Chapter 22
22
‘Mummy, you already put milk in the bowl. What are you doing? There’s already milk. You’re going to spill it. And there isn’t even any cereal in it yet!’
Holly looked down at the bowl in front of her. Hope was correct. It was currently filled three-quarters full of milk and without a drop of breakfast cereal in there.
‘Sorry,’ she said, grabbing a mug and pouring off some of the excess. ‘Mummy was busy thinking.’
‘That doesn’t sound good.’
‘Hey, you. That’s enough of the cheekiness.’
With a roll of her eyes, Hope took the bowl from Holly and finally added cereal to it.
‘I didn’t say I minded. I like extra milk.’
Holly was definitely distracted, and it was the message from Sienna doing it.
No matter what she’d tried, Holly had found it impossible to sleep with the weight of the unknown bearing down on her. She knew she had to reply. Just send something so she could close her eyes and stop fretting so much. But then what should she say when she didn’t know what Sienna wanted to talk about? Agreeing to a meeting when you didn’t know the agenda felt like a rookie mistake, yet asking, Can you tell me what about? or, Maybe, but I need to know context first? just sounded rude.
So it had taken her over twenty-five minutes to settle on a single-word answer of ‘sure’, and even then she didn’t know if that had been the correct thing to write. It didn’t help that she still hadn’t received a reply.
‘Mummy, have you packed my swimming things?’ Hope said, bringing Holly out of her constant stream of thoughts. ‘You know it’s free swim today.’
‘Yes, yes, of course,’ Holly said.
‘And have you fed Rhubarb today, because she’s drinking the milk out of your mug?’
‘Get out of there,’ Holly said, grabbing the kitten and putting her back down on the floor next to her biscuits. As soon as the cat started eating, Holly headed back to the worktop and picked up her phone again.
A pang of self-annoyance struck. She needed to get over this. Whatever it was, she couldn’t lose her entire day worrying about it and yet as she was debating whether she should ring Giles, just to find out what was going on, her phone buzzed again and a message flashed up on the screen. Without thinking, she swiped to open it.
Great! Why don’t I come to yours tonight around seven? I’ll bring the wine.
Holly swallowed. Why had she opened the message straight away? Sienna was probably still holding her phone, which meant she could see Holly was online. That meant Holly had to either reply or have it be very obvious that she was ignoring her.
Not able to bring herself to write any words, she sent a smiley-face emoji back. A smiley face, nothing more, and yet its meaning was perfectly clear. She and Sienna were going to talk.