Breaking Her No-Dates Rule. Emily Forbes

they were living on takeaways and toast and if they didn’t shop soon ther wouldn’t even be any toast. She found a couple of slices of bread that looked edible and slid them into the toaster.

      From the bathroom the girls could hear the sound of running water followed by vomiting.

      ‘Is that Ruby?’ Tilly asked.

      Jess shrugged. ‘No idea.’ They’d arrived home together so she knew no more about what was going on in the house at the moment than Tilly did. And with four, and sometimes five, people sharing a house, there were plenty of things happening. Despite the colour-coded calendar in the kitchen no one could be expected to keep up to date with all the action.

      Tilly went into the passage and knocked on the bathroom door. ‘Ruby, is that you? Are you okay?’

      ‘What are you doing?’ Ruby’s voice came from behind them, startling them both.

      Tilly turned around. ‘We thought you were in the bathroom. We could hear vomiting,’ she explained.

      Ruby came down the stairs, shaking her head. ‘Not me,’ she said with a shrug. ‘But Adam’s back. I heard him come home and he had company.’

      ‘It could be Ellie,’ Jess said hopefully. She didn’t want to think of Adam’s company.

      ‘Ellie’s supposed to be having dinner with Rob,’ Ruby replied.

      The bathroom door opened and Ellie emerged, white faced and shivering with black smudges of mascara under her eyes. Tilly, Ruby and Jess stepped back, enlarging their semi-circle to make room for her.

      ‘What are you doing home?’

      ‘What happened to dinner with Rob?’

      ‘Are you sick?’

      Ellie looked from one friend to the next as they each asked a question. She opened her mouth but no sound came out.

      The girls could see Ellie’s lips moving but there was nothing to hear. ‘Something’s wrong,’ Ruby said to the others. She took Ellie’s hand and led her through to the lounge where she sat her down. Her hands were like ice. ‘Someone grab a blanket, I think she’s in shock.’ Had she been in an accident? Ruby searched Ellie’s body for clues but there was no sign of an injury—no scratches, no blood, no bruises. ‘Ellie, talk to us. What happened? Are you hurt?’

      Jess returned, carrying a box of tissues and the quilt from Ellie’s bed. She draped the quilt around her shoulders. ‘Was there an accident?’

      Ellie shook her head. Physically she was unharmed, but how did she explain the night she’d had? None of them knew that when she’d gone out to dinner with her boyfriend of three months she’d been expecting a proposal. None of them knew what she had been wishing for and none of them knew how her world had been totally turned on its head.

      The girls took up their positions on the couches surrounding her.

      ‘You look terrible,’ Tilly said in her usual no-nonsense fashion. ‘What’s going on?’

      In a house of four women, and one, often-absent, male, there weren’t many secrets. Ellie didn’t intend withholding the story but she didn’t know if she was capable of sharing it tonight. She gathered the corners of the quilt in her hands and pulled it tight around her, seeking comfort in its warmth. She looked at each of her friends in turn. Her voice wobbled when she spoke. ‘You’ll say you told me so.’

      ‘Of course we won’t,’ Jess said.

      Ellie kept her focus on Jess. Tilly and Ruby had never really warmed to Rob and therefore Ellie thought Jess would be the most sympathetic. ‘Rob asked me to dinner tonight and I was sure he was going to propose, but he had a different surprise.’ She paused as she reached for a tissue and blew her nose. ‘It turns out he’s married.’

      ‘What?’

      ‘He’s married?’

      ‘That bastard,’ Tilly fumed. ‘I always had a bad feeling about him.’

      ‘That’s not helping,’ Jess said to Tilly, before turning back to Ellie. ‘Start at the beginning, tell us what happened.’

      Ellie sniffed and reached for another tissue. ‘Rob invited me to dinner and I was sure it was going to be a turning point in our relationship. You know how he doesn’t like to go out on dates, he prefers to stay home, always saying he wants to relax after his long days at work and doesn’t want his private life made public at the hospital.’ The girls were nodding, they all knew Rob. He was an orthopaedic surgeon at Eastern Beaches Hospital where they all worked as nurses.

      Ellie had accepted Rob’s reasons as legitimate but now she wondered how many of them had been for convenience and deceit. ‘I thought that because we were actually going out tonight it meant he was ready to go public with our relationship. I thought it was a good sign and I was all ready for a proposal or at least for him to ask me to move in with him. But he had an even bigger surprise. His wife and daughter arrive from the UK next week.’

      ‘He has a daughter too?’

      ‘And you had no idea?’

      ‘Of course not,’ Ellie protested. ‘Do you think I would willingly have a relationship with a married man?’

      ‘No,’ Ruby said as she shook her head, ‘but how do you keep something like that hidden?’

      ‘Easy,’ said Tilly, ‘you keep them in another country.’

      ‘But surely he’d have photos of them, take phone calls from them, stuff like that,’ Jess mused.

      ‘I guess with the time difference and his hours at the hospital it was easy to make sure he never spoke to them when I was around,’ Ellie said. ‘There was nothing to make me suspect he was anything other than what he said. There were no phone calls, he didn’t wear a wedding ring and there were no family photos, not one.’

      ‘Did he say why they’re coming now? He’s been here for months.’

      ‘They were waiting until the end of the school year.’

      ‘How old is his daughter?’

      ‘Dunno.’ Ellie shrugged. Getting all the details hadn’t been high on her list of priorities. ‘Old enough to go to school, I guess.’

      ‘So he’s just been killing time, fooling around with you, until his wife gets here?’ Ruby sounded horrified.

      ‘I always knew there was something suspicious about him.’ Tilly sounded as though she’d like a chance to tear Rob to pieces.

      ‘Well, you’ll love the next bit even more,’ Ellie told her, thinking it would give Tilly further reason to dislike Rob. ‘He seemed to think I’d like to keep the relationship going once his wife arrived.’

      ‘You’re kidding! I hope you set him straight.’

      ‘Of course. I actually created quite a scene. I didn’t think I had it in me. I think that’s why he orchestrated to have the conversation in a public place—I’m sure he thought there’d be safety in numbers.’ Thinking back to her reaction, Ellie was rather pleased she’d shown some fight. Even if the whole experience had left her feeling embarrassed and nauseous, at least she’d had the last word. And, as depressing as the evening had been, she did feel marginally better once she’d shared the saga with her girlfriends. ‘I can’t believe I’ve been such an idiot.’

      ‘It’s not your fault, Ellie. Rob lied to you,’ Ruby tried to console her.

      ‘God, his poor wife,’ said Tilly.

      ‘Who cares about his wife! What about Ellie?’ Jess was outraged.

      Tilly just shrugged. ‘Ellie is better off without him. His wife isn’t so lucky, she’s stuck with him.’

      ‘But you guys know how much I want to belong to someone,’ Ellie said as she reached