Lovestruck, page 1
About the Author
Laura Jane Williams (she/her) is known as the queen of the meet-cute. She is the author of six novels and a novella. The rights to Laura’s international bestseller Our Stop have been sold for television, and her books have been translated into languages all over the world. She loves romance, being a parent, and lifting really heavy weights.
Find out more about Laura on www.laurajaneauthor.com, or on Instagram as @laurajaneauthor.
Also by Laura Jane Williams
Our Stop
The Love Square
The Lucky Escape
One Night With You
The Wrong Suitcase
Just for December
Laura Jane Williams
* * *
LOVESTRUCK
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Publishing Credits
This one is for the four women who got on a train,
said endless encouraging things,
paid for lunch
and had me get back on the book-writing horse.
Thank you. Like, seriously.
1
‘All I’m saying is, we’re all going to die. Eventually, I mean. It’s the only certainty. Things before then can be crappy or good – and I’m only interested in manifesting a good time. A lovely time, in fact. Do you know what I mean?’
As she speaks, Becca Calloway can feel scepticism oozing from her best friend Jia Li’s pores. Jia Li isn’t about to surrender to what she calls ‘the woo-woo’ – she’s distinctly science over faith, the founding member of life’s got-to-see-it-to-believe-it society … but unfortunately for her, this is about to be Woo-Woo City.
‘Don’t look at me like that,’ Becca insists with a self-deprecating chuckle. ‘I know what you’re thinking when you look at me like that.’
‘That no single person can bend the universe to their will with their thoughts?’ Jia Li asks, a similar smile playing across her lipstick-covered mouth. ‘That if good vibes were all that was necessary in life, we’d have no poverty? No cancer or car crashes or paediatric wards in hospitals? That we could simply meditate our way out of a bad situation? Or that you look too cute in that dress and I’m going to have to steal it from you at some point?’
Becca kicks up her left heel in a showgirl-style acknowledgement of the compliment and tells her, ‘Free People. In the sale. And don’t change the subject. All I mean is that, exactly like you say, so much is out of our control. At the end of the day, all we can do is have an attitude of gratitude for what is good. And it’s surely basic physics that what we focus on expands. Think car parking space and you’ll get a car parking space. Think Oh crap, I’m going to have a terrible day and sure enough, bad things will happen to you. That’s manifestation.’
‘Becca,’ Jia Li says, taking a big gulp of her Prosecco. ‘That’s not manifestation. That’s confirmation bias. Also, I cannot believe you just said attitude of gratitude without a single trace of irony.’
‘Oh, for crying out loud, you’re impossible.’ Becca tuts, shaking her head good-naturedly. ‘And willingly obtuse. How do we manage to work together so harmoniously when we’re so different?’
‘I actually know the answer to that one,’ Jia Li declares proudly, holding up a hand which she then proceeds to touch the fingers of as she lists her response. ‘One, I’m the only woman you know who can match you drink for drink, which I think you appreciate the challenge of. Two, you enjoy living vicariously through my sex life, you butter-wouldn’t-melt degenerate. You get your kicks listening to my exploits whilst still committing to this nun-like “I’d rather go without than do it just because” routine. And three––’
‘Christ, Jia Li, why are you orating as if you’re commanding the troops at Normandy?’
Jia Li doesn’t miss a beat as she ignores her. ‘I make you laugh. Sometimes I don’t even mean to, and you still end up cackling like a witch.’
‘The witch and the bitch, what a gruesome twosome.’
Jia Li chuckles. Becca is apparently good at making her laugh, too. ‘And to think we really are single. Who could resist?’
Becca empties a nearby bottle into their glasses and surveys the room. Everything is perfect – the salon buzzing, the nibbles and drinks free-flowing, good hair everywhere.
‘Look,’ Becca tells her friend, lowering her voice, wanting a conclusion to this conversation before they get underway. ‘The only way I can keep believing that my person is out there is by looking out for the evidence that life is, essentially, kind to me. That life loves me enough to gift me my man any minute now. I need to keep feeding my hope, and this ceremony tonight is as good a way as any. You’ve got to give me that. Please give me that!’ She shakes her fist dramatically, as if she’s giving a Shakespearean speech. It’s easier to self-mock her desire for the One than it is to be earnest, otherwise the longing for it could kill her.
Jia Li sucks in her cheeks, her amusement obvious. ‘Can I have evidence that this thing is going to get started soon? Are we still waiting for anyone to arrive?’
Becca grabs a clipboard from behind the front desk and scans down the list of attendees. Most hair salons don’t run monthly events for their clientele of business owners and glossy stay-at-home mums, local DJs and media personalities, let alone auspicious manifestation rituals to bare hearts and souls on a sticky, mid-heatwave summer solstice. But then, most hair salons aren’t Trim. Trim does hair, true, but it is also the beating heart of King’s Heath, the little wedge of Birmingham that Becca, Jia Li and everyone else here tonight calls home. Regular clients always turn up to support Trim’s after-hours events – from still-life drawing to cocktail making, sourdough baking to essential-oils blending – and judging from the number of ticks next to the names on Becca’s list, the turnout for tonight’s manifestation ritual isn’t going to be any different.
‘I think we’re good to go. I’m going to find Coco and invite her to get started,’ Becca pronounces. She tilts her chin towards Carlos, Trim’s co-owner, who is making his way over. ‘Carlos, pal, can you do something about the AC? We need to make sure it doesn’t click off the timer like normal otherwise we’re going to melt in this heat.’
Carlos heads out to the back room to access the salon’s temperature controls, giving Becca a thumbs up as he passes. ‘On it,’ he says, efficiently, and Becca gives him a grateful thumbs up in return.
‘Right then,’ intones Jia Li, plonking down her empty glass and clapping her hands together. ‘Let’s go and positive-mental-attitude our way out of eternal spinsterhood by dry humping some rose quartz and howling at the moon, shall we?’
‘Bloody well get in the spirit of this, or you’re out on your ear,’ Becca hisses under her breath. She’s half joking and – actually – half dead serious. ‘You can be sarky with me but don’t let the clients hear you. Put on a good show. Pretend to be into this for the morale of the group, capeesh?’
Jia Li pulls a solemn face, apparently understanding that her friend – and boss – needs her to at least feign maturity. Becca duly notes her efforts.
‘Capeesh,’ Jia Li echoes, and to be fair to her, she does a pretty decent job of suspending her cynicism – right up until the chanting, anyway.
2
‘Just let the sounds come,’ instructs Coco, their pink-haired and pierced host for the evening. She has a snake tattooed from her left wrist all the way up her arm, curling around the back of her shoulders, culminating in its head over on her right bicep, which is, incidentally, chiselled like Madonna’s. Becca had been totally floored by her when she’d walked in earlier, this person in full possession of themselves. She likes it. Trusts it. Wants a bit of that for herself. ‘Let what is within you be drawn out instinctively, without thought,’ Coco presses from her side of the ‘welcome circle’. ‘Inhabit your body, move out of your mind.’
Even with her eyes closed in concentration Becca knows – before the words have a chance to be spoken – exactly what Jia Li is going to say.
‘I think some of us are already out of our minds,’ she quips, right on cue. It generates a murmur of giggles from the more self-conscious attendees amongst the group, but Coco takes Jia Li’s input with good humour.
‘If you growl, you growl. If you howl, you howl,’ Coco continues. ‘If you moan, you moan,’ she adds, as if doing so in a room of thirty fully clothed people on
‘My kind of night.’
Becca opens her eyes to shoot her evils, but instead catches Coco smiling. Jia Li must feel Becca’s gaze on her because she opens her eyes, clocking Becca’s frown. She mouths sorry in an approximation of sincerity and closes them again. Becca watches her sway, as has been asked of them, and then casts an eye over everyone else, too.
The group are seated atop overstuffed tasselled pillows, on the patterned rug of what is normally the waiting area of the green and gold-accented salon. They are all cross-legged, and almost all mildly embarrassed in the face of a woman who, even for Becca’s taste, talks about ‘the universe’ a lot. Coco comes recommended, though, through a client, and the command she has over the room is admirable, her voice a low rumble as though it’s coming from her belly, some sort of energetic frequency that permeates the group and makes them collectively surrender to her matriarchal care. It’s quite nice to let somebody else be in charge for a change.
A low hum sounds from Carlos then, and it encourages everyone else to start making their noises as well. The idea is to have their own vibrations meet the vibrations of the universe, as a way of opening the world up to hearing each individual’s desires.
‘Summer solstice – the twenty-first of June – is the longest day of the year,’ Coco tells them over the din of their chants and the buzz of the air conditioning unit. It all sounds very dramatic – as if she’s performing a monologue to the beat of human breath. Becca exhales and lets herself surrender.
‘In Iceland, they believe that on this day animals can gain the power of speech. The Greeks enjoy summer solstice as the first day of the calendar. The Chinese use today to pay tribute to femininity and honour.’
The humming and chanting get louder.
‘We humbly perform our rituals tonight alongside the rest of the globe to reflect the earth’s abundance. Life is full, and ours for the taking. And so together, as you reopen your eyes, I welcome you, and say we are ready to manifest our deepest summertime desires into real, tangible things.’
‘Amen,’ says Jia Li, chirpily and silly, and everyone bursts out into giggles.
Coco nods with a wink. ‘Something like that, yeah.’
It could just be Becca’s imagination, but the air feels different after that. Stiller, somehow, imbued with a solemnity and gravity, everyone ready to get down to business. Coco gives out pieces of paper and pens, inviting the group to write down their intentions for the months ahead. As everyone quietly reflects and scribbles down what comes to mind, Coco walks around the room and lights several candles, reaching the centre of the circle as everyone finishes writing, placing flowers down beside a central candle and lighting that as the last one.
‘When you’re done,’ Coco instructs, ‘close your eyes again. Ruminate on your list. Breathe. Tap into your deep-rooted powers of manifestation. Call on your angels and spirit guides, the divine powers of the universe, to come to your aid.’ Becca can telepathically hear Jia Li ask, So is that, like, through an app? Or is there an email address we can use … ?
She focuses. Becca imagines a swell in her belly. Her partner’s hand in hers. Watching a blond-haired boy with her nose play on a beach, running into and out of the waves. She wants this. She wants this so, so much. She had enough fun for ten women in her twenties, made a big choice to start the business and opened Trim at thirty, and now, at thirty-five, she wants the next bit. Her body yearns for it. Could she freeze her eggs and take the pressure off? Maybe. Does she want to? No. She’s been single for half a decade, and enough is enough. She wants the next part of her life: a proper romantic partner, the start of building her own family. This holding place is no good.
‘And repeat after me,’ says Coco, focusing the group. She coughs to clear her throat and begins: ‘I gather in the power of this day.’
They repeat her words. ‘I gather in the power of this day.’
Coco presses: ‘I call in the guardians to bring in what is already mine.’ That sentence is longer, and a few people stumble over the words, but they repeat it too. ‘To manifest my desires in the coming harvest. I ask that this be done within the greater good.’
And then they are invited to read their lists aloud, with sincerity and significance.
‘I ask for my sister to make a full recovery,’ says Heidi, a local food PR who comes in for a bi-annual balayage and a blunt shoulder-length cut.
‘I pray for the strength of self to finally leave him,’ offers Monique, a middle-aged woman who books a root touch-up with Carlos for the last Friday of every month.
‘I ask for love, in all of its forms,’ says Carlos, and Becca catches his eye. She wasn’t expecting that from him. He looks shyly away, a half-smile hanging in his cheeks, and Becca takes in the sight of him: all dark, clipped facial hair and tattoos on thick, tanned arms that are shown off to perfection through an incredibly fitted shirt. If Becca has a golden tan from her recent Majorcan vacation, Carlos is practically Tuscan leather, although it does come by way of Costa del Sunbed. He’s as much of a pain in the arse as Jia Li, but they’re both her pains in the arse. When Carlos looks up again, Becca sticks out her tongue. He crosses his eyes and sticks out his own, betraying the emotion she’s just heard in his voice.
‘I ask for love in all of its forms too,’ says Jia Li. ‘For me, and for everyone I care about.’ She looks meaningfully at Becca then, her dark eyes sombre, and Becca nods in acceptance of what she’s implying because Becca understands her friend is telling her: I want you to have everything I tease you about wanting. Let us have it together.
When it’s Becca’s turn, she tells the room: ‘I want to be married, and pregnant.’ She swallows, self-conscious about wanting something that in her younger years she would have thought was anti-feminist, too ‘fifties housewife’. But sod it. It’s the truth.
They collectively follow Coco in closing the ceremony by repeating: ‘I affirm I am able and willing to allow these wishes to manifest and I participate in the miracle of creation with faith. So be it. And so, it is.’ At the end, for comedic affect in acknowledgement of Jia Li, Coco then adds: ‘Amen.’
‘Amen,’ repeat the group, chuckling, the tension of the previous forty minutes evaporating. They are done. They have told the universe what they want, they have let themselves hear it, feel it, acknowledge it, and now they can drink and chat and get on with their lives, their orders in the restaurant of life placed, their wishes in the hands of the gods, if such a thing really does exist as true.
3
It feels like magic that, not long after the ritual, the heatwave breaks and the heavens open, giving the salon a moody, atmospheric vibe. The sky outside the huge front window is dark, rain hitting the glass, candles and incense burning inside what has become a refuge from the elements. Sadly, though, Becca does not get refuge from Jia Li’s sardonic cynicism, which continues to rage on.
‘I’m just saying,’ Becca tells her friend, ‘surely you feel different after doing everything we just did. Even the air changed!’
If it was possible to blink sarcastically then Jia Li’s chocolate-coloured eyes do it.
‘Clearly not.’ Becca laughs, shaking her head. She catches sight of her reflection at one of the styling stations and runs a hand over her highlighted beachy waves, smooths out a kink in her eyebrow. Jia Li watches her and then does the same before launching into her counter-attack.
‘All this talk of wanting to find Mr Right.’ Jia Li sighs, with more drama than the conversation necessitates, as is her MO. ‘I mean, what even is that? I can tell you now: whoever your Forever Man is, he’s not at a bloody summer solstice manifestation party. Can we manifest you downloading the apps and swiping, or even just going to a sports pub instead of a spa on your day off? You know – somewhere men actually go?’
‘I don’t want that kind of man,’ Becca retorts.
They shift a few paces to the left so that Carlos can get to the extra booze for their guests. He does it theatrically, sighing to communicate: Would it kill for you to give me a hand?
