Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
DOUGLAS
“Da. Da. Da.”
A hand waves in front of my face. Small, slightly sticky, insistent.
I blink. Logan is leaning across the kitchen table, fingers splayed, looking at me like I’ve just arrived from another planet. “Hello? Earth to Da?”
“What?”
“I said can I have the ketchup.”
“Aye, fine.” I push the bottle towards him.
Dinner is fish fingers, peas, and oven chips. The kids love Saturday dinners, because I don’t make them eat something I’ve hauled in myself.
Rosie watches me as she chews on a chip. “You’re being weird tonight,” she announces.
Logan, who has managed to squirt a blob of ketchup onto the table instead of his plate, dips a chip straight into it and nods. “Aye. Weird.”
“I’m not being weird.”
“You are,” Rosie says. “You put the salt on your peas three times. I counted.”
I glance down at my plate. She’s right. The peas, which I haven’t yet touched, are buried under a layer of salt.
“Eat your dinner,” I say because I don’t have a better answer.
They return to their food—Logan eating with his usual lack of precision, Rosie flaking the batter off her fish finger—and I try, really try, to stay in the room.
But my thoughts keep returning to Ellie’s camera in my hands and what I saw on its screen.
Not just one or two photos but dozens, of the Mary Beth and of me.
She’s been taking photos of me. For months now, I think. And I had absolutely no—
“Logan’s kicking me under the table.”
“Am not.”
“Are so.”
“Am not.”
“Right.” I point my fork at them both. “Eat. No kicking.”
We get through the rest of dinner without too much drama. I manage to scrape some of the salt off my peas. Logan clears his plate. Rosie leaves her crusts in a neat little pile.
Then it’s bath time. Rosie goes first since her hair takes twice as long as Logan’s. No sooner have I got her out and wrapped in a towel than Logan launches himself into the bath, sending water sloshing over the sides.
“Mate!” I protest.
“Rosie, count how long I can stay under,” he says before taking a deep breath and submerging himself.
Shaking my head, I pick up the comb and start working it through Rosie’s wet hair, trying to be gentle, my eyes flicking back to the bath as I go. Rosie winces. I murmur an apology and slow my hand.
Rosie reaches twenty. Then twenty-five. He’s still under.
“. . . twenty-nine . . .”
“Logan. Up.”
Nothing.
“Thirty!” Rosie calls.
“Logan.”
Still nothing.
I drop the comb and lean over, grabbing his arm and hauling him upright. He comes up spluttering, water everywhere.
“Thirty-one!” Rosie says, impressed.
“Yes!” Logan punches the air.
“Maybe try keeping the water in the bath, eh?” I say, wringing out my sleeve, which is soaked to the elbow.
Once Rosie’s hair is finally untangled and Logan’s been scrubbed clean, I wrap him in a towel too and herd them both through to their room.
Getting them into their pyjamas takes longer than it should, mostly because Logan’s favourite top has vanished.
We eventually find it down the side of his mattress, inside out and scrunched into a ball.
They head downstairs for a bit of TV time and, after some squabbling, settle on Teen Titans Go! I bring through a simple supper of milk and a pancake each—shop-bought, obviously—then head back up to sort the bathroom.
As I mop up the floor with one of the old towels I keep for exactly this kind of thing, my mind goes straight back to Ellie. To the photos. To what they mean.
God.
I wring the towel harder than necessary then drape it over the radiator. It’s soon joined by the equally soaked bathmat.
When I head back downstairs, the twins are absorbed in their programme, the pancakes long gone, both of them still nursing their milk. I drop into the armchair, pull out my phone, and open the Dadventurers chat.
I type. Delete. Type again.
Douglas
Odd question, but do you think Ellie might like me?
I hit send before I can talk myself out of it, then immediately regret it.
Lachlan
Yes
I stare at the screen.
Douglas
Yes what?
Lachlan
Yes, she likes you
Before I can process this, Struan joins the conversation.
Struan
Oh mate
Oh MATE
YES, as in obviously yes. About time you figured it out!
Hang on. Are they winding me up, or is this for real?
Douglas
Can’t tell if you two are taking the piss
Lachlan
We’re not. To be fair, Blair told me. I wouldn’t have known otherwise
Struan
Aye, and Ainsley told me. But I THOUGHT there was something there! She’s always giggling and blushing around you
Jesus Christ. They’re not taking the piss. This is real. Ellie likes me.
Douglas
Struan, you were sat across from me four hours ago asking about Ellie. You didn’t think to mention this then?
Struan
I was trying to lead you there, mate. Not my fault you were slow on the uptake
Douglas
Lachlan? You were there too
Lachlan
I said I wasn’t getting involved. And I wasn’t. Until you asked
Fair point. Annoyingly.
I don’t know what else to say. My thumbs hover over the keyboard but nothing comes. Then a small presence materialises at my elbow.
“Who are you texting?” Rosie asks.
I lock the screen. “Just the other dads.”
She glances at the phone suspiciously then puts on her most angelic expression. “Can I have another pancake?”
Logan’s head snaps round. “Me too?”
I sigh. “Okay, one more each. Then it’s bedtime.”
Bedtime is the usual carry-on. Teeth brushed after the typical negotiations.
Story read after a debate over which one.
Lights off, followed by the predictable round of protests.
Logan wants water. Rosie wants to know what we’re doing tomorrow.
Logan wants to know what we’re doing the day after tomorrow.
I deal with it all on autopilot, my head somewhere else entirely.
When they finally settle, I head downstairs and tidy up the kitchen.
Dishes washed, surfaces wiped, the dishcloth wrung out and draped over the tap.
Then, before turning in myself, I check on the twins again.
Rosie’s sprawled across the bottom bunk, duvet half off, one arm flung above her head.
Logan’s curled up tight on the top bunk, out for the count.
I close their door softly, go through my own bedtime routine, then climb under the duvet. And then it’s just me and the dark and the quiet, and there’s nothing to distract me from my thoughts.
The day keeps replaying. Rosie reading aloud from the rock-pooling book, Ellie listening to every word. Logan showing Ellie the crab. The four of us on that rock, eating biscuits in the sun.
It felt so . . . easy. I can’t remember the last time anything involving Leah felt easy.
I roll onto my side. So, Ellie likes me. Has liked me, apparently, for a while. Long enough to fill a camera with photos of my boat and of me that I was never meant to see. I don’t know what to do with that.
My thoughts drift to the rescue. Ellie in the water, my arm around her waist as we waded back to the Mary Beth. The weight of her against me. The way I held her even tighter as I pushed her up onto the boat . . .
And this morning, when she slipped on the rocks, my hand found her waist again.
It’s hardly the stuff of some erotic fantasy. Just my hand on her waist, over probably three layers of clothing. That shouldn’t be enough to get me hard, but apparently my dick disagrees. And we’re not talking a semi either—I’m lying here with a full-blown erection.
My body has spent years asking for nothing more exciting than a decent night’s sleep, and now suddenly it’s all systems go because I put a hand on Ellie Macpherson’s waist twice in one week. Pathetic.
I collapse onto my back and stare up at the ceiling. “Behave yourself,” I mutter to my dick.
It doesn’t. In fact, it gives a wee twitch of enthusiasm. Bloody thing.
I try my best to ignore it, because this isn’t just some random thought in the dark. It’s Ellie. But trying not to think about her only makes me think about her even more.
It takes a long time for sleep to come.