24. Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Hey mum.”
“Hey baby.” Alison smiled at the handsome man’s face, filling up her phone screen. He laughed, like she was making a joke, the way he always did. She could still see the soft round lines of his baby face in her mind, within the square jaw and faint stubble on his cheeks. As a baby he’d looked like her baby photos. As an adult, he looked like a youthful version of her own father. It had become a source of increasing comfort to her over the last half a decade that, at least on looks alone, it seemed like Simon Hartmann had contributed nothing to the make-up of her only child.
“Where are you?”
“This is my favourite cafe,” she said, panning the camera slightly for him to see the exposed brick walls, the leafy trailing plants. “I’m here pretty much every other day.” She smiled up at Sienna, her favourite server and thanked her as her coffee arrived.
“It’s nice,” Jac said, “seeing you out again.”
“Thanks kiddo.” She tried to keep the wryness out of her voice. Her son was just being happy for her, she tried to remind herself, not actively trying to take care of her. His next words though, proved her wrong.
“I just wanted to see if you were okay. You know. With the news?”
“News?” The back of her neck prickled. “I haven’t seen any news.”
“Oh.” Jac’s voice went uncertain. It wasn’t like her not to be all over everything, just in case. She’d loosened her grip recently and apparently, to her detriment. “Um, well… Devo Grant got let out. That’s… all.”
That’s all. Just another psychopathic gangster. Just Mike Grant’s first cousin and left-hand man. Just the muscle who’d personally delivered threats to her door, sparking a restraining order and a temporary police presence at her home. Alison worked hard to keep her face calm as her son examined her anxiously through the screen.
“Oh,” she said. “Well, he does tend to bounce in and out of jail. Kind of goes with the territory of mindless thuggery. ”
Her son was watching closely.
“So… you’re okay?” He asked. Alison forced her jaw to relax.
“Jac,” she said gently. “I’m going to tell you this again: I’m the parent, okay? It’s not your job to worry about me. I’m fine. I’m living my life. Please, please, do me a favour and live yours?”
For a moment Jac looked mutinous. It struck Alison all over again how absurd it was that this creature - her baby boy - thought he was a man. That this beautiful, desperately vulnerable human who she cherished, wanted to protect her, when she would give her damn life to see him safe.
“Alright, mama,” he said, letting his shoulders relax and rolling his grey eyes.
“Mama?” came the voice from behind her. “That handsome adult man is your son?” Prisha bumped in beside her and grinned into the screen. “Literally, how is that possible?” She turned and examined Alison. “Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure.” Alison smiled at the boy on the screen, who was pushing his hair back and straightening his spine at Prisha’s appearance. “This is my friend, Prisha- ”
“I keep forgetting you’re someone’s mother, ” Prisha sounded scandalised. She grabbed the phone from Alison’s hand. “What’s she like as a mum?” she asked Jac. “Did she like, ground you for not using the right fork?”
Jac burst out laughing.
“She was alright,” he said, as if Alison’s parenting was a thing of the past. “Kind of embarrassing.”
“Embarrassing!” Prisha crowed, looking over at Alison. “I’ll bet.”
“What’s she like as a friend?” Jac countered. Alison could still read him, so well; he was trying to be cute in front of the attractive woman suddenly on his screen. He looked curious though, at this new world his mother was living in.
“A pain in the arse,” Prisha announced. “Literally everyone I know is, basically obsessed with her. It’s causing all kinds of havoc.”
Alison snatched the phone back off her.
“I’m assuming you have some kind of work you should be doing?” she asked her son .
“Are you checking that I’m doing my homework?” Jac gave an irrepressible grin she was quite clear was because of Prisha’s bright beauty to her left.
“Don’t make me cut off your pocket money,” she countered. Jac rolled his eyes. He’d refused a cent of his father’s money, claiming a massive student loan would be better than the ethical disaster that was living off Simon Hartmann’s dime. Alison had fought him to accept her assistance, refusing to let him buckle under the weight of five years of student loans just because his father was a sentient ball of slime.
“You’re dishing out pocket money now?” came another familiar voice from behind her shoulder. “Can I have some?”
Hope had materialised in the cafe. Prisha hadn’t mentioned she was coming and Alison suddenly wished she’d been forewarned. She hadn’t seen, or even spoken to Hope in the four days since she’d woken up in her bed and then fled her kitchen, her heart about to explode with terrifying feelings.
Right now, Hope was smiling like there was nothing different between them, though Alison could see a trace of vulnerability in her gaze that made her heart ache. And oh, couldn’t Hope give her the smallest break? It was a work day and scrubs would have been more than enough, but Hope was inexplicably dressed in business attire, a tightly fitted pencil skirt and a silky button down that gaped alarmingly as she bent down to swipe a quick kiss to Alison’s cheek .
“Hi,” she waved to Jac on the screen. He rocked his shoulders back even further at the vision on his screen. “Holy shit, you’re almost as pretty as she is,” she told Alison’s son and Alison wanted to die from the weirdness of it all.
“This is Hope,” she managed. “She’s just… we’re all just having coffee.”
“Hey,” greeted Jac as if his mother wasn’t flushed and nervous out of nowhere. Alison thanked God for the easy self-centeredness of young men around their parents and quickly said her goodbyes so she could focus on the problem at hand.
“What are you doing here?” she asked Hope who was settling down in the booth seat opposite, next to Prisha. She hoped it didn’t sound as accusatory as she felt. She’d anticipated a cosy low-stakes coffee with a friend, not an hour of trying to stop her heart from spilling on the floor in front of the woman she’d kissed. Oh god, this friendship thing was complex.
“I finished early,” Hope said. “I was interviewing for new vets this afternoon.”
“You look hot, ” Prisha confirmed helpfully and Alison stared hard into her coffee cup. “I regret to inform you that you only just missed hearing someone call Alison mommy. ”
“You did not, ” Alison quickly corrected at the same time Hope blurted,
“Oh, please, stop.” She’d flushed bright pink and Alison did not know how to take that. Prisha just cackled at the pair of them.
“Find any good vets?” Prisha relented and Hope spilled quickly into the story of her day. Alison felt a little bit like she was hovering outside her body. She appreciated the moment to catch her breath, trying to acclimatise to the view of Hope before her, looking so damn good in a whole new way Alison hadn’t seen before, all the while trying to incorporate the memory of Hope’s hungry submission to her kiss and the fact that Alison was plunging headlong off a cliff of unknown feelings and they were friends.
“Ali?”
She blinked, the sound returning to the room to realise that both Hope and Prisha were looking at her expectantly.
“Sorry?”
“Hope was just asking if you had much hiring experience.” Prisha’s eyebrows were raised. “What with how you’re a hot lawyer mommy, I think is how she phrased it.”
“ Please stop.” Hope was looking borderline desperate .
“I’m sorry,” Prisha pressed a knuckle against her lip, trying to hold in her laughter. “The two of you are just ridiculous. Oh damn,” she said, looking down at her phone. “I have to take this. Dr Prasad.” Her voice as she answered the phone was serious and professional, flipping a 180 in demeanour as she walked out of the cafe to take the call.
Hope and Alison were left alone, facing each other. For a moment they just stared at each other across the table, unmoving, completely stuck for words.
Finally Hope tucked her hair behind her ear, a small laugh spilling out of her lips as her cheeks stayed pink.
“Hi,” she said, her eyelashes flicking up as she met Alison’s eyes.
“Hi.” Alison managed not to stutter.
“We’re sucking at this.” Hope stated the obvious.
“I-” Alison faltered. “I just didn’t expect to see you today.”
“After you ran from my kitchen like your head was on fire?”
“I just… needed a minute,” Alison said weakly .
“I know.” Hope smiled at her softly. Then she screwed up her nose. “I may have sort of told Prisha that we kissed.”
“Right.” Alison rubbed her forehead. “That explains a few things.”
“I’m sorry. She’s my best friend and I had to tell someone.”
“It’s okay.” Alison felt exposed and raw but also weirdly warm. Prisha knew. Prisha, her friend. Also, was that an odd streak of possessive pleasure at someone knowing Alison had kissed Hope? Part of her wanted to tell the whole damn world that the beautiful woman sitting neatly across the booth from her right now had melted under Alison’s lips, because god, despite everything, that was a hell of a fact to contemplate.
“Ali,” Hope reached across the table and touched her fingers, then quickly jerked her hand away as if they’d been burned. “We’ll get better at this. We just need a little bit of time. Please just… don’t push me away?”
Alison swallowed at the imploring note in Hope’s voice.
“I won’t.” Her voice came out quiet and husky. “I promise.”
The thing was, Alison didn’t think she could let Hope go if she tried. Which did make her want to run. The push-pull feeling was as overwhelming as the desperate wish that her life was different. That she was different. Devo Grant got let out. A small chill ran up the back of her neck. No, her life might be a thousand percent different since she’d met Hope Sullivan, but in a few key ways it was exactly the same.
“We’re still friends.” Hope’s voice broke through her spiralling fears. “We can get through anything if we just talk about it.”
Alison remembered the conversation on the couch, Hope’s pupils dilating, the way she’d shifted her thighs as Alison spoke, the tiny sound of hunger that had escaped her as Alison barely even hinted at the things she wanted. The knife-edge they’d teetered on, Alison so close to just showing her.
“I’m not sure,” she said, “that talking about it is doing us a lot of favours.”
Hope met her gaze and she swallowed, thickly.
“Right,” she said. “Good point.”
“Let’s just… not focus on it?” Alison tried. “Go on, as we were, before I-” she broke off, unable to even say it.
“Kissed me.”
“Mm.” Her stomach dropped at just the fact of those words coming out of the same lips she’d kissed, at the ache in Hope’s golden-brown eyes.
“We can do that,” Hope said. She took a breath. “We totally can.” She sounded strong and confident. “Just don’t avoid me, my friend,” she said, her tone teasing but her eyes serious.
“Maybe, just for the interim, we should only spend time together with the group?” It pained Alison to even suggest it, but the simple fact was she didn’t quite trust herself alone with Hope right now. Hope flinched. But eventually she nodded.
“Okay,” she said, her voice almost a whisper. “If you think it’s best.”
“I do. Just for now?” Alison desperately wanted her to understand. “I want our friendship to work. I think we just need a minute to adjust.”
“Makes sense.” Hope smiled at her and Alison recognised that she was being brave. Her heart ached.
“Did you two make out again while I was gone?” Prisha arrived back at the table and Hope let out a huff.
“How’s Camille?” Alison asked her pointedly, finally needled beyond capacity. Prisha’s jaw dropped.
“Are you serious?” She frowned at Hope.
“I didn’t tell her!” Hope gasped. “She guessed first!”
“You’re a pain in the arse,” Prisha glared at Alison across the table. Then her shoulders dropped. “She makes me deliriously happy and deeply despairing in the same damn breath. She makes me want to live forever and die at once, all at the same time. Are you happy now?”
No, quite frankly, Alison was not. Because she knew exactly how that felt.