Excerpt from The Adults by Caroline Hulse, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

“I’m sure he’s fine.”

Alex leaned forward. “He doesn’t have ‘a black hole of an anti-personality’?”

“I was being flippant. Claire likes him anyway, and she always had good taste in men.” Matt glanced at Alex’s face and held his palms up in response. “OK, not today. Sorry, Al. Not funny today.”

He stood up. “I’ll leave you to ponder. I know whatever you decide will be the right thing. Just give me a shout when you’re ready.”

He scurried upstairs, leaving Alex with the washing-up.

Alex emptied the lukewarm water out of the sink and refilled the bowl.

The water was too hot but she didn’t add any cold to the mix. The discomfort of her sweating hands was preferable to the more nebulous discomfort going on in her stomach.

Alex wished she was at work right now. It was easier to forget in the university lab, where there were readings to take and cells to study. In the lab, Alex could go hours before she raised her head and looked out of the window at the trees. Only then did she look down at her trainers on the scuffed floor, take in the sound of the tinny radio, and remember there was a world other than studying cells taken from diabetes patients.

But it was different at home. At home, it was just Alex and her thoughts.

She could refuse to go on the trip, of course. But that wasn’t satisfactory either.

She didn’t want to go—but she couldn’t not go either. She’d feel petty and churlish, which she definitely, actively—explicitly—wasn’t. Alex had always been very reasonable about the fact Matt got on with his ex, a fact that other people—people who were actually churlish—would have found difficult.

Alex had overcompensated, if anything. Kissed Claire on the cheek on the occasions they did the Scarlett drop-off swap. Always had something nice to say about Claire’s skirt, or her hair. Everyone had a past and nothing was personal. And Alex wasn’t a personal person.

Alex scrubbed at the burnt pastry on the rim of the pie tin.

Though it was only a month away, Alex hadn’t given much thought to the logistics of Christmas Day. She’d thought she’d see her parents, maybe, or see Matt’s—it didn’t matter. Alex didn’t care about Christmas. It was just a day when the lab was shut.

But this—this was different.

And Matt had known for ages and not told her.

Alex didn’t understand how he did it. Was he able to mentally compartmentalize awkward news? Or was he just putting off the inevitable?

Alex couldn’t test either hypothesis, which made the situation even more frustrating. Matt had an amazing ability to wrong-foot her, and she ended up agreeing to things she hadn’t meant to. Maybe this was why Matt did well in his job in sales, despite having what Alex considered a questionable work ethic.

Alex rinsed a plate; she stacked it on the drainer. She heard a scraping sound upstairs: a chair being dragged across the floor.

Matt was giving her some space. Ostensibly, busy upstairs. In reality, he was just staying out of her way.

After washing up, Alex looked through the online pictures of what she now thought of as the enchanted forest.

Not that it looked enchanted in the pictures. There might have been year-round fairy lights to go with the seasonal fake snow, but there were too many plastic barriers and warning signs for the place to look like a proper woodland wonderland.

Alex pushed her laptop away. She tried again not to look at the wine rack.

Don’t be silly, she’d said, when Matt suggested getting rid of all the alcohol at home. We can’t be the people everyone avoids because there’s no booze in the house. But some nights she felt more of a pull from the retained wine rack than others. Like tonight. The wine’s subtle pressure was multiplied by the jagged weight of a conversation unfinished.

Excerpted from The Adults by Caroline Hulse. Copyright © 2018 by Caroline Hulse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.