Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Three
‘Ijust don’t know, Mum,’ Jess said, her phone tucked under her ear. ‘I can’t say when I’ll be free. I haven’t asked Wendy for any weekends off for ages.’
‘Surely that means you could,’ Edie suggested.
Frustration bubbled to the surface. She didn’t need this pressure now: arranging to see her parents, changing up her weekends. She had so much work with her Etsy shop, packing up orders had become a nightly thing to stay on top of it all, but weekends were just as busy. Wendy wouldn’t be able to cope without her on a Saturday, and she couldn’t send Ash off to see Felicity alone. The thought was both unsettling and preposterous, because Sunday morning was theirs. Except they were branching out. Tomorrow.
‘I’ll talk to Wendy,’ she said, trying to ignore the butterflies. ‘But I’ve got such a lot on at the moment. My print sales are really taking off.’
‘We’ve seen Lola’s TikToks,’ Edie said. ‘They’re wonderful. And it’s so good of you to give some of your Etsy profits to that young man.’
‘Enzo,’ her dad replied. ‘Enzo and Carolina Vela. It’s on the landing page. We shouldn’t forget their names.’
‘They’re not the forgotten victims of some terrible crime,’ Edie said.
‘But they have names,’ Graeme pressed.
Jess almost put the phone down and got on with her work while they bickered in the background. She was working on a print that said: Boundaries are made to be broken through, unless you’re next to a field of angry bulls. It wasn’t quite right, but she’d found a beautiful photo of Highland cattle at sunset that was available for commercial use, and she’d tinker with the wording later on.
‘We’d love to see you, Jess,’ her dad said. ‘You’re not far from us, but sometimes you act as if you’re on a different continent.’
‘We’re a couple of miles away,’ her mum added. ‘And what we’re saying is that we can make the journey. It doesn’t always have to be the chick flying back to the nest.’
‘I’m just busy,’ Jess said lamely.
‘With any boys?’
‘Mum.’ She sighed the word. ‘Work’s full-on, and anyway... Terence’s flat is so small.’
‘But Greenwich has endless possibilities, for lunch or dinner or walks. We don’t expect you to cook for us.’ Edie’s laughter was sharper than it needed to be.
Jess remembered what Lola kepttelling her. Edie and Graeme Peacock had chosen her. She hadn’t been an accident, something unexpected or thought about in abstract terms. They had gone through a rigorous adoption process, court orders, home visits and questionnaires and scrutiny, to have Jess as part of their family.
‘I’m working tomorrow,’ she said. ‘So I can ask Wendy then, and let you have some dates.’
‘Marvellous,’ Graeme said, in a tone that meant he thought the conversation was over.
‘What about your Friday nights?’ her mum asked. ‘What about tomorrow? Are you and Lola hitting the town?’
Jess winced at her mum’s phrasing. Of course, it would be today that she asked. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure yet.’ It wasn’t a lie, because she didn’t think she and Lola would be hitting the town, and she also wasn’t sure what she was doing, because Ash had been teasing her with hints about where they were going, but had refused to tell her outright.
‘Well, look after yourself,’ Edie said, when Jess failed to be more forthcoming. ‘And let us know when we can come and impose on you. We miss our daughter!’
‘Sure,’ Jess said. ‘I’ll let you know. Bye, then.’
‘Bye, love,’ her dad said.
‘Take care, sweetie.’
Jess hung up and flung herself dramatically onto the bed, groaning and pressing her hands into her eyes.
‘Didn’t want to tell them you had a hot date?’
She sprung up again and glared at Terence, who was standing in the doorway, a pot of pesto in one hand, a teaspoon in the other. ‘Are you putting that on pasta, or is that your dinner?’
Terence shrugged. ‘I’m cooking some potatoes, so thought I’d check it was still good.’
‘Fair enough. Anyway, how do you know I have a hot date?’
‘I heard you talking to Lola on the phone, something about arranging it after the pub. This guy Ash?’
‘Has he come and helped out on your round?’ Jess asked.
‘What?’ Terence frowned. ‘I don’t know him, I don’t think. Why?’
Jess sighed. ‘Sorry. He’s just... everyone loves him at the market, and speaking to Edie and Graeme always makes me snippy.’
‘Your mum and dad, you mean?’ He raised an eyebrow, ate another teaspoon of pesto. ‘Surely it’s a good thing that everyone loves him. It suggests your radar isn’t totally off and you’re probably not going to end up on a late-night, one-way date with a serial killer.’
Jess laughed. ‘Maybe.’
Terence leaned against the doorframe, as if settling in for the long haul. ‘Come on then, out with it.’
‘Out with what?’
‘Your reservations. The reason going out with a popular guy is giving you hives.’
‘I think of beehives when you say that.’
‘It’s a swelling on your skin, like an irritation. I watch a lot of American TV, whatever. I can see it’s worrying you, is my point. Would you prefer to go out with a loner?’
Jess narrowed her eyes, but Terence was unmoved.
‘Fine,’ she said eventually. ‘It’s worrying me because... everyone knows him. They love him! What if we go out and it goes wrong, and then I get blamed because I’ve scared off this amazing guy that they all adore. Or – worse! What if it goes really well, and then suddenly I’m at the pub with them all every night, and my life turns into this social whirlwind?’ She shuddered.
‘You were at the pub the other night,’ Terence pointed out.
‘Yeah, and I used up all my battery.’
‘Also,’ Terence went on, ‘everyone at the market loves you too, and has known you longer. You really think they’d be loyal to the new guy?’
‘But he’s solovely, and kind, and generous. He’s patient, and—’
‘And he wants to go out with you,’ Terence said. ‘So you shouldn’t worry about it. He wants this, too.’
Jess dragged one of her yeti pillows onto her lap. ‘That wasn’t what I was worried about.’
‘That’s not what you said you were worried about.’ Terence pointed his teaspoon at her, a blob of pesto dangling precariously on the end. ‘What you’re really worried about is that you won’t be good enough for him, that he won’t hang about and he’ll take all your market friends with him, and you’ll be left all alone. None of which is plausible, by the way.’
Jess stiffened. ‘I’m not thinking any of that.’
‘Sure you are. You’re adopted, you keep your folks at arm’s length, you think you’re on this dusty road to perpetual abandonment so you make it your business to push people away before they push you away, but you never let on. You’re the queen at coming up with reasons why relationships won’t work out.’
‘What?’ It came out as a scratchy whisper.
‘I watch Long Lost Family. These are common abandonment insecurities. But you’ve got it worse than most. Being brittle is your shield.’
‘I do not...’ She felt hot all over. ‘Terence!’
‘I haven’t kicked you out yet, have I?’
‘No, but we never—’
‘And Wendy, your boss – right?’
Jess nodded dumbly.
‘She’s kept hold of you too, for like... four years. And all these market people you mention, Enzo and Olga and Kirsty, you pretend you barely know them, but all your little stories...’ He waggled his fingers, put the teaspoon back in his mouth, then took it out again, ‘Your nights at the pub with them. So much denial.’
‘This is unhelpful.’ Jess resisted the urge to throw the cushion at him.
‘You think you’re this lone soldier, battling away by yourself, but you’re not. If all these other people like hanging out with you and sharing their problems with you, so you end up sorting out TikToks and prints, giving away your profits to help them fix whatever bullshit the world has chucked at them, then why not believe that the guy likes you enough to hang around for a while, too?’
‘I... I don’t know,’ she said, her anger dissolving. This was more than she’d heard Terence say in all the time she’d been living with him. ‘Have you been analysing me?’
He laughed, the sound warm and kind, despite his hard truths. ‘I’m a postman, not a psychologist. But we do share a tiny flat, we’ve shared a few meals recently, too, and I’m not entirely unobservant. All I’m saying is, give it a chance; don’t write yourself off before you’ve gone on one hot date.’
‘We’ve had some Sundays,’ she said.
‘That’s not the same as Friday night, though, is it? Weird how the day of the week makes a difference, but it does, right?’
‘It does,’ Jess agreed. ‘And I’m meeting him straight after work, so I can’t even get changed first. I have to get ready tomorrow morning, which feels so hard, somehow.’ She was spilling it all out, wondering, even as she spoke, why Terence was suddenly her confidant.
‘You always look great,’ he said simply. ‘Don’t stress about it.’
‘OK,’ Jess replied. ‘Thanks.’
‘Sure. Come and have some pesto potatoes. I’ve done sausages too, and there’s enough for both of us.’
‘Really?’ Jess swallowed the lump in her throat, the turn of events so unexpected she felt as if she’d got whiplash.
‘I promise I won’t psychologise you any more. There’s one of the earlier Mission: Impossible films on in a bit, if you want to watch that?’
Jess nodded, and then, because she couldn’t be too real with him, said, ‘Are you sure there’s enough pesto left to put on the potatoes now you’ve had it as an aperitif?’
‘I’ve got another jar in the fridge,’ he said, and went back down the corridor, his footsteps gentle on the carpet.
Jess buried her head in her fluffy cushion. Were her insecurities really that obvious to everyone? Terence’s reassurance that people liked spending time with her should have made her less nervous about seeing Ash, but now all she could think was that he saw right through her, too. He was an actual psychologist, after all. It made her wonder if he was being genuine with her, or if he’d been the version of himself that he thought she wanted: fun and silly, good at deflecting serious questions. Had he been worrying that she wouldn’t stick around, because it was obvious that she didn’t form connections easily?
She threw the cushion against her headboard. Ash liked spending time with her, and he liked kissing her, but he still hadn’t told her what he did on Sundays after their time was up. She suddenly felt as if he was a solid, impenetrable form, and she was this opaque, wispy thing, all the hidden parts of her on show. Would an evening together change that? Would he open up more now that they were breaking through their original boundaries?
The whole thing felt more nerve-wracking than it had before Terence had decided to psychoanalyse her. She should be annoyed with him – his speech had come after she’d had to deal with her parents, as well – but she couldn’t be. And there was one thing he’d said that she completely agreed with. The day of the week shouldn’t make a difference, but it did. There would be no lunch hour to squish into, no Felicity, no mysterious appointment for Ash to race off to afterwards. They were going to spend unrestricted time together – a date with no countdown attached – and Jess was both elated and terrified.
Terence was right about another thing, too. Pesto potatoes and Tom Cruise playing Ethan Hunt were what she needed right now. Otherwise, she would spend the next twenty-four hours watching the seconds pass, waiting for a date that felt both full of possibility, and riddled with hazards.