chapter 5

Between Max being off work and Kate having to go and visit her family, there wasn’t a lot of time for her and Neil to talk about what had happened at the restaurant. Neil found that, during the days that she was gone, he missed her more strongly than he had ever missed Daisy. Max was being quite unpleasant to him in Kate’s absence as well - he had worn out his welcome with him, and Neil suspected that Max was feeling, quite rightfully, jealous of the time that they were spending together. Neil knew that he was biased but he couldn’t help but think that the couple just weren’t quite right for each other. Max was frequently dismissive of Kate, and rarely seemed to be interested in what she had to say. Still, he felt guilty for getting between them. The night that Kate was supposed to be coming home, he ordered a huge delivery of pizza to the house. He told himself he was simply doing a nice thing for his friends, but as he added more and more to the order, he found that he was imagining the look on Kate’s face when she came home and saw how much he had eaten.

Unaccustomed as of late to getting up for his food, he let Max answer the doorbell when the delivery arrived. He heard the front door slam and Max sloped back into the living room, bearing an armful of six fast food boxes and an annoyed expression.

“Jesus, Neil, did you invite people over? I told you to ask me first if you’re going to have guests,” he said in frustrated tones.

“What? No, ah, this is for us,” Neil replied bashfully, before adding, “And Katie, when she gets in. It was cheaper to order a party deal, and I figured… leftovers…”

“Yeah, and that’s another thing,” Max continued, his tone heating up, “Stop calling my wife Katie. You’re the only one who calls her that, you know? We’re not at school anymore, you can stop this bullshit crush and just leave her alone. I know she’s treating you nicely but it’s just because she feels sorry for you, and the longer you mope around here the harder it’s going to be when she’s forced to reject you.” Max’s nostrils were flaring and he was scrunching up the sides of the pizza box, he was gripping it so tightly. It seemed as though he had been wanting to say this for weeks.

“She doesn’t feel sorry for me,” Neil replied, his eyes narrow, “She wants… to be my friend,” he finished lamely. Max laughed acidly.

“You’re seriously deluded, brother, if you think my wife wants you. She might be flattered that someone’s showing her attention, sure, but you need to take a long look in the mirror. You might have been the good looking one at school, but since Daisy dropped you, you’ve been packing it on. I don’t even recognise you anymore. Kate wouldn’t touch you in a million years, and anything she’s doing to make you feel special at the moment is her way of trying to lift you up so you’ll leave us in peace.”

“Stop acting as though you know the first thing about your wife!” Neil shouted, just as Kate put her key in the door and stepped into the house. Her sunny face fell as she realised what was going on.

“Fuck,” she said quietly, looking at the two men, standing on either side of the living room with their fists clenched. “Ah… Max. Come upstairs. I think we need to have a talk.”

Neil sat back down on the sofa and buried his head in his hands as the couple went upstairs to argue. After a while, he started to eat the first pizza, just for something to do. He could hear muffled shouting, stomping, and at one point he very clearly heard Max cry “What the fuck do you mean, you fed him?”. He felt awful. But… Hopeful. One pizza down, he popped the lid on the second box, propped his feet up on the coffee table and began to make his way through the next one, alternating between eating a slice and scoffing fried chicken poppers. A silence had fallen upstairs. He belched tentatively and heard the argument spark back up. “He’s disgusting, I can’t fucking believe this!”

Finally, hours later, Max had stormed out of the front door with a suitcase, too angry to even look back into the living room at Neil. It was probably a good thing that he didn’t, because by the time Kate made her way downstairs as well, there were only two slices of pizza left, and Neil could barely speak, let alone defend himself. He wasn’t sure he knew what he wanted to say anyway. Kate looked shell shocked, but not heartbroken, by the events. She cracked a slightly tearful smile at Neil and joined him on the couch.

“Glad that’s over,” she sighed. “We’ve been on the rocks for a long time. It wasn’t until you came here that I really saw it, though.” She nibbled one of the last bits of pizza in silence for a while. Neil adjusted his overstuffed body and put an arm around her heavily. She leaned in and he held her close as she ate. “Shit, this has been a bad breakup. For both of us.”

Neil couldn’t agree more. “Ice cream usually makes me feel better,” he suggested, his heart leaping at the sudden excitement in her eyes.

“Right you are, sweetcakes,” she said with a grin, and went to fetch a bowl. Neil closed his eyes blissfully. He had a feeling that the next time he saw Daisy, he was going to be huge.