Chapter Twenty-Nine
LUKE
Four Months Before the Anniversary Party
He stares at the empty seat on the other side of the battered wooden table.
She only left a minute ago. He should probably leave too.
Jess will be at home by now, probably thinking about throwing something in the oven for dinner.
It’s just … He needs time to think, and somehow that is getting harder and harder to do at home.
Or anywhere, really. There’s so much going on in his head all the time.
But there’s something about this small independent café, tucked away in the local parade of shops off the High Street, that is oddly calming.
He didn’t hear much from Elena all over Christmas, mostly because she went home to Colombia to visit her family, but now she’s back, and she sent him a message asking if he’d meet her for coffee.
He thought she was going to bring some plans for him to look at or ask his advice on walls or ceilings or whatever, but she hadn’t mentioned any of those things. She hadn’t mentioned work at all.
They’d just chatted while they’d drunk their coffees, like old friends, which they are, he supposes. However, anyone who glanced over could be forgiven for thinking they were on a date.
Which they weren’t. So that’s okay, isn’t it?
She had asked for his help and support. A favour.
A secret.
He’d said yes, of course. She needed him. What else was he going to say?
But now he’s wondering if he should have done. He won’t be able to tell Jess about this, so it feels a bit … he’s not sure how to put it. Not comfortable. Like he’s crossing a line of some kind.
In the end, he gets fed up of staring at the empty chair and the brown frothy rings in his coffee cup and he goes home.
When he opens the front door, he is greeted by the sound of banging from upstairs.
A quick check of the kitchen reveals a cold oven and nothing on the hob.
Just as well he stopped to grab some provisions on his way home. Jess must be busy.
He finds her in their spare bedroom, putting up a couple of shelves that he said he’d do three months ago, but hasn’t quite gotten around to.
She’s making so much noise with the drill that she doesn’t hear him until he’s almost right on top of her.
She jumps, pressing her hand to her chest and laughs, before leaning to kiss him on the cheek.
‘Thought I’d get on with it,’ she says by way of explanation. ‘I know you said you were going to but, it has to be a bit of a busman’s holiday doing DIY at home.’ He must be scowling because she adds, ‘You don’t mind, do you?’
‘No. Of course not.’ If anything, it should be her who minds. She really shouldn’t be doing the job he said he’d do, but he’s glad she’s not distant or irritated, as she sometimes is. At least there’s that. It’s such a relief, in fact, that he offers to take over, or at the very least help.
She smiles at him as she lines the drill up for the next hole. ‘No worries. I’ve got this. I thought you were going to be home a couple of hours ago, but I guess things ran on at the site, yeah?’
He looks away. ‘Something like that.’
‘Why don’t you make yourself a cup of tea and collapse in front of the TV. I’ll be down in fifteen minutes or so – hopefully! And then I can rummage around in the fridge and see what I can rustle up for dinner.’
He waves in the general direction of downstairs, where he left his shopping. ‘I picked some pizzas up at the Co-op, actually. I’ll throw them in the oven.’
‘Cool. Even better. See you in a bit.’
He backs out of the spare room, essentially dismissed.
As he returns downstairs, he thinks that it would’ve been nice to put the shelves up together, even if he’d just handed her the screws, but of course Jess wouldn’t think of that.
She’s so self-sufficient, so independent.
It was one of the things that drew him to her in the early days.
It was nice to be with someone who didn’t always need something from him.
He makes himself a cup of tea and does as instructed, flicking through channels until he find something mindless about border security he can use as television wallpaper.
As he sits there, he reminds himself that he should leave Elena a message, tell her that maybe he’s not the best shoulder to cry on.
However, by the time Jess is back downstairs, and the supermarket pizzas are in the oven, his phone has not made it out of his pocket.