‘What? Are you kidding me? Yes, yes, yes!’ Penny squealed. ‘I’d kill to see Lizzo live! Thomas!’
At the other end of the phone line Thomas let out a pleased laugh. ‘I was hoping you’d say yes,’ he told her. ‘I’ll have Chris email you everything you need, and I’ll see you here Thursday night then? Just give them your name at the door and they’ll show you through.’
Penny sensed Francesco observing her from the other side of the pass and looked up, grinning. She pulled a face to signify her excitement, but Francesco raised his eyebrows in question.
‘What’s happening?’ he mouthed.
‘Can I bring somebody?’ she asked. ‘My friend Stu? He’s been looking after the café, and I’d love to say thank you to him. He’s as big a fan as I am.’
‘Totally. Bring him. Listen, I’ve got to go. But I’m excited that you’re excited. You’ll stay with me? At The Langham? Does Stuart need digs?’
The Langham! Penny couldn’t believe the luxury she was being offered. She’d once gone to the bar there for a drink with Clementine and a round for two had cost a hundred quid. ‘No, he’s in my old apartment. It’s just me. I’ll drop my bag Thursday afternoon and see you there.’
‘I can’t wait,’ Thomas said.
Penny put her phone into her apron pocket and walked to the pastry section.
‘What was that?’ Francesco said. ‘Aside from obviously very good news?’
‘I,’ said Penny, sashaying comically on the spot. ‘Am going to see,’ she wiggled her hips seductively. ‘Lizzo! Backstage passes baby!’
‘What?’ said Francesco. ‘When? How!’
‘Her tour manager comes to eat here sometimes,’ Penny said, noting to herself only after she’d said it that, Huh, that was a version of the truth. But, it wasn’t any of his business, really, was it. Especially not after how he reacted to Priyesh.
‘When are you going?’ asked Francesco. ‘And am I your plus-one?’
Penny’s face fell. She didn’t want to disappoint him.
‘Pen, relax, I’m kidding. I heard you ask about Stuart. I think that’s a really nice gesture now I understand where you’re going. By the way, has he told you he finally asked out Safiya? She told me the other day. She quite fancies him, it sounds like.’
‘What?’ said Penny, excited for her café employee and his endless crush on their bread supplier. ‘He didn’t! All the more reason to invite him, now. I can meet Lizzo, and get the inside scoop on how he finally plucked up the courage. That’s very cool. He’s liked her for ages, you know. At least a year.’
‘You’re such a blatherer,’ Francesco said. ‘You can’t keep a secret to save your life.’
‘It’s hardly a secret now they’re dating, is it? But. Even if I am a gossip, I’m a gossip who also needs a favour …’
‘Go on,’ Francesco said, returning to his pan of spinning sugar.
‘I feel really bad asking this but – will you keep an eye on the place here? Keep me in the loop with what’s happening? The gig is Thursday night. I can have Manuela fill in as head and get a temp in as sous until Saturday lunch, so I get a proper break, and then I’ll be back for evening service on Saturday night. It’s just – everyone loves you here, and I know you’ll do right by me.’ She smiled at him. ‘What do you think?’
‘Of course,’ said Francesco, simply. ‘And don’t forget Charlie is the most competent front of house manager in the history of front of house managers, so if I were you I’d be zero per cent worried. Go. Enjoy. Bring us back some over-priced merchandise.’
‘Ahhh,’ said Penny. ‘Thank you! I’ll get you a t-shirt and a keyring. Cheers, pal.’ She let out another squeal.
Francesco admired the shapes he’d made on the baking trays in front of him and asked, ‘Won’t this be the first time you’ve gone back to London since you took over?’
‘I try not to let myself think about that,’ Penny said. ‘Because I miss it. I thought I’d at least get Christmas there, but I celebrated here and in Cornwall didn’t I so yes, it will be my first trip back. I’m going to see Lizzo, get a coffee at Ozone, go to Arket in Covent Garden to maybe buy some new trousers …’
‘Your version of heaven, then,’ Francesco said.
‘Yup!’
‘Well please eat a bagel from Zobbler’s in my honour, okay? Oooooh, and maybe have an Old Fashioned in The Standard. You can’t get drinks like theirs up here. Or anywhere, really.’
Penny looked at him at the mention of the hotel they’d stayed the night at together, but Francesco already had his head in the fridge. It was obviously only her who had memories of their romance. Although, by now they’d been friends for about four times as long as they’d ever been romantically involved, so maybe he really didn’t remember their romantic dalliance. It occurred to her that she was foolish for even lingering on the thought.
‘Okay,’ she said, fishing out her phone again. ‘Let me give Stuart the good news.’ She put a hand on Francesco’s shoulder and said, ‘Really. Thank you.’
Francesco put his hand over hers and replied, ‘Penny. Anything for you.’
‘So,’ Stuart said as they descended the escalator to get on the Jubilee line to The O2 Arena. ‘Francesco is there day in and day out. Francesco with the hair and the eyes and the sex toys Francesco?’
‘Honestly, we are so far beyond that,’ Penny said. ‘He’s like my brother now, or something. It’s not like that. We’re best mates. And I’m his boss. He needed a job and a change of scenery and I need the help for the Bib Gourmand, so it’s changed all the rules.’
‘You’re friends, but he’s pissed off about you shagging the wine merchant?’
‘Only in a protective way,’ Penny reasoned. ‘I’m protective over him, too. Like I’m protective over you with Safiya – I’ll kill her if she hurts you.’
Stuart beamed. ‘Can you believe my luck?’ he asked. ‘Me, dating Safiya Abadi …’
‘I’m happy for you,’ Penny said. ‘She is very lucky to have you.’
‘Thank you. And wait – let’s not get distracted. Francesco. He’s watching the pub as you come down here to hang out with the tour manager that you are also shagging?’
Penny rolled her eyes. ‘I’m not shagging him now, am I? He’s been all over Europe with these tour dates.’
‘I’m just not buying it,’ said Stuart. ‘The second that man walked into the café the air changed. It was you, it was him, it was freshly baked bread. That doesn’t just go away.’
‘That’s the thing though,’ Penny said. ‘It hasn’t gone away. It’s … changed. We hang out a lot and talk and laugh, but it’s friendship. It’s a really beautiful friendship. And I need that. It was lonely up there. I miss London something crazy. It’s hard enough that I need a friend on my side, and that’s what he is. I couldn’t do it without him.’
‘Mmmmmm,’ uttered Stuart, unconvinced. ‘You just sound greedy to me.’
Backstage, there were dancers and crew, other guests and a handful of celebrities.
‘F-me, I think that’s Blue Ivy!’ Stuart hissed. ‘Look!’ They were both beside themselves with excitement. It was all terribly glamorous, with dancers and celebrities and hangers-on milling about everywhere, and access to as much champagne as they wanted.
Penny spun around. ‘With Solange! Damn. Be cool. Be so cool.’
Solange and Blue Ivy walked past them, Solange making eye contact long enough to say, ‘Hey, how are you,’ but not as a question.
Penny turned to Stuart and did a fake scream face, making him laugh hysterically, at which point Thomas turned a corner and clocked her.
‘Good scream face or bad scream face?’ he said, amused.
‘Hey, you!’ Penny said, going in for a hug to his kiss so that they ended up in a physical touch mis-match. ‘Oh, sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m so clumsy. Ha.’
Extracting her limbs from his, Penny pulled away awkwardly and said, ‘This is Stuart, who is looking after the café for me this year.’
‘Hey,’ Thomas said, shaking his hand.
‘This is so awesome,’ Stuart said. ‘Thanks so much for the invite.’
‘Of course,’ Thomas said. ‘Any friend of this one is a friend of mine.’ He winked at Penny. Stuart saw and looked to Penny for her reaction. She swooned.
‘Well,’ Thomas continued. ‘There’s a green room just down this corridor,’ he gestured to where he’d come from. ‘Lizzo will come by and say hi after the show. For now she’s in vocal warm up in her dressing room.’
‘We’ll get to meet her?’
‘You will,’ Thomas said. ‘But,’ he lowered his voice. ‘Is it cool if you don’t tell her how we know each other? You know – that we hooked up. Just say you’re a friend from back home, yeah?’
‘Right …’ said Penny, feeling uncomfortable at the instruction. Before she could ask why, exactly, Lizzo had to be shielded from the truth of their relationship, a woman dressed all in black and carrying a clipboard and a walkie-talkie interrupted to whisper something in Thomas’s ear.
‘I’ve got a fire to put out,’ he said, when she’d finished. ‘If you’ll excuse me?’ He went to give Penny a kiss on the cheek. ‘Enjoy the show, guys. I’ll find you after.’
Penny and Stuart looked at each other once he’d gone. Neither spoke.
Finally Stuart said slowly, ‘Is your man … sleeping with Lizzo?’
Penny pulled a face. ‘I want to say no, but also … why can’t I tell her who I am to him?’
‘Because he’s sleeping with her and she doesn’t know he also has a little Derbyshire baby tucked away in the dales?’ Stuart supplied.
‘No,’ Penny said. ‘Surely not …’
‘Sorry about it,’ Stuart replied. His tone changed. ‘But also, not sorry, because Francesco is obviously “The One”. How have you not figured that out yet? Although of course, Francesco can’t get us backstage passes.’
‘You don’t actually think he’s sleeping with her, do you?’ Penny said.
Stuart looked at her like she was stupid. ‘Let’s go and enjoy the show,’ he replied, gently. ‘Maybe let’s get you a drink, too.’
‘I don’t know if I am more upset to know who I’m sharing him with, or that I’m basically his secret.’
Stuart handed her a glass of champagne from a small catering table down a side corridor.
‘Ethical non-monogamy though, remember? He told you upfront what the deal was.’
Penny downed her glass. ‘I suppose so,’ she said, hurriedly adding: ‘Anyway. I’m here for the music. Let’s go find our box seats.’
The morning after the concert, Penny stood in the walk-in shower of Thomas’s hotel room, remembering the look on Stuart’s face as he shook Lizzo’s hand after her show, and just how loudly he’d screamed in between singing along to every single song – exactly as Penny herself had done. It had been a superb night, and Lizzo had been lovely to them afterwards as well, although she was still none the wiser as to Thomas’s relationship to her. Wrapped in a big bath towel Penny walked through to where she thought Thomas still slept, humming one of Lizzo’s songs.
‘Morning sunshine,’ Thomas said. The table by the window was overloaded with food: pastries and juices, cooked eggs and jugs of bearnaise sauce. Thomas sat in his boxers.
‘This is breakfast?’ Penny said in awe. ‘All of this just for us?’
‘I didn’t know what you might want,’ he yawned, ‘so I ordered a bit of everything. You made me work up quite the appetite.’
He craned his neck to give her a kiss, which she accepted.
‘Mmmmm,’ she replied. ‘Get your energy up and then maybe it will be my turn to come,’ she said, settling into a chair beside the table laden with food. She’d meant it to sound sassy, but it came out sour. Priyesh always put her pleasure front and centre, and she couldn’t hide the fact that Thomas’s selfishness last night had irritated her.
‘Okay, grumpy,’ Thomas said, unfolding a napkin.
She didn’t say anything, popping a blueberry in her mouth instead.
‘What shall we do today? The whole city is our oyster.’
She thought about it. ‘I’d like to walk around,’ she settled on. ‘Maybe down through Southwark to The Tate? I’d even like to go in, walk around there too.’ She bit wistfully into a pain au raisin. ‘So much culture, everywhere,’ she marvelled. ‘That’s what I miss most, I think. There’s just so much to do here, no matter what the hour, no matter what the day. It’s not like that up there, is it?’
‘Ahhhh,’ Thomas replied, pouring himself a coffee. ‘You see when I’m on the road what I miss is the countryside, and the hills, and Havingley.’
‘How lucky you are to have both,’ Penny said. ‘I feel like for me I have to choose one or the other.’
‘Not long now though, right? Didn’t you say you were going to give it a year?’
Penny tore into a second croissant. ‘A year until I ask Uncle David what the new plan is, yeah. I’m enjoying it, I mean – most of the time – but I am keen to get back down here. I don’t like to bring it up to him though. No point guilt-tripping him.’
‘Let’s make the most of it whilst you’re here then,’ Thomas said. ‘Addressing, of course, the most important thing first.’
‘And what’s that?’ Penny asked.
‘Did you really not have an orgasm?’
Penny held up her hands as if to say, nope.
Thomas put down his coffee and in a flash leapt onto the bed, dragging her with him.
‘Come here then!’ he screamed, and Penny squealed in delight.
They walked through London all day, the cold air making their cheeks rosy, stopping for hot chocolate and red wine and lunch and eventually dinner. They racked up twenty-five thousand steps and with every single one Penny felt herself get more and more nostalgic for the city that she missed all the way down to her bones. She felt free in London. It wasn’t anything to do with Havingley, or Derbyshire. It was everything to do with the fact that it wasn’t her choice to be there. The Red Panda wasn’t her choice. But to be in the place that felt most like home, for a few days, with Thomas, who was so good at adventure and making his own rules – well, it awakened something within her. It awakened a desire to regain control of her life, and to make her own rules, too. Francesco had said that’s what inspired him about her. It wasn’t like her to simply coast, and she had been. She didn’t like that. Thomas had helped her remember.
‘Listen, I want to tell you something,’ Thomas said, as, on Penny’s second night, they lingered by the Thames and darkness fell.
‘Tell me,’ said Penny, buzzed from the bottle of wine they’d just shared.
‘I want to tell you,’ Thomas said, ‘that you being here has been the highlight of this tour for me. I told you the road was home for me as much as anywhere else, but … I have a great time with you. Have had a great time, but also: I always do.’
Penny smiled. ‘I like our little adventures as well. I like how you show me things. Places.’
Thomas leaned in for a kiss.
‘Shall we keep doing it?’ Thomas said. ‘Adventures? Unofficially official?’
She considered it. If they were unofficially official, and Thomas was never going to expect her to be monogamous because he’d never be monogamous himself, she could have these exciting adventures with him, and back at the pub keep having mind-blowing sex with Priyesh. It was quite the arrangement. Did that make her non-monogamous herself? She’d have to talk to Sharon about it. She’d never had more than one man on the go before.
‘Yes,’ Penny replied. ‘Let’s keep doing it. Unofficially official.’
She thought about what Stuart had said about her being greedy. But who said a woman couldn’t have it all? She headed back to the pub feeling like the cat who’d got the cream.
Francesco stirred his sauce on the hob as Charlie put their head around the corner of the kitchen and said, ‘That’s us done. See you tomorrow.’
‘See you tomorrow,’ Penny said, waving. ‘Thanks again for holding down the fort this week!’
‘No worries, Pen. I’m glad you had a good time.’ Charlie’s statement was loaded. They knew exactly what Penny had been up to.
‘Bye, bitch!’ Francesco said to them in a funny voice.
‘Bye, bitch!’ Charlie repeated, laughing.
‘I don’t get it. What even is that?’ Penny asked as Francesco scooped up his spoon and told her to taste what he was making. His face was encouraging, clearly expecting only compliments.
‘Good, huh?’ he said. ‘I love this time of year for meat.’
‘What pasta are we having with it?’ Penny asked, watching Francesco as he tilted his head upwards, as if coming up to the thought.
‘Fettuccini, I think,’ he replied. ‘This one would be good with the fettuccini.’
Penny went to the dry store to locate it, returning triumphant and doing a little dance of celebration.
‘You’ve been like this all day,’ Francesco said. ‘Walking on a Lizzo high.’
‘I had a great time,’ said Penny. ‘Lizzo was amazing, and I got to hang out in the city a bit, and Thomas was on form, too.’
‘He’s the one who gave you the tickets?’
‘Yes.’
‘How do you know him again?’ Francesco opened the pasta and poured it into the pan of salted boiling water he’d prepared. He didn’t use the bowls to measure out how much to use – he said it was the Italian in him that could judge how much to put in by sight. ‘Pasta should be cooked in water as salty as the sea,’ he’d once told her, and now he added in extra, just in case. Penny felt like she’d never cook pasta without thinking of him ever again.
‘He has a house around here. We’ve hung out a few times.’
Francesco paused. ‘As friends?’ he said, trying to sound nonchalant.
‘Well,’ Penny started. ‘Sort of. I mean. It wasn’t serious.’
‘Oh,’ said Francesco, putting the salt back and resuming cooking. ‘I didn’t know that. Does Priyesh know?’
‘It was before Priyesh.’
‘And to think you told me you were lonely up here.’
Penny took a step back from him. ‘I beg your pardon?’ she said.
‘This Thomas guy, Priyesh … doesn’t sound very lonely to me, is all.’ He didn’t look at her. His eyes were on his pan.
‘That sounds like slut-shaming.’
‘Are you a slut?’
‘I’m going to pretend you didn’t just say that to me, Francesco.’
They stood in silence, Francesco faffing about with his food and Penny staring at him, waiting for his apology.
‘You know what,’ he said, turning the gas of the hob off and throwing down his towel. ‘I’m actually not that hungry. Help yourself if you want it.’ He banged the door on his way out.
Penny stood in the empty kitchen. She wasn’t sure what had just happened, but she knew she felt the beginnings of total fury bubbling in the pit of her stomach. What right did Francesco have to get cross about a bloke she’d been seeing before he’d even arrived? Not to mention the fact that it took him the grand total of half a second to move on once she’d said she was leaving Stoke Newington. She stared at the pasta. She wasn’t hungry now either, and so angrily poured it into the colander and pulled out a plastic container so it could be stored in the fridge. As she moved around the kitchen she got angrier and angrier. Even if Francesco was mad, how dare he walk out on her? That was just disrespectful. Downright rude. She flicked the lights off in the kitchen and went upstairs to her flat.
‘Francesco,’ she grumbled to herself. ‘Bloody Francesco.’ She showered, climbed into bed, and lay staring at the ceiling. She waited to calm down, to let the feeling subside, but it only got stronger.
The next morning Penny stood at the window of her front room and waited to see him coming down the hill opposite so she could intercept him at the door. She hadn’t slept, and it was his fault. She fully intended to give him a piece of her mind. She wouldn’t be spoken to like that and then shut out. It was totally inappropriate, especially since she was his boss.
At exactly ten to the hour he came over the hill and Penny picked up her phone to call him. She watched through the glass as he answered.
‘Hello,’ he said. He sounded gruff.
‘Can you come straight up to the flat when you get here please?’ Penny said.
Francesco sighed. ‘Fine,’ he said.
Penny expected him to be contrite and apologize from the off about storming out on her. As far as she was concerned, she had every right to be furious, and only him saying sorry would do. Except the Francesco who came through her door wasn’t sorry at all. If anything he was as angry as her – he was almost shaking with anger. If she’d tossed and turned in fury all night, it was apparent that he had too.
‘No,’ he said, as Penny went to speak. ‘Me first. I get to talk.’
Penny was taken aback at his tone. He didn’t sound hard in his rage. He sounded sad with it.
‘You need to do some soul-searching, Pen,’ he began. ‘Because you don’t realize your capacity to hurt people and it’s making you not very nice.’
He stood opposite her, so furious it looked as though he was moments away from smoke escaping from his ears.
‘Why don’t you understand how loved you are?’ he continued. ‘Why can’t you see what’s right in front of your face?’
He looked at her, his eyes bright with craving. It hit Penny hard when she got what he meant.
‘You?’ she said.
‘Yes me,’ he replied. ‘Come on, Penny. This is so stupid.’
‘Don’t call me stupid.’
‘I didn’t. This – the situation – that’s what is stupid.’ His tone was softer, now. He was calming down, like the pressure that had built up in him was slowly being released.
‘We’re supposed to be friends,’ she said, barely above a whisper. ‘Why are you saying all this?’
‘This isn’t friendship.’
Penny looked up at him.
‘It’s not, is it? These other men – the Lizzo guy, Priyesh. You don’t have with them what you and me have.’
Penny shook her head.
Francesco carried on: ‘Penny, I love you. And I think you love me too.’
‘You’re supposed to be my safe person,’ Penny croaked, spooked. ‘I don’t want you to go anywhere.’
‘That’s the point,’ he said, softer now. ‘I’m not, am I? I love you.’
‘I can’t say it back,’ she said, shaking her head, tears threatening to spill over.
‘Do you want to say it back?’ Francesco said.
‘No,’ said Penny. ‘Because I know what you did.’
‘What I did?’
‘The day I left. The woman. The woman with all that hair.’
Francesco looked like he’d been slapped. The colour drained from his face.
‘How did you …?’ he began, taking a step towards Penny with his hand out, as if he was going to reach for her wrist, or her waist.
‘Don’t,’ said Penny, taking a step back and bumping into the sofa. ‘Don’t touch me.’
‘I need to explain.’
‘I don’t care.’
‘Yes you do. Is this why we didn’t speak? Is this why you disappeared? Because you saw me with Valentina?’
Penny went wild. ‘Do NOT say her name to me. Don’t you dare say her name!’
‘I’m so sorry, Pen. I am so, so sorry if you thought … for all this time … that …’ He stumbled over his own words, trying to decide where to start. ‘She’s nothing to me. That was my ex. It was messed up. She was there, somehow. I didn’t know she still had me on Find My Friend. You know the app? We did it when we were together so she could see when I was on my way home from work. She’d been using it to see where I was going and that’s how she knew I was at Bridges a lot. I told you she wanted me back, that she wanted to make it right after cheating. She thought I had a new job, I think, so went there looking for me. She was there right after you left, and I don’t know … I hate her for what she did to me so much, and I hated you for leaving, and she was apologizing to me, telling me how much she needed me, wanted me, and for a tiny second I could believe it was you saying those things.’
‘I came back for you,’ Penny said. ‘I turned the car around and in the thirty seconds since I left all this happened?’
Francesco shook his head, mortified at what she’d seen. ‘Penny. I was so stupid. I wanted you to ask me to come with you so much.’
‘I hated you for months,’ Penny spat. ‘You broke my heart and you promised me you wouldn’t do that.’ Francesco launched himself at her before she could object, pulling her close. She pushed her face against his t-shirt and he held her, tightly, stroking her hair.
‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘It’s okay.’ Together they rocked back and forth.
‘Are you telling me the truth?’ she said, her voice muffled by his chest. ‘If you lie to me …’
‘It’s the truth,’ he said, pulling apart from her. He took her hand and they sat on the sofa, knees knocking and hands entwined.
‘We’re so good together, Penny. I think you’ve been fighting it because of what you saw, but what you saw was nothing. It was a mistake.’
He kept stroking her hand.
‘This is how it is supposed to be. You and me. You have to feel it too. This is what it feels like when it’s good.’
Penny started to cry. She cried for Mo for hurting her, which was boring but no less true because of it. She cried for Uncle David – in fear that he’d been sick, and in relief that he was getting better, and in anger that he’d put her here, away from her friends and in the middle of all these men. She cried because she was tired, and because she wanted Francesco to be enough – for it to be safe to truly love him, but it wasn’t. Was it? Could it be? What was the worst that could happen?
She crumpled into him and felt the weight of his hand at the back of her neck, and the rise and fall of him. Pulling her head back slightly, he looked at her, and she looked at him, and he gave her a chaste kiss on the forehead, which she gratefully accepted.
They looked at each other again and he gave her an equally-chaste kiss on her lips, just briefly.
They looked at each other some more and Penny stopped thinking and pressed her mouth to his and the length of her body to the length of his body. She melted into him and he surrendered into her and it was pure and beautiful and had been such a long time coming. Penny didn’t have to think when they were like this. It felt pre-destined and safe. Her tongue explored his mouth and her hands ran the length of his body and even if she couldn’t say she loved him, it felt a lot like love.
‘We need to go down for service,’ Francesco said, after a while. ‘I don’t want to, but …’
‘I don’t want you to let go,’ Penny said.
‘Two more minutes,’ he replied, holding her tightly.
‘I need an emergency pep talk,’ Penny hissed at Charlie. ‘Something happened.’
Charlie looked up from where they were polishing glasses behind the bar.
‘Good happened, or help-me-bury-the-body happened?’
‘Help me bury the body. No. Good. No, bad. I don’t know.’
Charlie put down the glass and cloth. ‘Aw shit,’ they said. ‘Okay. Tea?’
Penny nodded, and they moved through to the kitchen, threw a couple of tea bags in some mugs and filled them from the tap that gave out boiling water from the coffee machine, before reconvening in the bar.
‘I kissed Francesco,’ Penny said.
‘What?’ said Charlie. ‘Well that’s amazing! I assume you’ve officially forgiven him then?’
‘I mean, sure. The woman I saw him with – it was his ex. And so much has happened since then that … you know. Bygones.’
‘Right.’
‘Was that a bad idea?’
‘To forgive and forget?’
‘No. To snog him.’
‘Tell me why you think it could be a bad idea.’
‘Well. For one, Thomas. For two, Priyesh.’
‘Ohmygod,’ said Charlie. ‘You’re not even in a love triangle. You’re in a love … square!’
‘I don’t know what to do next.’
‘Do you have to do anything?’
‘That’s why I need this pep talk! I don’t know!’
Penny’s mind had raced all through lunch service. Francesco worked at the opposite end of the kitchen and it was a busy shift, so they’d both been focused and in the zone. But as her hands moved and she plated up food and called out orders to Manuela, in her head she’d been somewhere else.
Priyesh was filthy and serious.
Thomas was adventurous and free.
Francesco was her friend, above all else.
Was it possible to feel deeply about three men equally, for different reasons, in different ways? Penny didn’t know the answer, but half-resolved that maybe she didn’t need to. She wasn’t sure what would happen next with Francesco. It was only a kiss. But, he’d also said I love you. She loved him too, she just didn’t know to what extent. Everything had changed now she knew that woman had been his ex. She knew how he felt about her – about Valentina. What she’d done to him when she cheated. There was no way he’d been seeing her again. Penny believed that much. ‘The obvious question is: are you actually in love with any of them?’ Charlie probed.
‘I don’t want to screw up what Francesco and I have,’ Penny said. ‘Since he’s been here everything has felt manageable. Do-able. Even enjoyable. I like having him here. But do I think I can trust him with my heart? I want to. I think he looks after me the best he can but hasn’t he proven that he doesn’t deserve my trust?’
‘Does that mean he doesn’t get a second chance?’ asked Charlie. ‘If you want to give him one, that is.’
‘You’re being a pussy,’ said Sharon, down the phone, after Penny had explained everything to her. ‘Listen, lord knows I’m not his biggest fan. I was Team Thomas all the way. Well. Then I was Team Priyesh all the way. But if what Francesco says is true, my reasons for hating him on your behalf don’t stand up. You’ve already wasted too much time treading on eggshells with each other. It’s now or never! Team Francesco!’
Penny felt sick as she listened.
‘You don’t get to tell me you’re scared, Penny, okay? You beat bloody cancer. You can tell a man you love him back. Because you do, don’t you? I can tell. I think you’ve been in love with him this whole time.’ Her voice softened as she said the last bit, knowing not to push too hard.
Penny sighed dramatically. ‘You give tough advice, do you know that?’ she said.
‘You and Francesco could be really happy together. You just have to give yourself permission to trust it.’
‘Hmmm,’ said Penny. ‘That sounds terrifying.’