.
He wrenched it open to see Mary standing there with Blossom. ‘About bloody time,’ she snapped. But Will was more alarmed by the way Mary’s eyes were fixed on a point over his shoulder as she tried to see past him. ‘Is Margot still here? I never saw her leave.’
Will decided it was best not to inform Mary of the latest developments on the Margot front. ‘I must have switched my phone off. Sorry you got lumbered with Blossom. Shall I take her?’
‘Not lumbered, I love looking after her,’ Mary said as she handed over the lead and Blossom stepped through the door then sat down on Will’s bare foot and held up her paw. ‘She has already eaten despite what she’s telling you and she won’t need another walk until just before bedtime. I would have taken her tonight but I’m going out with Wendy and Kate. To that new Italian that’s opened in East Finchley.’
‘Who are Wendy and Kate when they’re at home?’ Mary expected him to know every single one of the friends she’d made in the twenty years he’d been away, plus Sage’s friends, and all their customers. Then Will paused. Did he sound over-bearing? Controlling? He took a deep breath. ‘Sorry, I just don’t think you’ve mentioned them before.’
‘I’m sure I have,’ Mary said, standing her ground, because she wasn’t the Mary from all those years ago. ‘Wendy has a Red Setter called Oriel and Kate has two Miniature Schnauzers called Sonny and Cher.’
Mary, and Margot for that matter, also seemed to think that Will knew every dog within a three-mile radius. He shook his head. ‘No, not ringing any bells.’
‘I was at school with them!’
‘You were at school with two Miniature Schnauzers called Sonny and Cher? Wow!’
He deserved the slap on his arm that Mary gave him. ‘You know perfectly well what I mean. I was at school with Wendy and Kate and we’ve reconnected. It’s amazing who you bump into when you have a dog to walk.’
‘Well, have a nice time. Are you going to be drinking? I’ll come and pick you up, if you like.’
Mary hitched her handbag higher up her shoulder. ‘Ian’s already said that he’ll come and get me, but I’ll be fine. The 102 goes door to door, or I can get a cab. Sage put the Uber app on my phone.’ Mary was already turning to go. ‘Stop fussing. I’m a sixty-year-old woman, not a child. And tell Margot I said hello.’
Mary was already clattering down the stairs as Will looked down at Blossom who was still gazing at him mournfully, like she didn’t know where her next meal was coming from. ‘Don’t look at me like that. You could live off your stored fat for a good three weeks,’ he said, bending down to unclip her lead. ‘Now, don’t go— Shit!’
Blossom was already charging down the hall and into the bedroom. Will was just in time to see her jump on the bed, then wriggle under the covers, as Margot squeaked and squirmed.
Blossom appeared from under the duvet, settled her head on Will’s pillow and nudged Margot with her paw. All highly suggestive of the fact that Will’s bed was not forbidden territory. Not even a little bit.
No wonder Margot was sitting up with an aggrieved expression, as she looked at an unused object in the corner of the room. ‘I would ask why Blossom’s bed looks like it’s never been slept in, but I think I already know the answer.’
35
Margot
Margot and Will had already known each other for six months. Will had seen the best and the worst of Margot. Not just Margot on New Year’s Eve when she was dressed up in her glittery finest or rosy-cheeked from leaf-crunching walks on the Heath. He’d seen her in the Dog-Walking Anorak Of Doom and the time she’d had to clean up Blossom’s diarrhoea with a pocket pack of tissues, a clutch of poo bags and some hand sanitiser.
When you added up all of that, it meant that they’d gone straight from nought to sixty. Scratch that. Nought to a thousand. They could cut out all the boring stuff. The dating. The ‘are we exclusive?’ And just get on with whatever the hell it was that they were getting on with.
Mostly they were getting on with getting it on. Usually laying in Margot’s bed (because Margot had a much better mattress and they didn’t have to run the gauntlet of various inquisitive Blooms), basking in the afterglow, a furious Blossom consigned to the living room.
Two weeks since that fateful Saturday, and apart from one night when Margot had had to get up very early to visit the Ivy+Pearl factory in Borehamwood, they hadn’t spent a night apart. Thirteen nights when it felt like Will had kissed every inch of her, held her down, held her open, took Margot over the edge. In the mornings, too, though it meant a very early start in order to fit in an orgasm before Blossom’s first constitutional of the day.
Will in a relationship, or whatever the hell this was, was a revelation. He was kind, caring, though Margot already knew that, but all his ambivalence and aloofness were gone now the two of them were together.
But with Will living above the shop and being so entrenched in the family business, the Blooms quickly discovered that he and Margot were more than just friends.