Chapter 4
Peter carried the tray of coffees and the bag of muffins he’d bought at the Sweet Treats bakery café to his brother’s house, his mind racing the entire way.
Had he really just run into Gaby Leonard? After all this time?
Yes, he had.
And was she now even more beautiful than she’d been all those years ago?
Yes, she was. In fact, she might be the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen in his entire life.
He kept replaying the moment he’d run into her as she walked out of the café. The shock on her face at their near collision. The way she’d laughed. The way her eyes had widened in surprise when she’d recognised him.
The smile that had made him forget his own name.
Seeing her again after all these years had left him completely disoriented.
The moment she’d flung her arms around him in a friendly embrace, every second of their time together as teenagers had come flooding back in a rush of emotion.
Quite how he’d managed to string two words together while they’d exchanged pleasantries outside the café was a total mystery.
Even in the space of the few seconds they’d spent together, every cell inside his body had remembered how she’d once made him feel. How much he’d loved being with her during that endless teenage summer.
And how much it had hurt when that summer had come to its inevitable end.
Every single thing he’d felt about her, every moment they’d spent together, had rushed through his body like a wave crashing against the shore.
Peter wondered if, by some strange magic, that detour he’d taken along Foxglove Street a few nights ago and the memories he’d unearthed about Gaby as he’d driven past her aunt’s house had somehow conjured her back into his life.
Except she wasn’t really back in his life at all, was she? All that had happened was that he’d bumped into an old flame and exchanged a few words with her before she’d rushed off.
There’d been a few seconds during their brief reunion when his mind had reached for ridiculous possibilities and he’d somehow found the words to ask her out for a drink.
He’d imagined them getting together, catching up on old times, sharing stories of the lives they’d led since they were kids…
and possibly contemplating the beginning of a new chapter between them now.
Peter scowled at his own stupidity as he walked. When he’d asked Gaby to join him for a drink later, she’d turned him down but he’d been too blind to understand. When she’d suggested another time instead, he’d assumed she meant it and had shared his number with her.
But he’d been so blindsided by seeing her again that he’d failed to notice anything but her.
He’d failed to notice the car idling on the street… and he’d failed to notice the man waiting inside it for her.
When Gaby said she had to rush off and they’d said their goodbyes, he’d still been so hypnotised by the unexpected sight of her that it took him a moment to realise she was with someone.
Of course she was with someone. Of course a woman as beautiful as she was would have a man in her life.
He hadn’t noticed a ring on her finger but then again he hadn’t been looking for one. They’d only shared a few brief seconds together before she rushed off.
And now he was faced with the prospect of meeting Gaby for a drink and having to listen to her tell him all about the great guy who was either her boyfriend or her husband, and Peter would have to smile and nod and say how lucky she was and then wish her well before they once again went their separate ways, and at the end of it all he’d feel stupid and wretched and wish he’d never bumped into her again in the first place.
“Oi you plonker! Are you bringing those coffees in here or not?”
Peter looked up and realised he’d walked straight past his brother Brad’s house. During the ten-minute walk from the café to the street where Brad lived, he’d been so caught up thinking about Gaby and the shock of seeing her again that he’d completely lost track of where he was.
He turned back and walked up the driveway to where his brother was tinkering with a set of power tools.
“You walked past the house like a zombie,” Brad said. “You feeling okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine, just lost track of where I was for a minute,” Peter said.
His brother gave him a look like he was nuts before wiping his hands on a rag and reaching for one of the coffees Peter had brought. “You’re just in the nick of time. I’m gasping for caffeine.”
“Why didn’t you make yourself a coffee in your own fancy coffee maker?” Peter asked, taking his own coffee from the carry tray while his brother rooted around in the bag of muffins he’d brought. “Or are you still trying to figure out how it works?”
Brad and his wife had bought a complicated coffee contraption that looked like it might need a fully qualified engineer to operate it.
Peter enjoyed teasing his brother whenever he dropped by and got to watch him scowling over the various dials and knobs as he tried to get the thing going.
When he’d got a message on his phone earlier telling him to bring two coffees with him when he came over to the house, Peter wondered if Brad had finally given up on the expensive barista machine and admitted defeat.
“It went on the blink this morning,” Brad scowled.
“The thing cost a fortune and we only bought it a few months ago. Hopefully the manufacturer will fix it or replace it. In the meantime, we’ll have to survive somehow with instant coffee, which we had none of in the house.
Donna’s picking some up at the supermarket as we speak. ”
Peter watched his brother glug down half his coffee in one go.
“I needed that,” Brad said. “I can only survive Saturday mornings with three boys rampaging around the house if I have a lot of caffeine fuelling me for the battle. This morning, I’ve had precisely zero caffeine. It’s a wonder I haven’t simply keeled over and died.”
“Mr Over-Dramatic as usual,” Peter said, sipping his coffee.
“Where are the boys anyway?” They’d usually already be jumping around on top of him, especially as he’d brought muffins for everyone, an added afterthought while he’d been waiting at the cafe for the coffees his brother had instructed him to buy.
“Donna took them with her to the shops,” Brad said.
“She had to bribe them with a promise of doughnuts in the supermarket café to get them into the car. They hate going to the supermarket. But it was the only way to get them out of the house so I could finish putting this together. Well, with your help, that is.”
Brad gestured to the metal brackets and wooden panels and components laid out on the driveway and the assembly instructions for the gaming station he was putting together.
The furniture item was for Peter’s nephews, and Brad had explained that he wanted to surprise his sons with the new set-up in the cosy den that doubled up as their downstairs playroom.
He needed Peter’s help to build the bulky piece of furniture.
“Doesn’t it make more sense to build this inside the boys’ den, since that where it’s going?” Peter asked.
“Yeah, that’s the plan. But first I wanted to lay the pieces out here on the driveway where there’s more space, just to check everything’s there and there are no bits missing from the box.
Wouldn’t be the first time a piece of furniture turned out wonky because they hadn’t included all the fixings. ”
Peter got to work helping Brad check off the components before helping him carry it inside.
The den in the room at the back of the house was pretty tidy considering it was used exclusively by three boys aged between ten and seven, and Brad had already taken apart an old shelving unit that was being ditched to make way for the new piece of furniture.
Peter carried the old shelving parts outside, and once they’d devoured a couple of the muffins he’d brought, they started building the new gaming station.
It was really just a glorified computer desk, but it had plenty of shiny chrome and black panelling and storage cubbyholes that would thrill Peter’s nephews and make them enjoy their time on their game console even more than they already did.
The brothers worked easily together and with the usual grunts and insults that they enjoyed trading.
Peter liked helping his brothers with this sort of stuff.
Over the years, he’d helped put together any number of bits of bedroom furniture and complicated toys for his nieces and nephews.
He liked being involved and playing his part in the family.
“Crap, I screwed this panel on upside down,” Brad said half an hour into their work, frowning at the half-assembled gaming station.
“So, reverse the drill and take the screw back out again,” Peter said. “It’s an easy fix.”
Brad did just that, but he eyed his brother across the assembly project carefully. “What’s the matter with you?”
Peter frowned. “Nothing. Why do you ask?”
“Because usually you would’ve given me a barrage of abuse for making a mistake and we would’ve swapped insults for a happy minute or two.” Brad drilled the screw into the panel once again. “Instead, I get nothing. So, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong.” His brother’s challenging stare made him roll his eyes. “Fine. If you must know, I bumped into an old girlfriend this morning.”
“So what? There’s enough of them scattered around the place. Had to happen sometime.”
Peter sighed. “If you’re going to be a prat about it, never mind.”
“I didn’t think I was being a prat. But clearly I’ve touched I nerve. So, who was this old flame you saw?”
“Someone I knew years ago. You never met her. I think you’d just started that job you had up in Cardiff.”
Brad nodded and gestured for him to keep talking.
“Her name’s Gaby. We were just kids when we met. I was back home from university for the summer and she was staying here with her aunt. We hit it off and had a great time together. She… she was the first girl I ever loved.”