Love You Better (32 page)

32.

W
hat was he doing here? Effie slowly walked towards Smith as he leaned against a pillar with his hands in his pockets. Despite the sinking feeling of disappointment and anger that seemed to go hand in hand with her feelings about him, she couldn’t help the fluttering in her stomach. Why did he have to be so damned good looking? His sunglasses were perched on top of his head, and a dark stubble ran across his cheeks
and jawline
. In a white T-shirt, jeans and Converse, he looked exactly like the version of himself Effie always reverted to in her head.

‘The wanderer returns.’ He grinned as she stood in front of him. ‘You look great. Really great.’

The fluttering went into overdrive as her anger suddenly deserted her. The time away had left her with a deep tan, and the healthy food had made her skin glow. She was sure nobody could have guessed she’d been laid up in hospital only weeks ago, but, god, she was pathetic. One compliment from him, and she was melting like butter on a hot knife.

‘Where’s Lou?’ she asked, narrowing her eyes.

‘Something came up. She couldn’t make it.’

Since when? She’d texted Lou to make sure she’d be able to meet her, and up until last night there hadn’t been a problem.

‘But you could?’ she asked.

How convenient.

‘I didn’t want you to get the train alone.’ He leaned over to take her suitcase, sending his familiar smell towards her.

‘I would’ve been fine,’ she said. ‘It’s a lot more comfortable than a motorbike, and I’ve got luggage.’

‘I’ve hired a car.’

‘Oh.’

He put his hand on the small of her back to prompt her to start walking, and she flinched at the warmth of his hand on her
cotton
vest. Smith didn’t do cars. Had she ever even seen him behind the wheel of one before? As impractical as the motorbike was, she couldn’t forget how it had felt being on it last time, having his body under her hands, between her legs. She frowned and inched away from him, forcing him to drop his hand. She was being ridiculous, thanks to Penny and her silly notions, and the close contact between them wasn’t helping.

As they walked out of the terminal towards the car park, a group of girls passed them, wheeling huge sports bags on trolleys. Effie fought to keep herself from scowling at them as they shot Smith appreciative looks. They weren’t even being discreet about it, but he barely seemed to notice. She dropped her sunglasses down onto the bridge of her nose. It wasn’t like she could blame them – he l
ooked gr
eat.

‘Did Lou say why she couldn’t make it?’ she asked as they waited for the lift. She wasn’t buying his story for a minute.

‘Nope,’ he replied as the doors opened and people wheeling trolleys spilled out, ‘but she told me about you and Olly not working out. I didn’t want you to turn up here with no one to meet you.’

A loaded silence fell between them as they were carried up three floors. She felt stronger after being in Ibiza, but it would have been disheartening to step off the plane with nobody waiting for her. She needed her friends more than ever now.

‘Thanks,’ she said and smiled – a genuine smile. ‘I appreciate it.’

‘It’s nothing.’ He shrugged.

She followed him out of the lift and watched him as he stuck the ticket for the car park in the machine. She looked at the entry time and saw that he’d got there almost an hour ago. He swore
as t
he machine spat his ten pound note back out at him, and she hid a smile. His nostrils had a tendency to flare when he was agitated.

‘We’re just over here,’ he said once he’d finally paid.

‘Nice wheels.’ Effie looked at the grey VW Golf as Smith unlocked it. It matched the colour of his eyes, and she feigned interest in the alloys instead of Smith’s biceps when he lifted the boot.

‘It’s not bad. Still prefer two wheels to four, though.’ He smiled at her as she opened the passenger door and got in.

Smith slipped the car out of its space and left the car park with ease. She might never have seen him drive a car before but he seemed just as at home in one as he did on his bike. She watched as he changed gears, his thigh rising as his foot left the clutch like it was s
econd nature
. As they turned out of the airport and joined the motorway, Effie
settled
back in the chair, slipping her feet out of her flip-flops. Lindy, a woman who lived a couple of bungalows down from Penny, had given her a pedicure and painted her toenails turquoise. There was something about the colour that made her feel summery and refreshed.

‘So how was Ibiza? Looks like it did you some good.’

‘You know what? It was really nice. I spent a lot of time with Mum, and we talked a lot. Things are better between us now.’

‘That’s good. It was long overdue.’ He nodded and tapped his thumb against the steering wheel in time to the music on the radio.

Effie turned her head, looking out at the fields passing by in a blur. In the distance, a plane was coming in to land.

‘It’s really nice there,’ she said. ‘Not what I expected at all.
I alm
ost didn’t want to come back.’

‘I’ll have to see it for myself sometime.’

An image of Smith in Colinas Verdes popped up in her mind, as vivid as if it were reality. She pictured him swinging in the
hammock
by the creek, with his long legs stretched out, and digging up the vegetables, his skin glistening with sweat.

Smith cleared his throat as he switched lanes, overtaking the car in front. ‘Speaking of coming back, there was another reason I came to pick you up.’

‘What?’ Effie replied warily, looking at his profile.

‘The thing with Claire, at the barbecue.’ He quickly looked at her with a flicker of apprehension on his face. ‘You never gave me the chance to explain.’

She frowned. He was smart. She’d bet that Lou didn’t have a reason for not being the one to meet her. He was doing what he’d done in Ireland, putting her in a situation where it would be
just th
e two of them, where she couldn’t get away from him. The skin on
the bac
k of her neck tingled as she remembered his unique method of warming her up on the beach, and even if she could have got away from him now, there was an overwhelming part of her that didn’t want to. He looked at her again, and she sighed.

‘I didn’t let you because I didn’t want you to.’

‘But you just took her word over mine.’

‘Why was she even there in the first place? You said you’d split up.’ She couldn’t keep the jealousy from her voice, and judging by the way he looked at her, he’d picked up on it too.

‘Because she’s my friend.’

Yeah, with benefits.

Effie shook her head and stared straight ahead. Penny was wrong; his
friendship
with Claire only confirmed that. She hadn’t imagined the way they’d grown closer while she’d been separated from Oliver, had she? He’d told her they’d split up. And even though she’d taken Oliver back, she hadn’t fully realised how dull her feelings were for him in comparison with those she had for Smith until the barbecue.

‘You still lied,’ she said, keeping her eyes fixed on the car in front.

‘Yeah, I did.’

‘See?’ She shook her head at his matter-of-fact reply and crossed her arms. He’d admitted it: she’d been right.

‘I lied, but not to you. Not once.’ The sincerity in his voice made her turn her head.

‘But you just said—’

‘I lied to Claire. Well, not
lied
, exactly. Travelling was one of the things we spoke about a lot when we first matched on Tinder. She’s been around the world, I love to travel – it was inevitable.’ He shrugged. ‘I told her I’d left for a year, and she asked why I’d come back so soon. I could hardly tell her the truth, could I?’

‘Why not?’

‘Really?’ He raised his eyebrows at her. ‘If you were chatting to a guy, and he told you he left Thailand to try and stop his ex’s wedding, would you bother seeing him again?’

Effie’s heart stopped. ‘But that’s not why you came back. You told me it was because you had to see it for yourself.’

Was he lying again? Maybe he’d spun so many that he couldn’t keep track anymore. She looked at him as he pulled his eyebrows together and clenched his jaw. His neck had flushed red. Her breath became shallow as she realised he was blushing. He wasn’t lying.

‘You came to stop my wedding?’ She looked at him, but he didn’t respond as he dropped the car back into the middle lane. Effie shook her head. ‘But you were hours late for that.’

What would have happened if he’d been on time? Would he have barged into the ceremony and demanded it be stopped like a scene from a film? Her stomach flipped at the thought, but it wasn’t from imagining the disruption he’d have caused. It flipped because she was imagining what would have happened if she’d changed her mind and walked out of there with Smith, not Oliver. If she’d never become a Barton-Cole.

‘Smith?’

He sighed and dropped one of his arms to drive one-handed. ‘Mickey told me about the wedding a couple of weeks beforehand. He said you were happy and that Oliver was a nice guy, but I got it into my head that I had to come back and stop it, so I booked a flight. I flew in the night before and stayed with him. I saw the invite at his house, so I knew where to go, but when the morning came . . .’

Smith stopped talking, and Effie looked, with her heart in her mouth, at his hand resting on the gearstick.

‘I couldn’t do it. The way things were between us when I left . . .’ He shrugged again. ‘I told myself you’d be better off with him, whoever he was. I told myself he’d be better for you than I ever was.’

‘So why did you come at all?’ she asked, remembering the way he’d stood in front of her on the lawn, all suited and booted, looking at her in her wedding dress.

‘I told you, I had to see it for myself.’

He’d wanted to stop the wedding. Why would he have wanted to do that if he didn’t love her? It couldn’t have just been jealousy that drove him to spend hundreds of pounds on a flight back at short notice.

‘So, you see, I couldn’t say that to Claire. I’d have looked like
I w
as still hung up on you.’

Are you?

She wanted to ask the question so badly she had to clamp her lips together to keep them closed.

‘So you told her you got driven out of Thailand by gangsters instead?’

Smith chuckled. ‘Not quite. She embellished a bit. I’d met a couple of Russian guys, and they were cool. We went on a few trips together, but it was only when we went to Krabi that I realised the trips we’d been on were to shift MDMA.’

Effie shook her head. Trust Smith to end up surrounded by drugs. Some things never changed.

‘They asked me if I wanted in, but I’d left England to get away from all that. I told them so, and after that, they were just off
with m
e. Mickey emailed me a couple of days later about your wedding, and, well, it seemed a good time to leave. I told you I’d changed, and I meant it.’

It sounded plausible enough. More plausible than being chased out of the country by gangsters anyway, and it also meant that he really hadn’t lied about why he came back or about trying to turn his life around.

‘So you were trying to impress her.’

‘I guess. Pretty pathetic, isn’t it?’ Smith grimaced. ‘It wasn’t even worth it in the end. Nothing really ever happened between us. She’s hung up on some other guy she met at Christmas anyway, and even if she wasn’t, I simply wasn’t ready for anything to happen.’

Effie’s heart rammed, trying to leap out from her chest.

‘She really is just a friend, with no added extras,’ he said, looking at her.

A smile fought its way onto her face, and she looked outside the window to hide it. Now that she thought about it, she’d never seen them kiss or hold hands. She’d never seen anything in the way they’d acted together to mark them out as a couple. When he’d taken her home after she’d fallen ill at work, he’d told her they hadn’t spoken for a while and that it was only casual. Had she really got it all wrong? Had he been in love with her all along? She wanted to believe it, but he’d told her in Ireland that he didn’t want her. He’d told her he wanted to be just friends.

‘I shouldn’t have come back,’ he said, and the glow in Effie’s chest was swiftly extinguished. ‘There wouldn’t have been a
barbecue
or an argument if I hadn’t. You wouldn’t have ended up in hospital.’

‘Don’t say that.’ She shook her head.

The idea that he might have stayed away made her cold inside. Yes, they’d argued, and her life had spiralled out of control, but that would have happened anyway. It wasn’t Smith’s fault that Oliver was violent, and even though she’d ended up with broken bones, she was happy Smith had come back.

‘I’m glad you came back.’ She looked at him. ‘I’m sorry I was pig-headed. I should’ve let you explain.’

‘We don’t like to make things easy, do we?’ He smiled and she laughed back at him. That was the truth.
Easy
was a word that could never describe their connection, but maybe that was what she liked about it.

‘It’s nice to have you back, and it’s not a moment too soon.’ He grinned and shifted the gearstick, slowing down for the roadwork ahead. ‘Lou will be stoked, and it means she’ll have someone else to call to dissect what’s happening with Mickey.’

‘What is happening? Are they back together?’ Effie’s eyes brightened at the thought of her best friend getting the one thing she wanted the most.

‘Not quite, but they’re getting there. All I know is, I can’t handle another hour-long phone call, and it doesn’t help when I’m getting it from both sides.’

Effie laughed at his obvious lies. It was simply in his nature to help the people he cared about, and if that meant taking an hour-long phone call every day from both Mickey and Lou to talk about the same thing, he’d do it, no questions asked. It was one of the things that made him who he was.

By the time they pulled up outside Lou’s place, they’d fallen back into the friendship they’d had before the disastrous barbecue. He’d gently teased her when she’d hooked up her phone to the car’s Bluetooth and played her pop playlist. It was her guilty
pleasure, and
she’d listened to it every day at the creek in Ibiza. Meanwhile, she’d teased him about his bike, telling him she preferred the car, when actually the opposite was true. Now she knew he hadn’t lied and that maybe Penny was right, she wished she’d been able to sit close to him, her arms wrapped around his waist with her thighs gri
pping h
is.