Chapter Nine Nico #2
‘And where were you when my daughter was committing grand larceny?’ I ask Magda, who has the decency to look guilty.
‘Phoebe did that without me knowing,’ she admits, ‘and I told her it was wrong. But the ticket was non-refundable so there was no point in not sending it to Lee. Plus,’ she adds gently, ‘she is your wife, Nico.’
My wife.
My wife.
The words echo in my head, and I can’t even begin to sort through the way they make me feel. I clear my throat. ‘How did you hide all this from me?’ I ask gruffly.
‘I deleted the emails afterwards,’ Phoebe shrugs, before taking a noisy slurp of her lemonade. ‘They’re probably in your trash folder.’
I pull my phone out, scroll through and find the entire exchange that ‘I’ apparently had with Lee. First, there’s her brisk, efficient laying out of the facts. Lee clearly kept a cooler head over this whole debacle than I did. Then there’s a reply from me.
‘Hashtag YOLO?’ I exhale a shaky sound somewhere between a laugh and a groan.
Magda looks proud. ‘Didn’t I do a great job getting into character? Throwing in some young person speak and all.’
Phoebe leans against me, reading the email over my shoulder and wrinkles her nose. ‘I tried to tell her that young people don’t say YOLO. And that she used ‘lol’ wrong.’
‘Lots of love!’ Magda insists.
‘Right.’ I rub my temple. I can definitely feel a stress headache coming on.
‘And I told her that trying to sound young was a dumb plan anyway because you’re actually really, really old,’ my daughter adds with devastating candour.
‘We were going to talk to Lee before you got back from Portland,’ Magda says. ‘Explain everything about—’
I get abruptly to my feet.
‘That’s enough. That’s…’ I trail off and take a deep breath.
Okay. So this is really happening. My daughter and her grandmother have basically kidnapped my best friend’s little sister and delivered her to me like some sort of mail order bride, and I am going to have to untangle this whole situation as best I can.
And also get a divorce, I suppose.
That is when we are interrupted by the frenzied sound of barking coming from the next room.
‘Oh, yeah. Suzy dropped Taco off,’ Phoebe announces unnecessarily, going over to open the door. ‘She says he tried to eat three of her socks and a plastic water bottle and he might be untrainable.’
The moment the doors open a small, sturdy whirlwind of fur erupts, heading straight for Lee.
‘Is that… a dog?’ Lee asks doubtfully.
Taco is, in fact, a dog – though one of indeterminate breed – who I adopted as part of a series of ill-advised parenting bribes about six months ago.
He has a scruffy black and white coat, stubby legs and a long, barrel-shaped body.
He also possesses oversized floppy ears, slightly bulging eyes and a squashed face.
No one could describe him as an attractive creature, he has abominable manners, and zero respect for me.
I would lay down my life for him.
‘Get down,’ I say, trying and failing to sound stern.
Taco ignores this request, homing in on Lee who stands, taking a step back behind her chair. They never had pets in her house growing up, and Lee eyes Taco like he’s an alien species, which – to be fair – I have occasionally suspected.
‘Oh no,’ she says, taking another step back. ‘These trousers are dry-clean only.’
The dog is unmoved by this argument and throws himself up against her legs until she surrenders and rubs his head.
‘Sit?’ she suggests, and I’m surprised when Taco’s bum hits the ground, his stumpy tail wagging furiously.
‘Huh.’ I try not to be put out by the fact that Taco-the-untrainable actually listened to Lee and is now looking at her with giant heart eyes. That traitor. I was the one mopping up his vomit at 4 a.m. after he broke into his treat tin again.
‘Look,’ Magda interjects, ‘Lee’s here now and there’s plenty of time for us to talk about the details later, but I’m sure she must be exhausted from all her travel so why don’t you take her home?’
I feel my heart seize.
‘Home,’ I say slowly.
‘Well, of course,’ Magda laughs. ‘Lee will be staying with you, won’t she?’
‘I told you that you were staying with me and my dad,’ Phoebe turns to Lee.
‘I know you did,’ Lee murmurs, and she sounds distant. ‘But at the time I thought you might be a very small serial killer.’
‘Oh.’ Phoebe looks pleased, pushing her glasses up her nose. ‘Cool.’
‘Of course I didn’t realise that was so statistically unlikely.’
‘Still possible, though,’ Phoebe points out.
Then nobody says anything.
‘Maybe I should check in to a hotel,’ Lee says finally. ‘I don’t want to impose.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ Magda chuckles. ‘First of all there isn’t another hotel in town, and you can hardly stay in this building site with no electricity or running water.
Plus you and Nico are friends, aren’t you?
I don’t know how they do things in England but here in Roseport we don’t let our friends stay with strangers. ’ She looks at me expectantly.
‘Right,’ I say, shaking my head to clear it. ‘Yes, sorry, obviously you’ll stay with us.’
Lee still looks uncertain. ‘If you’re sure…’
‘Of course I’m sure,’ I say with way more certainty than I feel. After all, it’s my fault she’s in this mess in the first place. ‘It will be fun.’
I treat Magda to a dark look. ‘We can discuss this more tomorrow.’ I hope that I sound suitably ominous, but Magda doesn’t seem at all put out.
‘Perfect,’ she agrees. ‘We need to discuss the finer details of the plan, anyway.’
I definitely don’t want to know what that means.
‘And you and I will also be having a conversation,’ I say to Phoebe. ‘About how grounded you are.’
‘How grounded am I?’ Phoebe asks, interested.
Fuck. I am so bad at this stuff.
‘Six…’ I start confidently, and then I end up flailing a bit. ‘Weeks?’ I finish, and I know it’s not great that it sounds like a question.
Phoebe considers this. ‘Okay. As long as I can still see Maya and Jamie, and go to Rose’s birthday party.’
‘I—We’ll discuss it later,’ I manage.
Resigned, I grab Lee’s suitcase, and Phoebe – supremely unbothered by my attempts at discipline – clips on Taco’s hot pink lead.
After saying goodbye to Magda, she leads the way around the side of the building to where I’ve parked my battered, blue pickup truck.
Phoebe and Taco jump in the back, and I check they’re in properly before I load Lee’s cases.
‘I really am sorry about this, Daisy,’ I say softly, opening the passenger door for her.
‘It’s fine,’ she replies, climbing up.
‘The seatbelt is a bit…’ I reach up by her shoulder and give the seatbelt two sharp tugs, then I pull it across and clip it into place.
My arm is pressed against her body, one hand at her hip, the other braced against the headrest. Our faces are so close together that I can practically count every one of her long eyelashes.
My gaze drops to her mouth, lingering for a moment on her lips.
My senses are unexpectedly swimming in her: the feel of her silk shirt against my bare forearm, the warmth coming from her body, the dizzying scent of her perfume.
‘Sorry,’ I mutter, forcing a smile. ‘I guess I’m used to buckling people in these days.’ I pull myself away, standing with my hand wrapped around the top corner of the door.
‘No problem,’ she replies, and I wonder how she looks so neat and tidy after a long day of travelling. I wonder why that tidiness has heat running through my body, a sensation that it takes me a moment to identify as lust.
Shit. This is not good. As if things aren’t complicated enough, without adding my sexually frustrated hormones into the mix. Single fatherhood hasn’t exactly done wonders for my love life.
‘Okay then,’ I say, closing her door. ‘Let’s go home.’
And as I make my way around to the driver’s side I have a stern word with myself.
The absolute last thing this situation needs is me lusting after my wife.