Chapter Twenty-Six
Mike left Sophie’s flat at an hour too late to be called night and too early to be called morning. When he got back to his rented flat, he showered, but didn’t bother shaving, telling himself that there wasn’t enough time, but really, he just didn’t want to look at his own face. He was a little afraid of what he’d see there. He went into autopilot mode, getting dressed, locking his flat and handing in the keys.
Rideshare to the airport, ticketing, boarding, then a long flight with a child kicking the back of his seat that Mike didn’t say anything about, convinced he deserved it.
London was . . . London. He didn’t notice much of it. Just went back to his flat, wheeled in his suitcase, watered Barney, who had a label sticking out of his pot bearing a speech bubble that said, ‘Welcome home, Gramps!’ The plastic brontosaurus now had a friend – what looked like a small plastic capybara.
He spent a moment wondering at what point capybaras had evolved to roam the earth, because he was certain that it hadn’t been at the same time as brontosauruses, but then what did he know?
Then he collapsed onto his couch, fully clothed, exhausted and aching. Maybe he was getting ill. He kind of wished he was. Ill he could handle. This . . . this just sucked.
Exhaustion eventually got the better of him, dragging him into a heavy, blissfully dreamless sleep. He got up at some point. Messaged his kids back, even though a second later he couldn’t remember what he’d said. Thought about showering or doing anything and just . . . couldn’t.
He considered the coming days. Going to work. Coming home. No dance classes or bingo halls full of old ladies pinching his bum or dates where he ended up sick in the toilet. No adventure. His future was grey around the edges. Not forever – Sophie would come back to London eventually. Six months from now. Unless it was longer. Unless she fell in love with New York or met someone there who could give her the things she needed.
What would he do if she didn’t come home? Would he fade from her memory until she couldn’t remember why she’d liked him in the first place? Would she realize she could do better?
Mike didn’t have any answers, or at least not any answers that he liked, so he collapsed back onto the couch and slept.
When he woke up again, Amaya was hovering over him, poking his side with her finger. ‘Oh, good. You’re not dead.’
‘Of course I’m not dead,’ he croaked. ‘Why would you think that?’
Amaya straightened and put her hands on her hips. ‘You didn’t hear us knock or let ourselves in. Rahul has been making a god-awful racket in the kitchen as he makes breakfast—’
‘Hey! Be nice! I’m feeding you!’
Amaya tipped back her head. ‘I love you!’ Then she refocused on Mike. ‘You haven’t so much as twitched. Stella climbed on you and Archie was crying because he’s a baby and you haven’t moved. You’re usually a light sleeper.’
‘Jet lag,’ Mike mumbled, sitting up and putting his feet on the floor. ‘Really nasty jet lag.’ And the fact that he felt like his soul had been removed with a rusty spoon. ‘What are you all doing here?’
‘We’re here to greet our dad after he’s been away for weeks, that’s what, you ungrateful old man.’ Rahul popped into the room, setting a mug of coffee with milk in front of him on the table. ‘Here.’
‘What he means,’ Noah said, coming into the room cradling a cooing Archie in one arm while Stella dangled off the other, ‘is that we missed you, wanted to see you, and wanted to check on you because we were concerned.’
‘If I’d wanted to say that,’ Rahul said dryly, ‘I would have.’
‘Your last couple of texts didn’t sound very good,’ Amaya said, ignoring her brother.
‘I’m fine,’ Mike lied. He held out his arms. ‘I just needed a hug from my favourite girl.’
Stella squealed and hurled her small body into his arms, almost giving him a black eye with her flailing hands.
Amaya shook her head. ‘Ouch, Dad.’
He squeezed Amaya’s hand. ‘You know you’re my other favourite.’
She snorted. ‘Good save.’ The humour fled her face as she stared at him. ‘You look like hell, Dad, and don’t tell me it’s jet lag. I’ve seen you jet lagged. This isn’t it.’
Mike set Stella down and grabbed his coffee. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
Amaya crossed her arms and sighed, turning her face towards her brother. ‘A little help?’
Rahul pulled one of the kitchen chairs into the living room, setting it across from Mike. Then he got his own mug of coffee and sat. ‘Dad. We love you.’
Mike sipped his coffee. ‘Waiting for the punchline there.’
‘No punchline,’ Rahul said.
Mike’s eyes narrowed over the rim of his cup. ‘Is this an intervention?’
‘Yes,’ Amaya said.
‘Kind of,’ Rahul added. ‘When Mum . . .’ He paused, clearing his throat. ‘When we lost Mum, I was a mess. We both were. You held us together. I can’t imagine what that must have been like for you – how hard it was. We’re so grateful—’
‘But you don’t need to do it any more,’ Amaya finished. ‘We’re grown up, Dad. Rahul is married to a man who is waaaay out of his league and has two of the cutest kids in the universe.’
Rahul shot her a look. ‘And this brat is well on her way towards her degree. We’re thriving. So cut it the fuck out, Da.’
Mike choked on his coffee, setting it down quickly before he spilled it. ‘Excuse me?’
‘Language,’ Noah murmured.
‘Sorry,’ Rahul mouthed.
Noah handed Archie to Amaya, then took the seat next to Mike. ‘What your two children are trying to say is that they love you, they know something is wrong, and you don’t need to pretend it’s not in order to protect them.’
Mike stared at all of them in turn, his hands shaking for some reason.
Noah placed a hand gently on Mike’s arm. ‘I think we’ve made it very clear, Mike that we’re very invested in your drama, and unless you want to be cancelled in season two, you’re going to need to start opening up and dropping the juicy bits.’
‘I didn’t understand half of that,’ Mike said.
Amaya cuddled Archie, keeping her tone sweet for the baby even if her words were not. ‘What he means, Dad, is stop with the stiff upper lip bull—” She cut herself off, glancing at Stella. “Uh, stuff, and tell us what the ffff…fudge is going on .’ She threw Rahul a sympathetic glance. ‘Sorry. It’s surprisingly difficult to watch my own mouth, apparently.’
Mike tried to tell them he was fine. He really did. He opened his mouth, but couldn’t quite make himself say the words. Then finally, finally , something deep down inside him snapped, and everything came bubbling up, the barrier shattering so completely that he didn’t think he’d ever be able to put it back up again.
‘I fucked up,’ he said simply. ‘I think I really fucked up and I’m not sure how to fix it.’ He glanced guiltily at his granddaughter. ‘Sorry, Stella.’
She patted his leg. ‘Papa says bad words are okay when you’re hurt.’ She leaned in close, peering at him with a worried expression. ‘Are you hurt?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Very much.’
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Then no time out. Daddy says it’s a loophole.’ She turned to Noah. ‘Papa, what’s a loophole?’
Rahul made a choking sound and turned his head, hiding his expression.
Noah managed to keep a serious expression on his face. ‘I’ll explain later, love. Right now, we’re talking to Grandpa Mike.’
As everyone in the room watched him expectantly, Mike took a deep breath and told a highly edited and sanitized version of what had been happening.
By the time he’d finished, they’d moved into the kitchen and everyone else was eating what appeared to be a very nice breakfast while Mike held his head in his hands and thought seriously about climbing under his kitchen table and never coming out.
‘You know,’ Amaya said, spearing the end of a sausage with her fork, ‘you said a whole lot of words there, but I didn’t hear the important ones. I bet she didn’t, either.’
Mike looked up at her, confusion on his face.
Noah rolled his eyes. ‘Men.’
Rahul looked at him. ‘You are men.’
‘I know,’ Noah said glumly.
Amaya made an exasperated sound, set down her fork, grabbed one of her father’s hands and pushed it down to the table. ‘Dad. Do. You. Love. Her?’ She enunciated each word slowly and crisply.
‘Oh god, so much.’ His hand was still shaking slightly as he wiped his mouth. ‘But that seems – doesn’t that seem fast to you?’
Rahul shrugged as he grabbed a cloth and wiped Archie’s face. ‘Time has always seemed pretty meaningless in these things. I knew I wanted to marry Noah five minutes after I met him.’
Mike frowned at him. ‘You did? You never told me this.’
Now it was Rahul’s turn to frown. ‘I’ve told you how we met.’
Mike shook his head. ‘But not the part where it was practically love at first sight.’
Stella perked up. ‘Story time?’ When Rahul didn’t immediately start speaking, she added a drawn out, ‘pleeeeassssse?’
Noah threw them all an apologetic look. ‘Sorry, this is one of Stella’s favourites.’
‘Sounds like I might need to hear it again as well,’ Mike said.
Rahul sighed. ‘Okay, so I was cooking at this fancy event, and I nipped outside for a cigarette break—’
‘Which is bad for you, and you should never do,’ Noah told Stella.
‘Right,’ Rahul said, ‘and I heard this one guy going on and on about something. When I looked up, I saw the most beautiful man I’d ever seen in my entire life. I think my heart literally stopped for a second.’
‘For the record,’ Noah said, ‘I was not the one going on and on. That was Gerald, an awful man trying to tell me that B-movie horror films were the worst thing to happen to cinema and if I liked them, I not only couldn’t call myself a film lover but had horrible taste and a brain made of cottage cheese.’
‘And Noah just looked him dead in the eye and told him that men who are snobs about art forms and make sweeping judgements about something as subjective as taste in films have tiny dicks, and then he turned and walked away.’ Rahul was laughing now, his eyes shining.
Noah sighed. ‘He was my ride, too.’
‘That right there was when I knew,’ Rahul said. ‘There was no way I was going to let him walk away, so I ran after him, introduced myself and asked him out.’
Amaya sighed wistfully. ‘And he said yes, and you fell in love?’
‘No,’ Rahul said, pausing to cover Stella’s ears with his hands. ‘He told me to eat shit. My timing wasn’t great, admittedly.’
‘Your timing was atrocious,’ Noah said. ‘I was fuming.’
‘Right,’ Amaya said. ‘Forgot that bit.’
Stella pushed away Rahul’s hand from her head and he smiled at her. ‘I told him if he ever changed his mind, he should call me, even if it was just for a drink or whatever and gave him my number.’
Noah reached over and picked up Stella’s cup before she knocked it off the table. ‘I found the piece of paper he gave me a few days later when I was checking my pockets before I put my clothes in the wash. I was in a better mood then and I liked that he hadn’t pushed when I said no. So I texted him.’
‘He took some convincing,’ Rahul admitted. ‘We hung out as friends for the first month or so.’ His mouth curved into a small smile. ‘Then I played my ace.’
Stella looked up at Noah. ‘Then what did he do?’
‘He sweet-talked his friend who manages a small indie cinema into giving him the keys. We had the cinema entirely to ourselves and when I walked in, he’d set up a small table for dinner for two. We’re talking cloth napkins and candlelight. He’d cooked for me. We had dinner and watched the original Creature from the Black Lagoon and Anaconda .’
‘Basically,’ Rahul said, ‘I killed it.’ He turned to his dad, his face suddenly serious. ‘You did not.’
‘I know,’ Mike said, swallowing hard. ‘I should have said something. Told her . . . I don’t know.’
‘Dad,’ Rahul said, sounding exasperated. ‘You should have stayed . You should have stayed and given it a shot. Told her how you felt. If it was important to both of you, you’d have worked it out.’
Mike felt so tired all of a sudden. ‘We’d made a plan. Once she was back in London, we’d talk. Decide what we wanted to do. It was what she wanted.’ His voice, when he spoke again, sounded small and miserable. ‘What if she’s not interested in working it out?’
Rahul leaned back in his chair, making an exasperated noise. ‘Well, you’re never going to fucking know if you don’t try, are you?’
‘Loophole, Daddy?’ Stella asked as she lined up her strawberries before popping them into her mouth one by one.
‘Yes,’ Rahul said without missing a beat. ‘Loophole.’ He sent Noah an apologetic look.
‘We are going to get so many notes home from school,’ Noah said with a sigh. Rahul just winked at him.
‘Oh, god,’ Mike moaned. ‘What am I going to do? She probably hates me.’
‘She’s probably angry,’ Amaya said. ‘Or hurt. But that’s fixable, Dad. I’m just surprised at you. Running away isn’t your usual way of doing things. You don’t buckle when things get hard.’
‘I got scared and I panicked,’ Mike said. ‘I’m just not sure what to do next.’
‘That’s easy,’ Amaya said. ‘You’re going to eat the nice breakfast your son has made or he’s going to think he’s a shit cook and complain about it for weeks.’
‘Hey now,’ Rahul said.
Noah smiled crookedly at him. ‘Accurate.’
‘Loooophole,’ Stella murmured, grabbing another strawberry.
‘Then,’ Amaya continued, ‘you’re going to shower and shave, because you look awful and smell worse and none of that is going to help your case. Then we’re going to help you figure this out.’
Stella peered up at her aunt.
‘Yes, darling, loophole,’ Amaya said, smoothing her hair. ‘I have a gigantic ouchie and it’s called Grandpa Mike.’
Stella nodded and went back to her strawberries.
‘I can’t just take off to New York,’ Mike said. ‘I have a job, you know.’
Amaya pinched her eyes shut and sighed. ‘For such a smart man . . . Dad. You have like eighty billion annual leave days saved up. You never take them. So take them. Tell your work it’s a family emergency or something. It’s not even really a lie. We’re your family and we’re declaring an emergency.’
Mike dropped his head. ‘That didn’t even occur to me.’
Noah sighed. ‘ Men. ’
Amaya reached across the table and grabbed Mike’s hand. ‘Look, I don’t know Sophie, but I’ve read her blog and I’ve listened to you talk about her a lot. Still, I can only guess at what she’s feeling, but my guess is that she’s pretty sensitive to rejection after her divorce. You already freaked out on her once. She needs someone to make some effort and pick her. Give her the chance to choose you.’
Mike nodded absently – not because he wasn’t listening, but because Amaya’s words made him think of that first dinner with Sophie. He needed to reach across the table, just on a much bigger scale. ‘I have no idea how to do any of that. Simply flying back isn’t going to cut it.’
Amaya looked at him patiently. ‘Doesn’t her best friend live in London? Isn’t she someone you can ask?’
Mike grimaced. ‘Yes, Edie, and right now she probably wants to put my body in an unmarked grave somewhere. Can’t say I blame her.’
‘Grovel,’ Noah said. ‘A lot. Eventually to Sophie, but start with Edie.’
Mike dropped his face back into his hands and groaned.
Stella frowned at her grandfather, concerned. ‘Is Grandpa okay?’
‘He’ll get over it,’ Rahul said. ‘As soon as he gets back to New York.’