Chapter 16
At half past five, Casey made her way up the garden path to Nate’s, to say a quick hello before she went off to work; even living in such proximity, their busy schedules often meant they could go days without properly checking in, and she missed the kids.
As she got closer to the French doors, she noticed Grace’s mother, Sylvie, stood with her hands on hips and a frown creasing her brow.
One of the doors was ajar and her voice carried out into the dark garden.
“I don’t understand,” she said. “Ellory has a natural gift. Why would you cancel her lessons?”
“I honestly don’t think Ellory will be that bothered,” said Nate, switching the oven on and squinting to read the temperature dial. “It’s not like she’s going to be an Olympic champion, and it’s an expensive hobby for someone to feel half-hearted about.”
“Does she feel half-hearted about it?” Sylvie challenged.
Ken, who was sat at the breakfast bar reading the Weaverston Life magazine, chewed the inside of his cheek as his wife continued, “I thought she loved her gymnastics class. She’s always full of the joys when we pick her up from the sports center. ”
“Well, as her parent it’s my responsibility to decide what’s best for her,” Nate said with such an uncharacteristic snap that Casey nearly missed her footing as she stepped inside.
“Hey,” she said brightly, pretending she hadn’t heard their conversation.
“Hallo, Casey, love,” said Ken. He was a tall, thin Welshman with a quiet nature and a predilection for beige in both clothing and food; quite the opposite to his outgoing Nigerian British wife, who favored bold prints on all her clothes and even bolder flavors in her kitchen.
Grace had once told Casey that the secret to her parents’ happy marriage was her mum’s ability to wrap almost everything she cooked in puff pastry to please her dad, and her dad’s enthusiastic commitment to take her mum ballroom dancing every week for the last thirty years even though he had two left feet. “How are you?” he asked.
“All good. You?” Casey replied.
Her brother was scowling into the fridge as though something inside it had offended him.
“Nate wants to stop Ellory going to gymnastics,” said Sylvie.
“It’s just an idea. It’s not set in stone,” Nate conceded. “It doesn’t warrant a family intervention.”
“O-kay,” said Casey.
“Right, my love,” said Ken, closing the magazine and stepping down off the bar stool. “Let’s leave Nate to get those cherubs their dinner. Are we still picking them up from school tomorrow?”
Nate rubbed the back of his neck. “Ah, yeah, thanks, that would be great. I think my meeting will probably run late.”
“Why don’t we give them some dinner?” Sylvie suggested. “Save you having to rush. We can bath and pajama them and you can pick them up later, hmmm? I’ll cook for you too.”
Her brother looked queasy with remorse. “Thanks, Sylvie, that would be great. Listen. I’m sorry I was short with you; you know work’s been…”
Sylvie flapped her hand at him. “We’re family; disagreeing is just part of the agreement process.”
—
When the goodbyes were done and the kids had disappeared upstairs to watch a movie in Nate’s bedroom, Casey broke the silence that had settled in their absence.
“You’re being weird.”
“Your mum’s weird,” Nate countered, the same comeback they’d used for years.
But she wasn’t going to be shut down so easily. “The way you snapped at Sylvie just then…and canceling Ellory’s gymnastics? What the hell, Nate? If money’s tight, I’ll pay for her lessons.”
He washed his hands at the sink, dried them on a tea towel, and then repeated the process. “It’s not about the money,” he said finally.
“Okay, so what is it about?”
“I don’t have to run decisions about my children by you or Sylvie—my kids, my rules.”
“Wow, fuck you very much!”
He sighed. “Sorry. I didn’t mean it to come out like that. I’ve just got stuff going on…”
“Like what?”
He grabbed a handful of Romano peppers from the vegetable tray in the fridge and began to chop them at the counter. “Penny asked if I wanted to get coffee one morning. She gave me her number.”
“Penny, the hot mum at the school gates?”
“I didn’t say she was hot.”
“No, I said she was hot when we saw her at the school Halloween fair, and you agreed with me.”
“Yeah, well.” He tossed the peppers into a roasting tin and started cutting courgettes into batons.
“So, what did you say?”
“I said, ‘Sure, let’s do that sometime.’ ”
“Well, that’s great! You should call her and set something up.”
Nate looked at her. “I’m not going to call her.”
“But you said that you would.”
“No, I said let’s do that ‘sometime.’ ” He did air quotes around the word. “ ‘Sometime’ is the universal word for ‘never.’ ”
“Oh, come on, Nate. You like her, we’ve established that she’s hot, so, call her. You don’t do anything outside of work and the kids. Live a little, meet a hot mum for a coffee date.”
“Says the woman who lives like a hermit at the bottom of my garden. I don’t see you dating anybody.”
“I am cursed by the romance gods, you know this,” she said, swiping a piece of pepper out of the tin and biting into it. “Anyway, this isn’t about me, quit trying to change the subject.”
“You know you can’t keep blaming Sam for everything that’s wrong with your life,” he challenged.
Ouch! That stung, but she took a deep breath and didn’t rise to the bait, because deflection had been her brother’s modus operandi since Grace died.
“Okay,” she said, reluctantly acknowledging that he had a point. “So, I’m a scaredy-cat, but you are becoming a control freak.”
Nate sliced through an onion with such force that the two halves wobbled unsteadily on the chopping board, but he didn’t raise his voice. “Since when did wanting to keep my family safe become being controlling?”
“Who said anything about safety?” she asked, wondering where this was going.
“Forget it,” he said, not meeting her eyes as he added the onions to the tin.
“No, don’t do that, what do you mean about keeping your family safe? Wait a minute, is all this about Ellory hurting her arm at gymnastics?”
“Forget it,” he said, and she could hear the weariness in his voice. “Like I said, it was just an idea.”
She was wise enough to know when not to push further, but she resolved to revisit the subject again very soon. In the last couple of years, she’d watched him become cautious to the point where he treated every day like an exercise in disaster management.
“Did you call Mark yet?” she asked instead.
“Ah, no, I haven’t had a chance, you know, two kids, full-time job…”
“I was only asking.”
“Sorry. I’m being a prick. I will call him. I’ve been putting it off…but you knew that, right?” he said, smiling knowingly at her.
“Yup. Can I ask you something without you behaving like a prick?” she asked, smirking at him.
“I will do my level best.”
She steeled herself. “Do you still see your therapist? We haven’t talked about it in a while.”
He scratched his head and asked, “Theresa?” like he had multiple therapists.
“Yes. Theresa.”
He blew out a breath before answering. “Not for a while,” he said, and winced.
“Nate.”
“I know, I know. But in my defense, she was on holiday and then I had to cancel the one after that because I had a client meeting and I…I just forgot to rebook.”
“She didn’t remind you?” She tried to keep the suspicion out of her voice.
“She may have done.” He didn’t meet her eyes. “But I’ve been busy. Christmas is coming up fast and…and where does it end? You know? How much therapy is too much therapy?”
“Nate, I don’t think that you’ve had too much therapy.”
He shrugged. “Fine, if that’s what you want, I’ll call Theresa.”
“Thank you. And while we’re on the subject of awkward phone calls, are you really going to leave Hot Penny hanging?” she asked. “She seems so nice and I know you like her because you never went to PTA meetings until she joined and now you never miss them.”
He managed a sideways smile and looked away, and she pounced on it. “Aha! You see, I was right, you do like her!”
“All right, all right!” he said, laughing. “I’ll think about it.”
“Don’t think about it for too long; Hot Penny’s not going to wait around for your sorry arse forever.”
Nate flicked a courgette baton at her face. “Don’t you have a job to go to? Get out of my kitchen.”
Casey grinned as she hopped off the bar stool and headed through the hallway to the front door, shouting her goodbyes up to the kids on her way out.
Then she grabbed her bike parked by the side gate and set off into the dark evening.
The roads were busy with commuters on their way home, headlights reflected in puddles like impressionist paintings, and the houses that lined the streets showcased their Christmas trees in warmly lit sitting room windows—framed vignettes of cozy suburbia.
When she pulled into the goods yard behind Coopers they dipped in and out of his pockets like he was expecting something to materialize inside his jeans. “I wanted to check in with you.”
“Oh, okay.” She kept her voice even, despite her heart doing a steady gallop inside her ribcage.
“I wanted to make sure that you were all right after the other night.” He scrubbed his hand over his head. “You made it very clear that you don’t do dating, and then I went and kissed you…”
She gave him a reassuring smile. “I kissed you too, remember.” A kiss that went against all her self-imposed rules and yet she couldn’t bring herself to regret.
He held her gaze. “I do remember.” His voice came out scratchy and her stomach tightened. He cleared his throat. “But that’s not why I’m here.”
“It’s not?”
He looked at her and then quickly away. “I want to reassure you that I respect your no-dating rule.”
Oh. “Right. Good. Thank you.” Why was her stomach plummeting like it did when she received a rejection email from a literary agent? This was the safe option. And yet she couldn’t dispel the crushing disappointment that she’d somehow managed to “respect” herself out of being kissed by Ajay again.
“But…” He seemed to be searching the goods yard for the right words.
Her heart leaped. “But?” Thank the lord for buts! Instinctively, she looked up at him, and when his warm dark eyes locked onto hers, she heaved a breath that would have popped every clasp on her bodice had she been wearing one. She had never felt more Lizzie Bennet in her life.
Ajay smiled awkwardly. “But if you ever change your mind, I wondered if…ahem, I would like it very much if you would consider going out with me. But there’s no pressure,” he added quickly. “Absolutely no expectations from this quarter.”
Casey had never considered herself to be the cannibalistic sort, but right then she wanted to devour Ajay like he was a warm mince pie.
She swallowed and replied hesitantly, “Thank you. I will. Consider it.” She smiled at him and hoped steam wasn’t rising off her with the force of all the passions she was trying to keep buttoned up.
Did men have any idea how sexy consent was?
Three years of celibacy, and a man telling her that she didn’t have to date him was the thing that would undo her.
“Okay, then,” said Ajay, smiling warmly at her like he hadn’t just awakened her sex drive after an extended hibernation. “I’ll see you around.” And with a cheery wave, he turned and walked out of the goods yard, leaving her perspiring with passion in the cold evening air.