When she uncovers his plan to lead an entirely uneventful life, Mia Evian is determined to teach Preston Maddox how to stop living like a ghost, but Mia and Preston have history, tension, and a lot of complicated feelings.
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Six hours before her New Year's party is due to kick off, I receive a call from Margot that, when I answer it, convinces me the world is imploding. It turns out their boiler is broken. It means no heating, which I assure her is no problem because the house will be too crammed with bodies later for anyone to be bothered by that, and I offer a place at my flat to shower and get ready. She reacts as if I saved her from a burning building.
'Is Nick coming?' she says into my bedroom mirror as she paints on her eyeshadow, and I suppress a cringe.
She only returned to London today, and in hindisght, I would've pre-empted her with the news of me bottling it with Nick before now, but logic has never been a redeeming quality of mine.
'No. No, we're–That's over,' I reply.
She freezes, a make-up brush in her hand as her eyes widen. 'Oh, shit. Are you okay? What happened?'
'It's fine, honestly. I ended it with him, so yeah, all good.'
'You sure? You want to talk about it?,' she says softly. 'Even if you're the dumper, it can still sting.'
I shake my head to her through the mirror. 'Totally fine, I promise. That's kind of the problem, actually. I just couldn't... I don't know, like him enough.'
Margot sits on my reply for a moment, pursing her lips. She swivels away from the mirror to look at me directly, her head tilting the tiniest amount as she narrows her eyes. It's oddly threatening.
'Is there someone else?'
'No,' I say, maybe a little hastily, so I follow it up with, 'I wish there was.'
And I do. That's not a lie or even a flourish of the truth because there isn't anyone else. It just sometimes feels like there is, and I can hardly put all of my relationship woes down to some whimsical, intangible feeling.
'What I will say, though, is that your one-off hook up suggestion has never been more tempting.'
She laughs, big and loud. 'Hey, tonight could be your night. There should be at least one hot, single guy who turns up.'
'Won't even need to be hot at this point,' I mutter. 'Although childhood trauma deems single a necessity.'
Margot's giggling as she turns back to the mirror to continue applying her make-up. A smile is breaking onto my face as I watch her, and it grows tenfold when she blasts the music on her phone all the way up and starts singing really, really badly. Maybe Preston was right; maybe I am capable of making friends without Aiden.
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