Chapter 12
Chapter
Twelve
Maybe stop having sex long enough to get to know him, Milo.
Milo
Molly and I follow Niall into his kitchen. I look around but I can’t see any sign of Dotty. She’s obviously heard the sound of the little girl’s voice and done the sensible thing and hurled herself out through the cat flap.
Molly looks around with eager curiosity. “Do you live here, Niall? It’s like a fairy-tale cottage. I like fairy tales. I like The Gingerbread Man and I like Hansel and Gretel where the witch lived in a house made of sweets and Goldilocks and the Three Bears with the porridge.”
I grin at Niall. “You sound hungry, Molly. Would you like some breakfast?”
She nods eagerly and Niall laughs. “I’ll make tea if you do food.” He looks at me hopefully. “I could eat breakfast too.” He pauses. “But probably bacon and eggs are better for someone who’s been hard at work since dawn.”
I shake my head. “You were rolling around in fox poo, not resolving Brexit negotiations.”
He laughs, and Molly sidles up. “Granddad was on about Brexit yesterday. He said Boris Johnson couldn’t find his bottom with a map, but I couldn’t work out why he needed a map.
I can find mine easily. It’s always in the same place.
” She shakes her head in a very bemused fashion as Niall laughs loudly and smacks a kiss on her head.
I get the bacon and sausages out of the fridge and stick them on the grill before grabbing the porridge and starting to slice fruit. “Molly, get the golden syrup out, lovey. It’s in that cupboard by the big window.” Humming tunelessly, she skips across to the cupboard next to the French doors.
She stands there for a second, looking out at the garden in a contemplative manner. “There’s a lady running around the garden in her bra and knickers,” she finally says in a very matter-of-fact voice.
“What?” I look up, startled, in time to see Niall pace over to the doors.
“ Shit! ” he shouts loudly and books it out of the room, banging into the doorframe as he goes.
“Niall said a bad word,” Molly says happily.
Silence descends for a split second and then I dart over to the window in time to see Jacinta clad in very fetching lilac underwear, dancing around the garden and laughing uproariously while my brother claps and cheers.
For a long second, I’m held immobile as Molly and I watch while she dances around to an invisible tune. She’s obviously either spectacularly drunk or stoned or both, but she still manages to avoid the clutches of Niall as my brother laughs loudly at both of them.
Finally, I realise that I’m probably scarring Molly’s delicate mind for life and usher her away from the window. “Come on,” I say heartily. “Help me make breakfast for everyone.”
“I think porridge is the right choice, especially for the lady. She’s going to be very cold when she comes in,” Molly says sagely, letting me tie an apron around her and accepting a spoon to stir the oats into the cold milk.
I look up in time to see Niall corner her and whip his shirt off to cover her. I roll my eyes and try to ignore both Niall’s bare chest and the fact that my brother is also ogling it.
“She needs a proper bra,” Molly intones in a slightly scandalized voice. “Her boobies are flopping about all over the place.”
“She needs a sense of decency,” I say with a sniff and then halt. “What do you know about bras?”
She shrugs. “Granny has a proper bra. It’s big and white and I can stick my head in one of the pouches.”
I blink and try to rid my mind of the image of Mrs. Granger in her underwear. The back door opens and Niall comes in, followed by my brother who is leading a sulky Jacinta.
Niall ushers her to a seat and reaches for the coffeepot while my brother slings himself into a chair, looking disgruntled.
“Party pooper,” Jacinta sneers at Niall. “You’ve really changed. Time was you’d have liked to see me dance in my underwear.”
“I don’t think asking you not to do it in front of a five-year-old really deserves the title of party pooper,” Niall says wryly.
“What five-year-old?” she sneers, accepting the coffee he pours her with a huff and getting out a cigarette from a packet on the table. “I’m sure Milo looked a lot older than that.”
“He is,” Niall says patiently, removing the cigarette from her pouty mouth and throwing the packet neatly into the bin. “I’m talking about the little girl making porridge over there.”
Jacinta squints for a few seconds. Her pupils are huge. She then obviously gives up. “I left my cigarettes around here,” she says querulously. “Where are they?”
“I don’t know,” Niall says quickly and my brother snorts.
He’s wearing old jeans and a black jumper and looks handsome.
Although he’s not saying much, he has a way of filling a room.
He’s always been like that. There’s just something about him that draws the eye.
He looks over at me where I stand with Molly and something dark flashes across his face.
Then it clears so quickly I wonder whether it was even there.
Still, I’m a little unnerved and for some reason, my eyes instantly look for Niall.
He’s pulling on a crumpled t-shirt from the ironing basket and watching me carefully. When I catch his eyes, he immediately smiles reassuringly, so I relax. When I turn back, Gideon is examining my face carefully. Then he sits back.
“God, I’m bored. How do you stand it around here?”
“It’s lovely here,” I say, feeling incredibly stung. How dare he criticise the nicest place I know and my sanctuary. “Just because it’s not wall-to-wall orgies and nightclubs doesn’t mean it’s automatically boring.”
“Tsk tsk, Milo. How very unexpectedly snappy of you.” He smiles. “Sometimes I forget how very young you are.”
“Stop sniping,” Niall orders, and I’m not sure which of us he’s talking to. Maybe both of us.
I subside and start to heat the porridge, passing Molly the bowls to put on the table. She passes Niall the jug of orange juice carefully, her little tongue sticking out in concentration, and Jacinta unexpectedly revives.
“Is that vodka and orange?”
Niall blinks. “No.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s nine in the morning, darling.”
“How provincial you are now.”
He shrugs. “It doesn’t go with porridge, love. Not a good mix.”
She subsides and starts to hunt through the pockets of her jacket on the chair for her cigarettes.
By unspoken consent, we leave her to it.
It’s more peaceful that way. I dish up the bacon and eggs and Niall stands to hand the plates out.
He leans into me as he stands next to me and one of his hands goes under my jumper, his long, cool fingers caressing the skin of my lower back.
I shiver and smile. “Stop it,” I mutter, and he looks innocently at me.
“I can’t think what you mean,” he says blithely, and I jump as he pats my arse before stopping and coming back to caress it. We’re covered by the kitchen island, but when I look up my brother is glaring at us, so I nudge Niall to get moving with the plates.
I pour the porridge into bowls and slide them on the table. Jacinta looks at hers like I’ve put a pile of steaming shit in front of her but Gideon unexpectedly smiles, grabbing his spoon and digging in. He groans. “Oh my God, you’ve made it like Derry did.”
“It’s brown sugar and a bit of cinnamon,” I say. “It’s funny that the only thing she could cook was porridge. She’d have made an excellent addition to the three bears household, but not so much for us.”
He laughs. “Do you remember the Ready Brek advert with the red outline? Well, the amount of the stuff we ate, we must have looked bloody radioactive.”
I laugh and when I glance at Niall, he looks almost ecstatic, glancing between me and Gideon like he’s a parent forcing two children to play nicely. I shake my head at him and dig into my breakfast.
Once we’re all seated with the food in front of us, conversation ebbs and flows, helped by Molly’s monologue about school and the problems she’s having with someone called Michael Sanders.
We’ve just pushed our plates back and I’m on my second cup of tea when the doorbell rings, followed quickly by the sound of the front door opening and Mrs. Granger’s voice. “Cooee, Niall, are you here?”
“In the kitchen, Mrs. Granger,” Niall shouts, double-checking that Jacinta is fully covered.
She comes into the kitchen and Molly immediately dances happily over to her. “Say thank you to Milo and Niall for having you,” Mrs. Granger instructs her after accepting a hug.
Molly skips over and I accept the tight grip around my neck. She moves over to Niall and shrieks happily as he tilts her upside down and pretends to drop her. Jacinta makes a moue of distaste at the noise but my brother grins lazily, watching Jacinta with slightly malicious enjoyment.
“Thank you for having me,” Molly shouts once she’s been righted.
“Did you have a nice time?” Mrs. Granger asks.
“I did. It was ever so good. Milo made porridge and bacon and eggs, Niall said shit, and that lady over there was dancing around in the garden in her knickers,” Molly says excitedly.
There’s a long silence and I almost look around for the tumbleweeds which will undoubtedly soon be rolling through the kitchen.
“Oh, erm,” Niall coughs. “Oh, Mrs. Granger, it wasn’t quite like that.” She looks at him and he stumbles over his words. “Well okay, it might have been a little bit like that, but really I think if you just listen to my side of the story.”
Mrs. Granger shakes her head and shoots me a quick wink that Niall misses in his stumbling apology. Then she shoos Molly out of the kitchen with Niall following her earnestly. When she’s gone the silence falls awkwardly.
I look towards the hall where we can hear the strains of Niall’s apology tour and laugh. Gideon looks surprised but then he grins at me and for a brief second it’s like we’re at home again. The old age divide is still there, but I feel startlingly close to him for a second with a rush of affection.