Just My Luck by Adele Parks (best interesting books to read TXT) 📕

worries about money. Even the Queen turns her lights out at night at Buck Palace.” I’m trying to make a joke because I fear this isn’t one. There’s something lurking in the murky depths of our relationship. Something that will bite or sting.

Jake shrugs. “I think that HRH’s decision is more environment related.”

“No, I don’t think so. She’s trying to be thrifty. I don’t think the environment is one of her issues.”

“Well, we don’t know, do we? Environmental groups probably make her feel she has to switch her lights out. She probably wants to leave them on. I really don’t think she cares about spending money. Some people don’t care about spending money, Lexi.”

“In that case, well done environmental groups. Maybe I should hire them to get you to act differently.”

“Jesus, Lexi.” He shakes his head. “I’ll ask for a discount and take the place for six months, if that’s what you want,” he says impatiently.

I stand in the vast, cold kitchen and consider how utterly ludicrous it is to be arguing about the Queen’s thriftiness or otherwise. We are ludicrous. Then I realize something much worse. We’re not arguing about that at all.

I ball up my courage. I grip the side of the table, watch as my knuckles and the tips of my fingers, under the nails, turn a glassy white. “Do you still love me, Jake?”

“Lexi, what a question.”

“Do you?” I force myself to look at him. I confront our twenty-five-year history. I see it flashing between us like some sort of kinetic energy. From the moment I realized he was staring at me in the Student Union, his eyes bored into me. Singed me, set me on fire. Just as a ray of sunlight reflected through a lens can cause a forest fire. Our first kiss and fuck. Which happened within about fifteen minutes of one another, such was the strength of our lust. I remember as I pulled up my knickers thinking that I’d broken all the rules and probably lost him because of it. I’d been taught nice girls didn’t shag their dates up against a wall in the halls of the student residence. Nice girls at least waited to get their dates into their hard, skinny beds. I thought as his itch had been scratched, I’d never see him again. In fact, he never left my side.

At least not for many years.

I remember our wedding day; it was a big and busy occasion. A blur of beams and best wishes, dreams realized and freshly formed. He carried me over the threshold of our hotel room. Then he stood on my dress and it tore. We laughed and he told me he’d spent all day thinking about tearing the thing off me anyhow. The births of Emily and Logan; one such an easy child, the other a worry and a stress. I see Jake pacing up and down our small sitting room with a squally Logan thrown over his shoulder, his huge hand gently rubbing the baby’s back. Covering it. Protecting it. First days at school. Holidays. Sick days. Paydays. I see a string of them bob in front of me like clothes on a washing line being buffeted in the wind. Fresh, buoyant, brilliant. I remember the simple joy of watching the TV, him sitting up straight and me spread out on the sofa, my head in his lap, knowing that The Graham Norton Show was good anyway, but all the better because we laughed at the same bits. That all flashes in front of me and I ask for a third time, “Do you love me, Jake?”

“Of course I do.” He pulls me into a hug and kisses my forehead, more or less in the spot he’s been staring at this entire conversation. “We’re struggling because there’s been a lot of change. That’s all.”

I bury my face into his shoulder. I don’t want him to see the tears that are threatening to out me. “There’s nothing else?”

“No.”

“Have you told Jennifer that they are not getting the cash for changing their story?” It’s the closest I can bring myself to asking the question I want to ask.

Is it over?

“I think they’ll work it out,” he replies, pulling his face into something approximating a smile, but he isn’t fast enough. I see the wince first and I know then one of two things.

Either it isn’t over.

Or it is, and he is sad that it is. Both things break my heart.

Everyone wants something they don’t have. A few hundred years ago it was food and a long life. Now it’s Insta likes and other people’s husbands. My husband does not know that I know he is having an affair with my best friend and has been for at least two years. Two years is her husband’s best guess. I suppose it could be longer. I never used to keep anything from him. I’d have sworn that there was nothing he kept from me. Now we share the same secret, but he doesn’t know it.

It fucking kills me.

CHAPTER 28

Saturday, April 20

According to the rota, it was Jennifer’s turn to host supper that Saturday. Lexi wasn’t much looking forward to it, but thought it was essential that the supper went ahead. Considering everything. They needed to keep things on an even keel just a little longer. She comforted herself with the thought that at least it wasn’t Carla’s turn to host. That would have been trickier. Lexi would never admit it, as she always tried hard to keep the delicate equilibrium of their threesome intact and therefore avoided drawing comparisons or expressing preferences, but the truth was she liked going to Jennifer’s home for supper more than she enjoyed going to Carla’s. Both women had incredibly stylish and comfortable houses. If anything, Carla’s should have been the most welcoming. There was more space, and the kids had their own playroom to hang out in as soon as they were excused from the huge round table that comfortably