Chapter 20
Oliver
How I had slept so well was slightly worrying, like I’d taken a good hit and it had actually done what the hype had promised. I’d somehow relaxed enough to sleep.
I’d missed this thing I had with him. Peter.
Having him close and with me, and to be honest?
Not much had changed. He was still a little weird and scatty, but then once in a while, the real him would shine through.
Calm. Happy. Smiling. Looking at me like…
It still set me off. My heart racing like crazy from just a glance over his shoulder.
A small smile. Just like it was right now.
Having another body next to mine in the morning usually brought me out in a wild panic.
Well, another body had definitely shared the bed here, the sheets still warm as I moved my arm, reaching out for him.
Peter. My Peter. The bed was empty, yet there was no need to panic, judging by the clattering in the kitchen.
I hadn’t panicked yesterday. At all, which was a win in my book. I’d achieved…
There was a small bit of pride brewing somewhere inside of me. I was actually starting to fix things. Keep my behaviour in check. Treat people well. Be a decent human being. Eat vegetables. Frozen peas definitely counted. And…Peter. I had no doubts here.
I needed him. My hands on his skin. A morning kiss alongside a nice cup of tea.
Fuck. Voices. Someone was out there, and there was Peter’s, trying to shush someone, and now I was…
panicking. Just a bit. Because this was not the way things were supposed to go.
And now I was walking straight into something because I had no sense to calm down and figure out how to deal with things like… this.
Peter. Standing over by the sink in his dressing gown. Someone else standing right in front of me. Tall. Wild blond hair. A hooped earring dangling from his ear. Jeans. A hoodie.
Normal. Nothing here was suddenly normal.
“Dad, he’s wearing my shirt. I’ve been looking for it everywhere.”
And now Peter was staring at me, with a look on his face that frankly?
He was smiling. Then his whole face tightened up like he wasn’t allowed to do just that, and then?
“Hey,” he said softly.
“Morning,” I managed to say, wringing my hands and then wiping them on the T-shirt. “Sorry, man. Just borrowed it.”
Had I? Apparently. What was I wearing again? Boxers. Some T-shirt. Bare legs. Cold feet against a hard floor.
“Was just making the boys some tea,” Peter stuttered out. “This is…”
“Oliveeeer!” the hoodie guy declared, his arms out as in greeting, and now he was walking towards me. Hugs. He was going in for a hug, and I wasn’t at all sure about that one.
Hug. A big one. Nice slaps on my back as he let me go. I hadn’t even brushed my teeth. Probably looked like an almighty mess. Not the first impression I’d have liked to present, and anyway, what the actual fuck was going on here?
“You look just like on TV. Taller, I think. Nice. Good to meet you, mate.”
I thought I nodded. And there was another guy too, sat on the chair at the table, his hand raised in greeting. I couldn’t even remember their names, even if I’d been told them. Numerous times. I knew this.
“Ed,” I said. Phew. “Cal?”
“Edward and Calvin,” Peter said calmly. “My sons. Sorry about the racket, I wasn’t expecting them.”
“No, because you bloody don’t answer your phone, Dad! Communication!” Cal kicked the chair out and sat down next to his brother, who still…just stared at me.
“We came over to stage some kind of intervention. But I think that was probably…unnecessary.” Ed.
Calm. Sat there in a distressed-looking hoodie, the hood up over his head.
He yawned, leaning back on the chair, like this was nothing.
No drama at all. Good. I thought I liked him.
There was no drama here. Zero. Well, who was I kidding?
“That last scene was pretty gruesome, Dad,” Cal declared, like we could all follow his train of thought.
“I mean, we knew you were home because we watched you leave. And you said nothing. Not even a text? What the actual? Oliver, he needs to use his phone, because I for one? I was worried.” Now he was staring at me, still standing here like an awkward part of the furniture.
“I was worried,” Ed said calmly. “But, Dad, seriously.”
“This…is Oliver.”
“We figured.” Ed sighed. “And now this is…what exactly, Dad? Shag-central?”
“ED!” Peter barked. Oh, here we were again. At least he wasn’t barking at me. Please don’t ask me to leave. I wasn’t leaving. Absolutely not.
“Shag-central. Gah. Get off it, Ed. Dad, my brother is a total slut.” Cal was obviously unbothered by Ed’s overdramatic eye-roll, sitting himself down at the table, like this was a normal occurrence in the Fenton household.
“That’s what we’re dealing with here! So don’t you start too,” Ed shouted, as he let his head fall to the table. They were very different boys. Men. Tall and broad. Cal’s lighter features to Ed’s darker. Neither of them looked like Peter. Or perhaps both of them did. I shook my head.
“Boys!” Peter barked out. “We have talked about this. No name-calling, and we’re open and honest…”
“Ha!” I snuck in, far too triumphantly. Open and honest? My arse.
“And you don’t start…” Peter growled, pointing at me.
“I knew it,” Cal mused. He actually did. Rubbing his hands in glee. “We came here for an intervention, one I now declare is highly unnecessary. I think Ollie here has Dad in hand.”
“Oliver,” Peter ground out.
“No.” Cal grinned. “Ollie, Dad won’t let anyone call him Pete. He hates it. Hates all the shortenings and nicknames, so we’re going to call you Ollie.”
Ed was laughing. Fuck.
“I guess, you’ve got yourself a boyfriend, Dad,” he snorted out as Cal spluttered out another laugh.
“We’re too late, bro. Shall we just head back then?”
“Nah, I need a nap. And where are our cups of tea? I drive all the way here…”
“I drove. You slept.”
“I had a late night.”
“See? Total slut. I went to pick him up from Kate’s and he wasn’t there, and she was like, Ed who?”
“It wasn’t a hookup.”
“And then Maddie kept texting me asking where he was, and there’s this girl…”
“The fuck?”
“Ed!” Peter barked.
“I drove all the way here, to see someone, and then Cal rang and wouldn’t calm down, and so I had to drive all the way fucking back and pick him up, and now we’re here. I haven’t slept much. Give me a break.”
I wondered why I wasn’t curling up in a ball on the floor with all this shouting. I wasn’t. Instead I was standing here laughing, the surreality of it all mixing gently with something else. Something warm inside my chest.
Calm.
Safe? I thought I was. I was safe here, and it was the weirdest feeling in the world.
This was a house, and I’d been here for a mere what?
Twenty-four hours? Yet now I was making myself comfortable at the kitchen table and being handed a cup of tea?
Fuck. All this tea was probably not good for me.
I had always limited myself to two cups of coffee a day, and…
“All we need now is Auntie Patel to burst through the door, and the party will be complete. She promised to make me kulfi this weekend,” Ed ground out, still slouched on the chair, letting his hand fall heavily onto the kitchen table as I got violently jerked out of my thoughts.
“Not pistachio. Not the pistachio one. Mango.” Peter. Calm. Talking.
“The fuck. Pistachio is the best.”
“If you don’t stop shouting, then Mrs Patel will walk in here with her wooden spoon, and there will be no stopping her. And also? Mind your language, boys. We’re trying to make a good impression here.”
“On Oliver? Dad, I think he might have seen everything already. After living in that house, I think he’s seen it all. I mean, that room where all the girls were shagging?”
“It wasn’t like that,” I piped up, like I actually knew anything about…anything.
“The editing is slick. They’ve done a rough cut in places, but it works. Gives the viewer a sense of urgent unease where needed. Clever. Also, they left stuff in that shouldn’t have been shown. Not really. Like the girls definitely shagging in that bed.”
“Ed is studying film,” Peter said with a forlorn look on his face, motioning to Ed. Like he’d given up on everything. Yet there was something there. The tiniest of smiles. Happy. He looked. Yes. Happy.
“Runs in the family.” Ed sighed. “Have you met Mum?” He motioned to the box on the shelf behind him, as I once again found myself yanked back into the conversation.
“Yes. Good morning, Mary,” I said without thinking. Oh hell, no. I wanted to take that back, sat here being rude and inappropriate again. But Ed just grinned.
“Welcome to the madhouse. Mum always said she’d come back to haunt us, so we’re keeping a close eye on her. No shenanigans allowed, Mum!” He talked like he was talking to the goddamn box.
“Yeah, did you know?” Cal picked up where his brother had left off. “If you swear near Mum? The floorboards upstairs creak. It’s bloody freaky.”
He fell silent and pointed at the ceiling. Right on cue. A creak.
“Bullshit,” I said. Cal just stared at me, again motioning upwards. Another creak.
“Mum does nothing of the sort.” Peter sighed. “It’s an old house. It creaks.”
“Mum does. It’s real. And don’t forget to rinse stuff before putting it in the dishwasher. She makes the ceiling light flicker. It’s right weird sometimes.”
“Oh shush,” Peter boomed. “Enough.”
“Bro,” Calvin said excitedly, like he wasn’t listening to anything. His hand was on my arm. Shaking it almost violently. “You need to come to football. Midday. Five-a-side, just a bunch of friends from school. We’re all at uni now, so it’s like…we don’t have enough people. Come!”
“You can’t call him bro, man,” Ed filled in, punching Cal on the arm. “Ollie is like, our…you know. New dad.”
“I’m not your dad,” I got out, panicked. For heaven’s sake. “I’m like…thirty.”
“Cool. Not too old for football then. You know how to play? Have you got trainers here? What size are you?”
He suddenly had his head under the table, then grabbed my foot off the floor to inspect it. “Size eleven work? You can borrow mine. It will be good. I have all the gear, and Dad’s going to pickleball anyway.”
“I’m not going,” Peter said, suddenly looking like a truant child.
“Just because you went on TV and flaked out doesn’t mean you don’t go and do what you love. You live for pickleball. It’s Saturday. You’re going.”
“Pickleball?” I questioned.
“Semi-professional league. Dad’s missed like four weeks or something, they’ll be desperate. Sorted then. Be ready at eleven thirty, and we’ll go.”
“I’m going to bed.” Ed rose from the chair, pushing it almost into the wall behind him. “Let me sleep.”
“Slut,” Calvin hissed.
“Says the guy who did not ask that chick for a threesome,” Ed hissed back.
“Fuck off.”
The ceiling creaked.
I had to laugh, because? What the almighty fuck?
“I’m not going to pickleball.” Peter crossed his arms.
I picked up my cup and took a sip.
I was good here. I honestly was.
Then I smiled. Because. Yeah. Whatever.