Forfeit (Original Edit)

Chapter Ten

'Friends with benefits' worked - well, I thought so. We hung out together most days. I persuaded him up Scarfell Pike and he talked me into mountain biking, the latest adrenalin sport he wanted me to try. The downhill parts I adored, pedalling uphill slower than I could walk, much less so. We went out a few times a week and spent a stupid amount of time kissing. And shagging - there was a lot of very fabulous shagging. In fact my life was nigh on perfect until the first of October when I discovered Xander felt a tad differently towards FWB.

In the afternoon, we'd gone to Haverton where Xander bought the most beautiful peach roses for Tabitha's birthday present. Thoroughly jealous, I sulked for a good ten minutes, muttering that he never bought me flowers. Eventually, he relented, buying me an identical bouquet but as we headed back to the car, I scowled at my roses.

'What?' he snapped, his jaw twitching. 'You wanted flowers, you've got flowers.'

'But I shouldn't have had to ask.'

He stopped and snatched the flowers off me. 'Fine, don't have them. I'll give them to Vanessa. At least she'll say, thank you.'

'They're mine,' I wailed, sounding thoroughly like a three year-old.

'Oh, grow up,' he snapped. 'There's no pleasing you. Keep this up and you really will be bloody single.'

Still sulking, I didn't recognise this wasn't the time to be pedantic and point out I was, actually, officially single.

'You're what? You're not single. For Christ's sake, Daisy, FWB isn't even real. When I agreed to it, I thought it'd be just like before. We'd spend a lot of time together then every now and then, you'd get drunk and we'd end up shagging. But what's happened? We spend every day together. There've only been four nights in three weeks we haven't slept in the same bed and that's because I was away with work. To everyone except you, we're going out.'

'No, we're not.'

'Face it, we're not just friends and we haven't been since the day we met.' He threw the flowers at my feet. 'You can make your own bloody way to Oscar's.'

I was still staring at the roses when he drove away.

   

Despite already being late, I lit a cigarette, summoning the courage to walk into the OBB. Okay, I might have been a tiny bit precious that afternoon but it didn't excuse Xander abandoning me to go a party with his friends on my own, especially since James and Marcus clearly didn't like me - they probably thought I wasn't pretty or posh enough to go out with Xander. God, I'd even said it myself. Go out with Xander. Was he right? Was FWB all nonsense? To the outside world, we probably did look like a couple but we didn't feel like one to me.

Still, I didn't want to go to bed alone, so I'd dressed with Xander in mind, positive my mint green, shimmery boob-tube, second-skin jeans and four inch Louboutin black ankle boots would do a better job of creating peace than Kofi Anan.

Tabitha met me at the door of the OBB with a tapping foot and I smiled as apologetically as I could muster, handing her a gift card. A fabulous present would've felt two-faced when I didn't really want to speak to her, so I gave her what she'd asked for - a chance. I'd made a voucher saying I'd go for lunch with her so she could prove she wasn't a cow. To my utter shame, when she read it, her eyes filled with tears.

If only she'd been dismissive or ungrateful then I wouldn't have felt guilty for being late. I wanted to blame her, Xander, anyone for making me feeling rubbish, but everything was my fault and realising it put me in an even fouler mood.

Things didn't get any better when I met the others. All three of the Dowson-Gunn children were present - James, Marcus and, to my delight, big sister, India. She dropped her infamously aloof attitude as she gave me a warm smile and kissed me hello, saying we must talk later. And even though she continued her cosy chat with Xander, I couldn't bring myself to dislike her. India Dowson-Gunn was pleased to see me.