Chapter Thirty #2
Her pretty mouth twisted in a sneer at my inability to finish a sentence.
‘English not your first language?’ She was like a sniper, picking off easy prey.
‘I wouldn’t be here if I’d known for a moment that you and Rhys were still—’
‘I can’t find it anywhere, Mummy.’
It felt like a scene in a farce as yet another member of Rhys’s family rushed into the kitchen. But this one I knew.
‘Ellie,’ cried Tasha with delight, barrelling straight into the toxic situation with blissful innocence.
It certainly didn’t help when she ran straight past her mother and launched herself at me, flinging her spindly arms around my waist. Instinctively I hugged her back, which earned me the deadliest stare yet from her mother. If looks could kill, I should be booking the plot alongside my mother.
‘You’ve met my daughter? Rhys actually did that?’ Annalise sounded incredulous.
‘It wasn’t planned. We accidentally bumped into each other in the park,’ I told her, not sure if anything I said could make this conversation any better.
‘And then we went for ice creams,’ added Tasha, which succeeded in making things a great deal worse.
‘We have rules about that,’ Annalise said, each word dipped in fury.
I frowned. Something wasn’t adding up here.
If Rhys and Annalise were back together, why weren’t any of her clothes in his bedroom, or toiletries in the bathroom?
Relief hit me like a hurricane as I realised I’d jumped to the wrong conclusion, something she must surely have known. She just hadn’t chosen to correct me.
‘You don’t live here, do you? You and Rhys aren’t back together.’ It was a statement rather than a question.
Annalise’s mouth tightened. Like a cat with a mouse, she had clearly hoped to toy with me for longer.
‘I bought him the t-shirt you’re wearing.’
Touché. It was a good comeback.
Tasha, who was currently standing between us like a pint-size referee, was clearly growing bored.
‘Have you seen my ballet bag anywhere, Ellie?’
I looked at the smaller, infinitely nicer version of Annalise and gave her a regretful smile. ‘I haven’t, sweetheart. But I can certainly help you look for it.’
‘That won’t be necessary,’ her mother cut in. ‘Why don’t you look under the bed in your room, Tash,’ she said in an entirely different voice.
My eyes went to her set of keys on the countertop. She and Rhys might not be together, but she still had a key to his home. She obviously felt entitled to come and go whenever she wanted to, and he’d certainly never bothered telling me that. It made me wonder what else I didn’t know.
‘Look, I know this is all kinds of awkward,’ I said, wishing I was wearing something that had less of me on display, and that I hadn’t decided to skip on the make-up. ‘But I really don’t want to make things uncomfortable for Tasha.’
She softened infinitesimally at that. ‘At least we’re in agreement about that, although I doubt we’ll be about much else.’
Beneath the anger, for the first time I glimpsed the hurt.
She might not be back with her ex – Rhys had been truthful about that – but that didn’t mean she’d given up on hoping it would still happen.
I was the fly in the ointment. A big ugly bluebottle standing semi-naked in the kitchen of the man she wanted back.
I surprised her and myself even more when I said, ‘Look, I was just about to make myself a coffee. Do you want a cup?’
It wasn’t a hard question, but she took a long time before answering it.
‘Alright.’
She took way too much pleasure in watching me try yet another two incorrect cupboards before directing me to the right ones. It was a little galling to realise that she was here often enough to know where he kept everything.
‘I take it this is something new?’ Annalise asked as I placed a cup of coffee in front of her. I wasn’t ready to talk about my fledgling relationship with Rhys with anyone, much less his last partner.
‘I think that’s probably something you should discuss with Rhys.’
‘Oh, don’t worry,’ Annalise said darkly. ‘I will.’
We were standing on either side of the breakfast bar, neither of us comfortable enough to pull up a stool and sit down. Annalise eyed me over the rim of her coffee cup, and I wondered what Helen had told her and how that description compared to the reality.
‘You’re never going to be the most important person in his life; you know that, don’t you?’
Her words pierced my flimsy armour, and for a moment I thought she was talking about herself, before her eyes flew down the hallway.
‘Tasha will always come first,’ she said as though laying down an ace.
‘That is absolutely as it should be.’ It was good to finally gain a foothold in the confrontation, and I could see my answer had shaken her. ‘That was always a given.’
I could see her mentally trying to regroup, perhaps looking for another angle of assault, but she didn’t get the chance because at that moment the sound of a key slotting into the door lock was heard again.
‘I’m so sorry, the traffic was heavier than I expected,’ Rhys said, striding into the kitchen with the biggest smile I’d ever seen. It took less than a second to disappear when he saw I wasn’t alone.
‘Annalise. What the hell are you doing here?’
‘Daddy!’ cried Tasha, who’d run back into the kitchen proudly holding the missing ballet bag.
‘Hello, pickle,’ Rhys said, sweeping his daughter up with one arm and giving her a huge hug.
‘I left my ballet bag here and I need it for my lesson tomorrow,’ Tasha explained in a delightful lisp that I couldn’t remember noticing before. She grinned and I saw that a missing tooth was responsible.
‘And you didn’t think of calling first?’ Rhys asked, his question directed to Annalise. ‘You just decided to barge in?’
She had the grace to look uncomfortable. ‘Look, we were passing, and I saw your car was missing so I knew you were out. I thought we’d just pop in, get the bag, and be gone. It certainly hadn’t been my intention to catch you in flagrante delicto with your latest bit on the side.’
Rhys’s expression darkened. ‘You’re way out of line and you know it.’
‘What does “grante-deli” mean?’ asked Tasha innocently from her spot in his arms.
No one enlightened her.
Rhys looked down pointedly at the bunch of keys on the worktop. ‘This wasn’t why I gave you a key. And you know that.’
Annalise bit her lip.
‘Well, we have the ballet bag now, so everything is fine,’ she said breezily. ‘Come on, Tash, say goodbye to Daddy and let’s go.’
‘Oh, can’t we stay and have breakfast with Daddy and Ellie?’
It’s hard to know which of the three adults looked most horrified at the suggestion.
‘Maybe another time,’ Rhys said, giving his daughter a kiss.
‘Come on, honey, let’s go to the swings like we planned.’
Tasha smiled, easily mollified. The speed with which Annalise had flipped from bunny boiler to kindly mum was fast enough to make my head spin.
Neither Rhys nor I said a word until Annalise and his daughter had left.
For a long moment we didn’t move. We were so new, so fragile, this could easily destroy everything.
He opened his arms, and it would be a long time before I forgot the look of uncertainty in his eyes as he waited to see what I would do next.
I stepped into them like it was the only place I belonged.
‘That was not meant to happen. Not ever,’ he said, his words whispered into my hair. ‘That key was for emergencies.’
‘I guessed that,’ I said into the fabric of his t-shirt.
He leant back, creating enough space between us so that he could see my face. ‘I’ve only ever been honest with you, Ellie.’
I nodded. I knew that now. I just wished my first instinct hadn’t been to mistrust him. He’d been honest about his own trust issues, but it appeared there were still some fairly major ones on my side too.