Chapter Thirty-two
It’s not even six o’clock but when I get downstairs, Leonie is opening the doors to the terrace.
“Crikey, when did you get up?”
Not only is she open, but I can already smell bread baking and bacon grilling.
“Yeah.” She sounds resigned. Unusual for the normally positive Leonie. “I didn’t sleep.” She starts taking out the tables and chairs she normally puts on the terrace.
I grab a couple of chairs to help her. Since Osian and I are going to sit here, I line them up closer to the edge and drag a small table over. “Don’t tell me you heard Llewellyn and Nora shouting.”
“Don’t ask.” She pushes fingers through her hair, loosening it from its usual ponytail. “Tea and bacon?”
“For two, please.” Then because of the dark circles under her eyes, I do ask: “What is it?”
“Nora knocked on our door around midnight, in floods of tears.”
My heart falls. “No. She stayed with you overnight.”
“Well, where was she going to sleep? She couldn’t drive in the middle of the night, and there’s no way she could stay with Llewellyn.”
“And she kept you talking all night?”
“Not all night, but several hours. Me and Raff. I left them alone in the end and tried to sleep, but…” She notices my expression and adds, “You wouldn’t have turned her away, not distraught as she was.”
Oh, yes I would, after the things she said.
“Bora da.” The professor ambles in a little later, carrying his usual laptop. “I woke up early and was going for my meditation, but I couldn’t resist the smell of breakfast.”
Leonie helps him get set up and plugs in his computer charger for him because he struggles to bend low. I leave her to take his order and go outside to wait.
Llewellyn comes in a few minutes later, looking as ropey as Leonie. He too must have had a difficult night. I wonder if he knows his ex is still in the building, sleeping on Leonie’s sofa.
He waves a good morning to me, then joins the professor.
I angle my chair away slightly so he doesn’t feel ‘watched’ by me.
After yesterday, he must feel a little exposed.
There’s nothing worse than being the object of other people’s gossip.
At Styler, after it all came out about my fiancé’s marathon cheating, I could feel people’s eyes like pins in the back of my head.
So for now, I take out my phone and keep my eyes on it while I wait for Osian.
He takes more than the promised fifteen minutes. Eventually, he arrives looking showered, shaved and wearing faded denims that hug his hips.
Barely a moment later, Nora arrives in the café.
Is she psychic or does she have a satellite tracker on him?
She too is in faded jeans, the kind with designer rips, one just at the top of her leg, right where it can show a glimpse of bare buttock. Llewellyn freezes and starts to get up, but she quickly turns away and walks out onto the terrace.
Leonie is just setting down our teapot and cups when Nora comes over with the sweetest smile. “Do you mind if I sit with you?” She throws a glance over her shoulder. “I can’t really be in there.”
I want to point out there are lots of tables she could sit at and lots of rooms in the house to go, not to mention her car outside that can take her anywhere. Someone who no longer belongs in the Kendric House community has a right to go anywhere in the country except here, except our table.
What I should say is that we have business to discuss, but she doesn’t give me a chance.
Laying a hand on my arm, she turns to me, eyes huge and red-rimmed. “Evie, I owe you an apology for how I talked to you last night. I didn’t mean to be a bitch. I’m so deeply sorry. But it’s really hard; you know breakups are a nightmare. I’m crap at dealing with hostile men.”
Hostile? Sweet and gentle Llewellyn? He was just saying no. She’s probably one of those people who view a rejection as an attack. Anyway, from what I overheard, the breakup happened a month before, thrown keys, clothes flung into suitcases and all.
Her hand tightens on my sleeve. “I know I acted like a bitch. Please don’t hold it against me. I felt like my world was turning upside down.” She blinks and tears spill on her cheeks.
Osian, face expressionless, passes her a napkin and pours her a cup of tea.
“Thank you,” she whimpers. But there’s nothing weak about the way both her hands envelop his when she takes the cup from him, as if receiving a fragile precious gift. “You’re so nice. I don’t know what I’d do if people took against me.”
Osian pours the other cup and passes it to me. But I’m already out of my chair. “It’s okay, you have it.”
He half gets up, too.
“Am I interrupting?” Nora’s tearful eyes dart from Osian to me and back to him.
Of course she’s interrupting, and all three of us know it. She’s done worse than interrupt – she’s made the terrace unbearable for me. How can I pick up our fun, exciting conversation about the garden with tragic Marilyn Monroe sitting there dabbing at her eyes?
Even if I believed her, we’re not friends; we have nothing to talk about. And I’m certainly not getting myself recruited into Team Nora.
She reaches to lay a hand on Osian’s arm; it’s her go-to move. “Sorry, I seem to cause trouble everywhere I go, making people hate me.”
“It’s okay,” I say quickly. “Just remembered I have to do a couple of things before the men turn up.” Then to Osian: “I’ll see you later.”
He has no option now but to sit back down.
I go to the Hub and switch on one of the computers, log into my Google Drive and print out the plans for the turf. I don’t need them; there are several copies already printed and stapled together and ready in the folder upstairs. But it’s something to do, and the Hub is a good place to hide.
I’ve never been able to deal with people like Nora, not ever.
I’m too much what-you-see-is-what-you-get and never learnt the art of arranging my emotions like a flower bouquet to manipulate people.
In fact, it’s the complete opposite. I show my hand when it would be better to cultivate a little mystery, and I keep my mouth shut when it would serve me better to speak out.
Did Nora really regret upsetting me? Was she acting? Or was she upset about her own issues and using the tears to gain my sympathy?
She succeeded, sort of. Because it’s taken me half an hour of staring at a computer screen to see more clearly that I’ve been played. And so has Osian. The man who can’t help caring for the wounded.
He asked me earlier if I was okay. In fact, he asked me twice: first last night and again this morning. And both times, I avoided answering and changed the subject.
That’s what I mean. When my heart aches like it’s been pummelled, when things are too difficult to handle, do I ask for help?
Do I say, “You rejected me and it hurts. Please help me get over you. Give me time. And please, don’t sleep with someone else just for now because that would make it too hard”? Do I say that?
No. I keep my mouth shut. Because that kind of self-preservation is NOT in my skillset. I can only run away. Protect my pride but never my heart.
I’m going to hide here until she’s driven away in her car.