LITMIR.BIZ

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yours will,’ I replied, shoving the key into the door and turning it.

      ‘I know. But who can resist a man who gives you free food? And he seems so nice …’

      ‘He is,’ I said, as I led us back inside. ‘He’s a love. If he didn’t come free with the flat, I’d pay extra for him. I always know he’s looking out for me, and it never matters if I lose my keys.’

      ‘Plus, you know, free kebabs?’ she said, walking to the kitchen counter and unwrapping her food. I grabbed two plates down from the cupboard, and she sighed with contentment as she plonked her mega-meal down onto hers.

      I did what I usually do when Yusuf gives me a freebie—pulled the meat off the pitta, and threw the bread in the bin, leaving just the lamb and the salad.

      Becky pulled a face at me as we collapsed down onto the sofa.

      ‘What’s up with that?’ she said, through a mouthful of meat and lettuce. ‘Is the bread minging, or something?’

      ‘No … I’m just, you know, off carbs,’ I said, looking regretfully at her pitta, which was dripping with juices and sauce. I’d not eaten bread for six weeks now, and it was starting to bite. I sometimes went into a trance-like state, and when I came to, found myself standing outside the French bakery on the corner, my nose pressed up to the window, making a pig face and sniffing deliriously. One day I’d get stuck and they’d have to peel me off.

      ‘Off carbs?’ she said, looking confused. ‘Are you going to Marbs?’

      ‘I wish!’ I answered, making the most of the kebab I did have left. ‘I’m just trying to stay in shape—I have dance classes, and they’re pretty hard. The last thing I need is to be dragging a lard arse around with me.’

      ‘You don’t have a lard arse,’ replied Becky. ‘And you never have had, much as Luke would like you to think different. You don’t need to lose any more weight—you look fantastic. Apart from, well …’

      ‘What?’ I snapped, my eyes wide open. I was on a bit of a roller coaster with my self-esteem these days, and seemed to have lost all balance and control. If someone—okay, Jack—said something nice to me about the way I looked, my confidence would sky rocket. If someone—okay, Jack—said something less nice, I’d plummet into misery.

      It was kind of pathetic, but I didn’t really know what to do to change it. I mean, Jack rarely ever said anything critical—on the whole, he was lovely. He was attentive and flattering and charming and usually made me feel brilliant about myself. When he was around, at least. Which wasn’t all that often.

      After we’d spent our first night together, I hadn’t seen him properly for another five days. He’d texted me, something cute and slightly rude that tided me over and stopped me taking a detour into crazy town, but we’d not actually got together again for what felt like a lifetime.

      By the time we did—a walk along the river, drinks, back to his place—I’d given myself a good talking to. I was taking it all too seriously—I was clinging on to what might happen with Jack because the rest of my life was so empty and depressing. And that wasn’t fair to either of us—it put too much pressure on him, and it made me feel like a great big loser, with a capital L.

      I didn’t want to be the kind of woman who sat around all day mooning over some bloke. The kind of woman who was constantly checking if her phone had run out of charge because she hadn’t heard from a man. I wanted to be the kind of woman who treated it all as fun, who was carefree and light-hearted and good to be around.

      In the end, I kind of became both. When I was with him, I managed the carefree and light-hearted—and he was such good company, he made that easy. It was hard to be miserable with Jack around, and even if I was, he could whisk me off to bed and make me forget all about it. He could even make me forget about bread, it was that good.

      But when I was on my own? Trekking back from the office after a long, exhausting day, hungry and tired and lonely? After not seeing him or hearing from him and wondering what he was up to and who he was up to it with? That’s when I took out my L plate, and stuck that loser sign on my forehead, and wallowed in it.

      It was one of the reasons I’d been so made up when Becky said she was coming to stay for a couple of nights—seeing her would distract me, and take my mind off everything I was worried about. Now, though, I felt suddenly self-conscious.

      ‘Well … you just look a bit tired, Jessy,’ she said tactfully, picking up on how sensitive I was feeling. ‘And a bit like you need to eat some doughnuts.’

      ‘I’m fine,’ I said quickly, standing up and throwing the rest of the kebab in the bin, where it joined its long-lost bread family.

      ‘I don’t think you are,’ Becky answered, looking around at the flat as I sat back down next to her. I’d spent days scrubbing and tidying before she came, and bought fresh flowers that I’d arranged around the place in old wine bottles, and one of those floral plug-ins to try to mask the eau de kebab that pretty much always wafted up from the shop downstairs. But looking at it through her eyes, I saw it for what it was: small, shabby, and a little bit sad.

      ‘You seem a bit lonely, love. And those cows you work with don’t seem to be helping.’

      I’d taken Becky into the Starmaker offices that day to introduce her to people, hoping, I suppose, to impress her with my glamorous new life. Patty had just looked her up and down, listened to her talk, and said: ‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand a word you’re saying,’ before flouncing off to meet someone from the Star for brunch.

      After that, it had just got worse—the whole PR department seemed to have chosen that day to have some communal meltdown, and Becky had to sit in reception waiting for me, while I did emergency photocopying and made vats of coffee and generally ran round like a blue-arsed fly.

      The only highlight had been bumping into Vogue in the lifts. Vogue was a megastar—and came across as a total diva on stage. But in the flesh, she couldn’t be nicer. She was about six-foot tall and looked a bit like Naomi Campbell, and she should have been scary. I’d seen her in interviews, and sometimes she definitely seemed scary.

      In real life, though, she was a babe. She’d remembered my name—pretty much a first at Starmaker—and asked when Becky’s baby was due, and even asked her where she’d got her shoes from (Kirkby Market, so I can’t imagine Vogue would be dashing out to get her own pair any time soon). The whole conversation lasted about two minutes, but it had made my day—and Becky’s. At least now she had a good story to tell when she got home.

      Of course, one of the reasons I’d taken her into the office was the hope that Jack would be there. That he’d see us, and come over, and I’d get to feel that thrill of having such a gorgeous boyfriend and showing him off to my big sister.

      Except, you know, he wasn’t my boyfriend. He was my … well, I had no idea what he was. And he wasn’t in the office anyway—even though I’d told him Becky was coming. Apparently, according to Heidi, he was at a meeting in Brussels. He did things like that—had meetings in Brussels, or lunch in Paris, or a gig in Barcelona. He was a VIP, and his schedule was just a little bit different to mine.

      It was one of the aspects of Jack’s life that made him feel like an unattainable mega-being from another planet. My reaction varied from ‘this will never work’ to ‘why is a man like that interested in a girl like me?’ to ‘I’m never letting him go, and I want to have his babies’, depending on what mood I was in. Even thinking about him then, with Becky sitting right there, I wondered if he was back yet—wondered if he’d message me, wondered when we’d meet up again.

      I snapped myself back to reality, and met Becky’s probing gaze. She—unlike me, apparently—was looking great. The morning sickness had obviously passed, her fair hair was glossy, her skin was clear, and she’d obviously hit that ‘glowing’ stage that preggers women are supposed to get.

      I gave her a big, bright smile, and said, ‘No, I’m good—honest. I work

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