I hesitated for a moment before reaching for a second bottle. I didn’t know how many people Mel had invited this evening, but one bottle wasn’t going to go very far.
‘Ellie?’ The voice sounded closer this time. ‘It is you. I thought it was.’
A tall man with shaggy hair and the most lurid board shorts I’d ever seen was striding towards me, his flip-flops smacking on the tiled floor of the supermarket.
Not being able to immediately place someone still sent me into a mini panic. It made me afraid that the memory loss I’d experienced after the lightning strike had returned with a vengeance. Most of the gaps I’d experienced had slowly filled in over the last three months, but some still remained, as did the fear.
I was still struggling to recognise the man who’d hailed me in the wine aisle, but it wasn’t the lightning to blame. It was the perfectly normal confusion you get when you bump into someonetotally out of context. The pieces slotted into place a millisecond before his ‘G’day’ gave him away. Admittedly, the last time I’d seen Olly he’d been in hospital scrubs and hadn’t looked like he’d just wandered straight off the set of Baywatch.
‘Olly. What a surprise,’ I said, unsure whether I was referring to finding him in my local Tesco, or the huge bear hug he enveloped me in. He released me just as I was beginning to worry whether my ribs were strong enough to withstand such an exuberant embrace. I’d forgotten that everything about Rhys’s Aussie friend was somewhat larger than life.
‘You’re looking way better than you did the last time I saw you,’ Olly said with a grin.
‘Thanks. Turns out getting shocked with high-voltage electricity isn’t for everyone.’
It wasn’t my best quip ever, but Olly laughed out loud. ‘Rhys said you’ve got a good sense of humour.’
If I were a dog, that would have been the moment when my ears pricked up to attention. It had only been a week since I’d last seen him, but there was a big Rhys-shaped hole in my life which I had totally not been expecting when he’d taken Tasha away for a beach break holiday.
Without me even realising it, I’d become addicted to his presence. It’s not that I saw him every day. But since we’d struck that agreement in the park café four weeks ago, he’d been a feature of my daily life. Whether it was turning up unexpectedly at my office with takeaway coffees (which always reminded me of our first encounter), delivering a client’s sketch I’d commissioned from him, or just a random WhatsApp to say hi or share something amusing he’d seen on the internet.
I understood him so much better than I had before. I knew about his passion for art, American sitcoms, and his love of silly puns. I knew he adored mustard but hated ketchup, and how hevoted. I knew he phoned his parents every week and had cried unashamedly when their family dog had died while he was away at university. On many levels it felt like I knew him intimately. But we’d never been intimate. And behind all this new knowledge was the niggling concern that I’d somehow got myself so firmly entrenched in the friend zone there was no way I was ever getting out of it.
Because there’d been no dating per se; we’d had café lunches, park picnics, and drinks after work, but nothing that could be deemed romantic. It would be ridiculous to blame him for following the guidelines I’d set out so exactly, but Rhys was sticking to them as though they were commandments set in stone.
I was desperate to ask Olly what else Rhys might have said about me, but that was a line I knew better than to cross. He glanced down into the shopping basket at my feet and gave a cheeky wink. ‘That’s his favourite wine, you know.’
Actually, I hadn’t known that, and I felt my cheeks grow instantly warmer for no good reason at all.
‘It’s for a barbecue my friend is hosting tonight,’ I said, the words bubbling out too fast, like water over rapids. ‘But Rhys isn’t coming.’
‘Still knackered after his week away with Tasha, is he?’
I bit my lip and wondered how I’d fallen into this potential pitfall of a conversation on a simple shopping trip.
‘No. It’s not that. I didn’t ask him.’
‘Why’s that then?’ Maybe it was an Australian thing, or possibly just an Olly thing, but I’d definitely not been expecting that question. And could I even answer it? Why I hadn’t invited Rhys, when Mel had practically insisted that I should, was a big old can of worms that I really didn’t want to open right now in the middle of the supermarket.
‘Oh, you know. We’re still taking things very slowly. We’re more just friends, you know. That works best for us right now.’
The laid-back surfer-dude persona, the one that fitted so perfectly with his current attire, melted away and I was left with what I assumed was Olly’s serious medical-professional face.
‘You do know he’s crazy about you, don’t you?’
‘I... I what? No. I mean there’s an attraction there – on both sides, that’s no big secret but—’
Olly held up a stalling finger, as though I was talking in class and about to get into a whole heap of trouble.
‘That’s bullshit, Ellie. I’ve known the guy for years and I know when it’s a casual thing for him and when it’s something more meaningful.’
I swallowed, not sure what to do or say with that information.
‘Well, you know, it’s not that straightforward. There’s Annalise and—’
Olly suddenly looked remarkably angry.
‘Please don’t tell me that’s what has been holding you back. I don’t like speaking ill of a fellow Aussie, but that woman does not deserve him. Not after what she did to him.’ He tapped his own chest forcefully. ‘I was there when the pieces all got broken. I was there when he finally picked them up again. Do not let her be the reason that nothing has moved on between you two. I’ve seen him get involved with people, I’ve even seen him fall in love... but I’ve never seen him like he is about you. Not ever.’ He shook his head as though he still found it an entirely incredible phenomenon that needed further investigation. ‘This means something to him, Ellie. You mean something.’