Plus One – Part 1: The Surprise Third

The villa in San Antonio had a pool shaped like a kidney bean and a terrace that caught the evening breeze. Jiya had booked it for her and Alex's fifth wedding anniversary, and Alex had made the mistake of mentioning, over breakfast, that Mira was between jobs and could use a holiday.

"You invited her," said Jiya, from the sun lounger.

"I invited her," said Alex. "She's our oldest friend. It was going to be strange without her."

"Strange is my favourite kind of holiday."

Mira arrived on the Tuesday, with a battered suitcase and a sunhat as wide as a dinner plate. She had known them both since university, when the three of them had shared a cramped flat above a laundrette and an unbreakable rule that nobody cooked before midnight. Since then, life had scattered them: Jiya to Manchester, Alex to London, Mira to Lisbon and then nowhere in particular.

"You look well," said Jiya, hugging her at the door.

"You look like you're plotting something," said Mira.

"I'm not plotting. I'm celebrating."

They spent the first evening on the terrace, eating grilled prawns and drinking cold white wine, watching the sun slide into the sea. The talk drifted from work to old flatmates to the broken oven they had once tried to repair with a hairdryer.

Late in the evening, when the candles were low and the wine was nearly gone, Mira went very quiet.

"Can I say something?" she asked.

"Always," said Alex.

"I've been in love with you both since the laundrette," said Mira, looking at her glass. "I never told you because I didn't want to be the third wheel. I thought I'd rather be a friend than a complication."

The terrace went quiet. Jiya's heart thumped. She looked at Alex, and saw her own surprise reflected in his face.

"You've never been a third wheel," said Jiya at last, softly. "You've been the only one who made us laugh when we were both too stubborn to speak."

"I think I've been waiting for someone to ask me to stop pretending," said Mira.

"Then can I ask you something?" said Alex, his voice unusually careful.

"Yes."

"Would you like to spend the rest of this week with us, honestly, and find out whether what you're feeling is something we can all share? No pressure. And if anyone says stop, we stop, and we still have breakfast together tomorrow."

Mira let out a shaky laugh. "Yes," she said. "But only if Jiya agrees first."

All three of them turned to Jiya, who was sitting very still with her hand on Alex's knee.

"Jiya?" asked Alex, quietly.

She took a long breath. The sea was dark and calm beyond the terrace, and somewhere down the coast a bell was ringing for the end of a party.

"Yes," she said. "But I want to talk about it tomorrow, in daylight, with coffee. And I want us all to say green out loud, every single step."

"Green," said Alex at once.

"Green," said Mira, her voice steady for the first time all evening.

"Green," said Jiya, and reached across the table to take both their hands.