In order to have William back in her life, she’d have to lose Max.
Not for another three weeks, a voice inside her head whispered, but Neve refused to listen to its insidious whisper. She couldn’t string Max along like that; it wasn’t fair. She’d been honest with him from the start and she was going to end it with honesty. She was also going to do it quickly, even though she was the sort of girl who could spend five minutes slowly and carefully removing a plaster.
Neve jack-knifed off the bed and without even bothering to change out of the pyjama bottoms and T-shirt that she slept in when Max wasn’t around, hunted for a clean pair of socks, shoved her feet into her trainers and headed out the door.
There was a chill to the air as the sun slowly disappeared behind dark, smudgy clouds, but Neve didn’t even notice the goose pimples that hatched on her arms as she turned into the Stroud Green Road and began to quicken her pace, until she was running up Crouch Hill at full pelt, even though she’d only ever taken it at a gentle jog before. By the time she reached Max’s road, Neve knew she should try and slow down, but her brain didn’t want to pass the message on to her legs. She vaulted, actually vaulted, over the low garden wall, raced up the path and almost crashed nose-first into Max’s front door.
She reached into her pocket for her keys because Max had got a spare cut for her, then realised that her pyjama bottoms didn’t have pockets and she’d come out without even locking her front door. As she rang his doorbell, Neve hoped that Max had followed through with his plan to have an early night and hadn’t gone out. Then, recalling the way that he could sleep like the dead when he was really tired, she kept her finger on the bell until she heard the sound of feet coming down the stairs.
‘That was quick,’ Max said, as he opened the door. ‘I only texted you five minutes ago.’
‘I didn’t get your text,’ Neve panted, bending over, her hands on her knees.
‘Ha! I knew you’d cave first,’ Max crowed, then he stepped over the threshold in his bare feet and placed his hand on Neve’s back. ‘You all right, sweetheart?’
‘No,’ Neve said, straightening up. Now she was standing in front of him, nothing was coming out of her mouth except her own ragged breaths. He looked so out of her league, even in a ratty T-shirt and a pair of spotty boxer shorts, the sunny smile wiped off his face as he looked at her with concern. That was the thing; Max wasn’t out of her league, for the moment he was all hers and Neve knew it was wrong and bad karma would rain down on her by the bucketload but all she could choke out was, ‘Will you hold me?’
Max’s arms were around her in an instant so he could kiss her sweaty forehead and stroke damp strands of hair away from her face. ‘I thought you came over because you couldn’t wait to get your hands on me, but something’s wrong, isn’t it?’
Neve buried her head against his shoulder and hoped that would do for a reply. Max tried again. ‘Neevy, did you have another run-in with the sister-in-law from hell?’
And she had, so it wasn’t a lie to mumble, ‘Yes, yes I did.’
‘Anything you need me to kiss better?’
Neve raised her head for another look at Max’s pretty brown eyes and the angle of his cheekbones and his crooked nose because there wasn’t much time left to commit the details to memory. ‘Not really. She didn’t leave any bruises, apart from, like, metaphorical ones.’
Even the leer that Max gave her was pretty. ‘Well, I could kiss your metaphorical bruises and any other bits of you that you want kissed.’ He gestured at the open door behind him. ‘After you, sweetheart.’
Chapter Thirty-four
They spent the entire weekend in bed.
Every time Max slipped inside her, Neve would wrap her arms and legs around him as tightly as she could, because they were getting closer to the final time they’d make love. So, each time she became more frenzied, more passionate, though Max didn’t seem to mind either the frenzy or the passion. By Sunday evening when he slowly peeled his body away from hers, they were both covered in bites and bruises as they sprawled across his rumpled bed.
‘I need to walk Keith,’ Max said, making no move to get out of bed. Instead he spooned against Neve, kissing the back of her neck each time she shuddered because their last encounter had been so intense she’d knocked a glass of water off the bedside table with her foot when she came. ‘Then we’re going to sleep for a full ten hours.’
‘You said that last night too.’ Neve placed her hand over Max’s, which was resting on her belly. ‘Then I woke up at two in the morning with you doing very rude things to me.’
‘You said it was a lovely way to wake up,’ Max reminded her.
‘It was, but I’m just saying that you shouldn’t issue ultimatums that you have no intention of sticking to,’ Neve told him scornfully as she rolled over.
‘I mean it, Neve. My dick has gone on strike.’ Max put some space between them so he could gaze down at his penis. ‘I think I’m broken.’
‘It looks fine to me. Would you like me to take a closer look just to make sure?’ Neve asked with a grin, as Max gave a girly shriek and shrank back in fake alarm. ‘Or maybe not.’ She gave Max’s flaccid penis a gentle pat, and realised that she’d miss Max’s inappropriate humour when they were in bed almost as much as she’d miss having sex with him.
Of course, she’d probably have sex with William but she couldn’t imagine much laughter; maybe some quoting of Shakespeare or one of the Romantic poets, but William would never make jokes about his penis …
‘Why are you looking so gloomy?’ Max wanted to know. ‘Is it the thought of a ten-hour sex ban? Christ, you’re insatiable, woman.’
When Max looked at her like that, still sexy even with his dick all limp, Neve began to consider the unthinkable; going through the door marked b – the door that didn’t have a William standing behind it. She’d been so happy these last few weeks in a way that had nothing to do with fitting into a size ten dress or being with William. Max had a knack of making those faraway goals seem unimportant, and if she could be this happy with Max, why break what wasn’t broken? And Max seemed happy too …
‘Just so you know, my girl parts have packed up shop for the night too,’ Neve said, rolling on to her front so she could rest her chin on her hands. ‘Max, do you like being in a relationship? Do you think you could be someone’s second pancake that doesn’t get thrown away?’
Max was propped up on one elbow so Neve had a clear view of the indecision that flickered across his face, before he summoned up that smirk, which meant that he was going to fudge the question with some patented Max bluster, because it delved too deeply into places where he didn’t want to go. ‘Oh, Neevy,’ he said playfully. ‘There are so many women in the world that it seems unfair on them to tie myself down to just one girl. And not in a fun bondage way either.’
She shouldn’t have expected anything else. Even though Max had been absolutely lovely these last few weeks – caring, kind, not even wanting to go out because he preferred to stay in – he’d absolutely refused to discuss his meltdown in Manchester. Or being in therapy. Or if he still felt empty inside. He’d just revert to his usual defence mechanisms, which were the smirk, the sneer and the smartarse remark.
‘But say, for example, that William wasn’t coming back, what would happen to us?’ Neve persisted.
‘No point thinking about that,’ Max said so cheerfully that Neve went from contemplating a future with him to wanting to smack him. ‘He is coming back, isn’t he?’
‘Yes, but say he wasn’t, hypothetically. Do you think you and I could have a future?’ Neve asked. Max was now staring up at the ceiling so he couldn’t see that she’d crossed her fingers.
‘Look, Neevy, I promise I’ll be a bit mopey when we have to call it quits, but we are going to call it quits when Mr California comes back and whisks you off. Anyway, when you think about it, we have nothing in common. You’re scary smart, and reading heat from cover to cover is more my speed.’ Max angled his
head so he could look at her, and he still had that damn smirk on his face as if he wasn’t at all heartbroken at the prospect of being Neveless. ‘What happened to living in the moment?’
‘Nothing happened,’ Neve said quickly, because the sooner they changed this awful subject, the better. ‘I was just asking.’ She hung her head so her hair fell into her face and Max wouldn’t be able to see her expression, which she was sure was pretty woebegone. ‘Are you going to walk Keith or was that just an idle promise?’
Max swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up. ‘I’m going to make something to eat first. Toast?’
‘Yes, please,’ Neve said, striving to keep her voice light. ‘Two pieces.’
‘Four pieces,’ Max said firmly. ‘We haven’t eaten since breakfast.’
‘Split the difference and call it three,’ Neve insisted. Max’s belief that her body could process a lot of carbs after 6 p.m. was one thing that Neve definitely wouldn’t miss. ‘With just some low fat spread on it.’
‘That butter substitute tastes rank,’ Max said, as he swatted Neve playfully on the bottom. ‘I’ll make some sausages and I think there’s a can of spaghetti hoops in the cupboard.’
‘No spaghetti hoops for me,’ Neve said, but Max just waved a dismissive hand as he left the room.
At least she knew now that Max didn’t want to be the long-haul guy, Neve thought. That meant that she could put all her focus on William. It also meant that telling Max they were over wasn’t going to be that much of an ordeal; he’d take it with good humour and secretly he’d probably be a little relieved that he could go and tell his therapist that yes, he could have a relationship if he wanted one, but actually he didn’t. It was a shame, because if he could drop the act and let some lucky girl into his heart, he’d make a wonderful boyfriend.
Neve decided that she had to tell Max before the end of the next week, so she’d have at least a fortnight to properly mourn the end of her pancake relationship. Though she wasn’t sure that two weeks was going to be enough to rid herself of the regret and sadness that—
‘Neevy! Can you set the alarm for eight?’ Max called from the kitchen. ‘I’m making you some scrambled eggs too, OK?’
Rolling her eyes, Neve grabbed the alarm clock and set it for half past six. She had a personal training session with Gustav first thing – she’d called him the day before to cancel their Saturday session with a hasty excuse about agonising period pain. Gustav had been really insistent that exercise was the best thing for a cramping uterus, like he’d even know. If she didn’t turn up tomorrow morning, or was even five minutes late, Neve knew he’d have her doing jumping jacks and horrible things with kettle bells for two hours straight.
It had been tempting to spend the extra ninety minutes in bed, but as if he could read her mind and knew that it was thinking bad thoughts, Neve hadn’t even had a chance to wake Max with a kiss when her phone beeped with a text message from Gustav: Please do not be late – your lady problems must be better by now.
Gustav was just finishing with another client when Neve emerged from the changing room. She waved at him and got a tight smile in response, which did not bode well for the next two hours of her life.
She’d just started on her warm-up stretches, when Gustav came over. ‘Ten minutes on the treadmill as fast as you can,’ he ordered. ‘I’m going to set up the bench press.’
Neve grimaced at Gustav’s back and caught the eye of his previous client, a severe-looking forty-something man whom Gustav always held up as a shining example of dedication.
‘Has he got you on the ankle weights yet?’ he asked, as Neve started her run off with a very fast walk.
‘God, no,’ she said, aghast.
‘He will,’ came the glum reply. ‘He’s in a vile mood today.’
That was all she needed. Neve immediately whacked up the speed and when Gustav returned she was pounding rubber at twelve kilometres per hour. ‘I expected you to be up to fifteen by now,’ he sniffed.
The next two hours were everything that Neve had been dreading. Bench presses, dead rows, squats with a forty-pound dumbbell on her shoulders and horrible boy press-ups, interspersed with ten-minute runs at fifteen kilometres to keep her heart rate up.
‘Your stamina is not what it used to be,’ Gustav told her as Neve lay panting on a gym mat. ‘Anyway, it’s that time of the month now.’
‘I already told you, it was my time of the month on Saturday,’ Neve gasped. ‘And have I said that I’m sorry that I had to cancel our session? Because I really and truly am.’
‘You might have mentioned it once or twice,’ Gustav said and he wasn’t softening in the least, even though Neve had done everything he told her to without arguing, pouting or rolling her eyes. ‘It’s actually time for your monthly weigh in.’
The four pieces of toast (because Max had said his toaster couldn’t cope with an uneven number of slices), sausages, scrambled eggs, spaghetti hoops and tinned tomatoes that she’d wolfed down the night before felt like a lead balloon in Neve’s stomach as she followed Gustav into his little office. But then again, she’d only had a bowl of muesli for breakfast yesterday, hadn’t had any dinner on Friday night and all she’d eaten on Saturday was half a pizza and two apples. She wasn’t expecting to lose half a stone but she’d settle for two pounds and at least an inch off her hips. Then she had three weeks, or two and a half weeks, to really hunker down on the healthy eating. She’d give up coffee and live on nothing but steamed vegetables if she had to, Neve vowed as she toed off her trainers and nervously approached Gustav’s high-tech scales.
The last time she’d been weighed, Neve’s magic number was 160 pounds, just under eleven and a half stone. Neve closed her eyes as she watched the little digital counter start to do its thing. It couldn’t hurt to cross her fingers behind her back and offer up a little prayer to the Goddess of Dieting.
She heard Gustav give a ‘hmmm’. It wasn’t a very encouraging ‘hmmm’. Neve opened one eye and stared down at the scales in horror.
‘It’s just a temporary blip on the radar screen,’ Gustav said and yes, now he could be nice to her because the number proved that he was right and Neve was wrong. Up to her elbows in wrong.
She wasn’t just wrong. She was five pounds heavier. Five pounds! For the first time in three years, the numbers were going up, not going down. She’d broken her dieting mojo and now her metabolism would be even more confused than it already was and the weight would start creeping up and she’d never be in a size ten and she’d have failed and …
‘Wait!’ Neve jumped off the scales. ‘I haven’t been this morning.’
‘Been where?’ Gustav asked, and he had no heart because now he was taking the tape measure out of his desk drawer.
‘No, I haven’t been,’ Neve hissed, her face flaming. ‘I haven’t been open. So, I’ll go and do that and then when I come back … I’m soaked in sweat and that has to be making my gym clothes weigh a lot more than they normally would and—’
‘Stay right there!’
Neve stayed rooted to the spot because when Gustav barked at her like that, every molecule that she possessed strained to obey him. He wound the tape around the fattest, fleshiest part of her hips but wouldn’t let her see the number, then measured around her abdomen, her waist and her breasts.
‘Well, your upper waist and chest have stayed the same,’ he said and there was no need for him to sound quite so surprised. ‘You’ve put an inch back on your hips and your stomach.’
Then Gustav didn’t say anything. He didn’t shout or berate her. Or, worse, say that he was disappointed; he just put his tape measure back in its drawer, his features, as ever, cast in granite. But he didn’t need to say anything, because Neve was more than happy to fill the silence.
‘OK, I ate some things I shouldn’t have, I admit it, but there have been days when I’ve eaten hardly anything.’
‘What happens when you skip meals?’ Gustav asked in a steady voice.
&
nbsp; ‘My body goes into starvation mode and it clings to my fat and won’t let go,’ Neve parroted back.
‘And what are these things you shouldn’t have been eating?’
Neve wished that she’d never blurted that out, but Gustav would have forced the truth out of her eventually. Hips don’t lie. ‘Bread,’ she muttered. ‘Lots of bread, sometimes at two in the morning, and spaghetti hoops and … and … pizza.’ Neve collapsed on the spare chair. ‘It’s not fair! Other girls eat that stuff and skip meals and their weight stays exactly the same. You should see what Celia packs away and she never eats vegetables unless I shove them down her throat.’
‘You’re not other girls,’ Gustav said gravely. ‘You can’t be the weight you were and expect your metabolism to correct itself after all those years of over-eating.’ He patted Neve’s knee in a manner that wasn’t the least bit consoling. ‘It’s all right. I don’t blame you.’
‘Well, I blame me.’
‘I see this happen time and time again when my clients let personal attachments come between them and their fitness goals,’ Gustav said, as Neve knew he would sooner or later. He leaned forward so he could speak in a whisper, in case anyone heard him break the personal trainer/unfit slob confidentiality oath. ‘Take Vaughn …’
‘Vaughn?’ Neve queried.
‘He trains before you on Mondays and Wednesdays,’ Gustav reminded her impatiently. ‘Apart from you, he was my most obedient client, then he falls in love with this girl …’ Gustav shook his head. ‘She’s a fat skinny person. Always with the puddings and the pies and the home baking and he puts on weight. Then they have a row and he doesn’t just lose weight; he loses muscle tone as well.’
‘It’s not Max’s fault,’ Neve said, until her mind drifted back to the night before when she’d asked for two pieces of toast with low fat spread and Max had presented her with a heaped plate of high-fat badness. And he’d made her eat chips and crème brûlée and drink lots and lots of wine, and one time he’d even made pancakes … well, he hadn’t stood over her and clamped her mouth open, but he’d always been very persuasive with the, ‘It won’t hurt you just this once,’ and, ‘It’s almost Treat Sunday,’ and even, ‘By the time I’m done with you, you’ll have easily burned a day’s calories.’ Max wasn’t a feeder, but he was an enabler and that was almost as bad.