The Life Daisy Devlin Designed

CHAPTER 46

By the following morning, Daisy had decided that if James been looking for an excuse to break up with her, she’d handed him one in the shape of Matt. She should have been honest from the start, but right now she doubted it would have made much of a difference.

Alma had left early to catch her flight back to Sweden, but Daisy had slipped out of bed to say goodbye.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you,” Alma had whispered.

Daisy had given her a hug. “I’m the one who should be sorry.” She’d pulled back, feeling ashamed when she saw the astonished look on Alma’s face. “This is for you.” She’d handed her a soft package, wrapped in white paper.

Alma had opened it, pulling out a long, fine-knit cream scarf. “It’s beautiful.”

“I made it recently. I thought you’d like it.”

“Thank you,” Alma had said solemnly.

“Let us know how your mother is,” Daisy had urged. “And you’re always welcome back.”

Two hours later, Daisy stood in the same spot with James, before she left for work.

“It might be good to spend some time with Fiona and Daniel,” she said, wondering if she should pass on her best wishes to them. Although she didn’t actually know either of his siblings, and she’d no idea where she and James stood now.

He gave her a withering look. “I’m glad you think so.”

“So why are you going?” she challenged. “If it’s Matt, you’ve got the wrong idea.”

“Really? Tell me how, Daisy.”

“Nothing happened!” She glanced away. “Not what you think, anyway. We didn’t –”

“I don’t care anymore.” His voice was flat. “If you’d nothing to hide, you would have told me about Matt when you took that job. And, to be honest, I don’t know how much to believe.”

She met his eyes again, hoping to see a fragment of the person who’d always trusted her. But his expression had hardened. She forced herself not to stop.

“What about you and Alma? Do you even realise how close you two were? Admit it, since she came to live here, you’ve spent at least as much time with her as you have with me!”

James gave her a long look. “You’re right. At least she was easy to be around. We could just game together, and talk about normal stuff. There was zero pressure.” He shook his head. “You’ve got this sort of ... one-track mind, Daisy. Like, everything is so intense.”

So she’d been right, she thought miserably. James obviously hugely regretted that they’d ever moved in together. Or that they’d got together at all. That was why he’d been pulling away, not wanting to spend any time with her. With Alma, on the other hand, there had been no expectations, no pressure to move forward in a relationship he had no interest in.

“Yeah, well, sorry things have been so shitty.” Zero points for an articulate defence, she thought, miserably.

He gave her one last look. “I’ll be in touch.”

After he left, Daisy burst into tears. She’d lost him, just like she’d lost Matt five years ago. Only this time, it was her own fault. If she’d been truthful with James from the start, maybe they could have talked about it. Maybe she wouldn’t have been so tempted to let Matt overturn everything. But would it really have made that much of a difference? He’d still have spent all his time working – or gaming with Alma. Things hadn’t started to go wrong with James after Matt’s return: they’d been going wrong long before.

She tried to pinpoint exactly when. After they’d bought a house together? Or had the cracks begun to show before that? If so, they’d just papered over them when they’d rented the spare room to Alma.

Daisy blew her nose and washed her face, trying to minimise the puffy-eye look.

As she cycled to work, she realised that they’d eventually have to sell their house too. Her vision blurred, and she stopped at traffic lights, hastily pulling her bike off the road, and pressing the heels of her hands under her eyes in an attempt to stop the tears from coming again.

Reaching their building, she locked her bike, but knew she wasn’t ready to face Fionn. Instead, she walked up a couple of streets and found a café, where she slipped into a window table and ordered a flat white and a large slice of lemon drizzle cake.

For a few moments, she simply allowed the background chatter of the café drift over her, before tuning into the weather report on one of the radio stations being played over the sound system. She sighed. Two more storms, Henry and Iris, were due in swift succession over the next couple of days but, by the sound of it, Storm Henry would be gone by Friday morning and Storm Iris wouldn’t appear until Sunday morning. Kayley’s concert would escape unscathed.

If only she could talk to someone. Not Laura. She’d warned her to come clean about Matt from the start, and she felt like a complete failure now James had walked out. It was probably a sign to change her life – it just wasn’t the one she’d been expecting.

She could phone her mother, but Miriam would just tell her not to worry because it was all part of the cosmic plan.

She could phone Rosie. She’d never confided in her about James, and there was a strong possibility that Rosie would lecture her. But they’d got on better than usual the weekend Rosie had stayed. Before she could talk herself out of it, she scrolled through her contacts and hit the dial button.

“Daisy, is something wrong?”

Sometimes she wished her sister wasn’t so good at reading her from the other side of the country.

“If it isn’t a good time ...”

“I always have time.”

Rosie sounded so sincere that Daisy felt tears threaten again. Jesus, she’d been so judgy.

“Is this about Matt?”

“Not directly.” Daisy stared out the window, which had started to mist over.

She filled her in, keeping things as vague as possible, aware of other people around. After she’d finished, she braced herself for Rosie to tell her that she shouldn’t have kept secrets from James, and that it was basically her own fault.

“Both of you are at fault,” Rosie said finally.

Daisy sighed. “Yeah, maybe. Oh, there’s one more thing. I overheard Matt talking to Charlie on the phone. I only heard bits of the conversation from Matt’s end, obviously, but it sounded like he wants me back in his life.”

“Forget about Matt for a minute,” Rosie said. “Try to put yourself in James’ shoes.”

“I know he’s hurt, Rosie, but I’ve told him that nothing really happened between Matt and me. I don’t think he believes me. He even thinks I told Matt about the app.”

Rosie was silent for a moment. “And there’s nothing you’re leaving out?”

“I don’t even know anymore,” Daisy admitted. “Everything’s such a mess. My feelings for James, my feelings for Matt.” How did she explain that she’d never fully got over Matt? That she’d managed to justify her feelings for him, even after he’d told her why he’d left. “Things just got in the way after that night I stayed over, I guess. Kayley Lynch moved into the guest wing, and every time I was there in the house, it was always full of people. We just hadn’t got around to talking anymore about us.” Or doing anything about it.

Rosie sighed. “Well, do you want my opinion?”

Ah, no, I just rang for the craic. “Please!”

“If Matt wanted you back, he’d have found time to talk to you. And you’d have found time too, Daisy.”

It wasn’t that simple, Daisy thought. Rosie had no idea what her job was like – what her life was like.

“Look, flirting with Matt wasn’t the smartest move,” Rosie was saying now. “But you’ve got to put him out of your mind and out of your life. You have James to think about!”

“He walked out!”

“Daisy, I know James isn’t perfect, and I really wish he’d been there for you a bit more lately, but by the sound of it he was trying to hold his company together. And he obviously left because he was upset!”

Daisy pushed the rest of her coffee away. “So should I phone him and just ...” She stopped. Even if they made up now, would anything really change, or would their relationship continue to drift?

“Listen, now,” Rosie said, “forget about Matt, he’s in your past. Where he deserves to be, after believing those rumours. Who does that after five years with someone? Gobshite! ”

“He was twenty-five! Guys are still immature at that age.”

“Well, that was then. What about now? He bought that software James’ company wanted, didn’t he?”

“Rosie, Matt works in the same industry, it was just a coincidence.” Was it, she thought? Of course it was, she couldn’t start going down that rabbit hole.

“Well, it sounds like he moved pretty quickly.” Rosie sniffed loudly. “Walk away from him! James has been a bit of a fecker lately but, lookit, he’s basically a good guy. He’ll get over himself and he’ll get another job, and you’ve got your own career.”

Rosie fell silent, and Daisy knew she was giving her a chance to let this sink in.

A waitress came over to clear Daisy’s plate, leaving the half cup of cold coffee in front of her.

“You’re right, thanks,” Daisy said slowly.

Rosie tutted. “Why do I get the feeling you’re not really listening to me?”

“Ah no, I appreciate it. I just need to figure it out now.” She felt a rush of emotion for her sister. “Thanks.”

“Anytime. Love you.”

“Love you too.” Daisy hung up, promising herself that she’d pick up the phone to her sister more often, rather than leave all the running to her. But it was the only promise she could keep for now. She and Matt had unfinished business and it had nothing to do with the app.

Maybe they were supposed to be together. They’d been together once, and there was no rule to say that happily-ever-after couldn’t take a break. It didn’t matter that they hadn’t talked. Matt had never been the type to push. He’d never had to, though, had he? She’d always felt like the most important person in Matt’s life, as long as she was falling in with Matt’s plans. But he was a different person now. Once and for all, she needed to find out if they had a future.