Chapter 18
Nora didn’t want to rush things with Liam but she also didn’t like waiting.
Since she’d tracked him down he had been occupying a lot of her thoughts.
Being dumped by him had been a shock and an unhappy time in her life.
She’d often been compelled to end relationships at the merest hint that things weren’t perfect for fear of being dumped herself.
Perhaps it was a reaction to frequently being dropped by girls at school.
Walking away first was a way to control the outcome, so it was a shock to have it happen to her.
But that was a while ago and as long as she could look past Liam ditching her then perhaps there was something there.
He was a good person and she was certain that he no longer held a grudge against her for what she did. Well, almost certain.
She had had to explain what happened to a rather concerned Jay, who had instantly crossed his legs at the mention of her killing her ex’s sticky willy.
Liam’s sticky willy, otherwise known as a cleavers plant, was growing in a tub in his garden.
Nora had always assumed these plants, so loved by schoolboys for sticking to school jumpers, were weeds.
This one was big and bushy and occupying a nice corner.
She thought she would kill it off and buy him something prettier to go in its place.
Nora didn’t get as far as choosing a replacement because Liam was distraught that the plant he’d grown from one at his beloved great-nana’s house had mysteriously died.
When she had owned up to killing it he’d called her a murderer and demanded she leave.
Apparently he had fond childhood memories of him and his cousins playing with the sticky weed and hoped one day his children would be able to enjoy the same.
Even a couple of days to calm down didn’t change his feelings about the dead plant or Nora, and he’d dumped her.
That was all behind them and now they needed to arrange a much-needed catch-up.
Perhaps if she suggested a daytime meet-up they could have a coffee and she could start to assess if there was anything worth pursuing.
If it hadn’t been for the sticky willy incident, who knows how their relationship would have gone?
From the look of Liam’s profile picture, he was hotter than ever.
Looks were definitely not the most important thing but they were a nice bonus.
In the photograph he was very corporate-suit but it helped that she already knew the muscular physique underneath.
Actually, she quite liked the idea of dishevelling his corporate image.
She shook that thought from her mind. She was getting ahead of herself.
It was late evening and she was in bed. It was a hot night and she’d taken to sleeping in just her pants.
She had nobody else to think about and she always put on her dressing gown before she went downstairs so she wasn’t likely to scare Oliver or the neighbours.
It started to rain against her window – perhaps that would take some of the heat out of the day.
Nora mulled over what to say to Liam and if it would come across as desperate.
She didn’t want to scare him off. It was best not to think too much about it so she quickly sent Liam a message.
How about we meet up for coffee and a catch-up sometime soon?
She pressed send before she could overthink it.
An almost instant reply popped up.
Sure. Remember this?
And there was a link. A click took her to his Instagram and a picture of the bar they used to go to.
She checked out his Instagram grid. He wasn’t using his real name – he was FootyfanLiam.
No wonder she’d not been able to find him.
She liked the post and began casually scrolling through his feed.
A message arrived from him but this time it was via Instagram.
It was basically just a row of beer emojis.
Was he suggesting they go out for a drink? She replied:
I’m more of a cocktail person these days
And then she waited. And she waited. If he was out he’d likely be drinking so perhaps she’d not get a reply tonight.
Nora yawned. She must have started to nod off because she felt her phone slipping from her grasp.
She gripped the phone and blinked a few times as she came to.
She looked at the screen. It was moving.
What was she watching? It was Liam in a dark room.
His mouth was moving but there was no sound.
And he was pointing frantically at the screen.
That was when she noticed the tiny square in the top corner that was her.
When she’d gripped the phone she must have inadvertently started a video call.
There she was, video-calling with Liam – topless.
‘Shit!’ She panicked and ended the call.
*
The weather had taken an unfortunate turn from the wall-to-wall sunshine Dixie had been enjoying and was tipping it down with rain and blowing a gale when she returned to Elsie.
She’d been back a few hours before she had realized the note she’d left had gone from the windscreen.
What she didn’t know was whether it had blown away or someone had removed it.
She’d dashed out of the van to check if it was on the ground nearby and was quickly soaked to the skin. But the note was nowhere to be found.
Dixie spent another lonely evening in the van.
Her damp clothes hung over the front seats, making the windows steam up.
She’d made herself a sandwich, which was now her main food source, and tucked herself up in bed, trying hard not to feel sorry for herself.
The sound of the almost tropical rainstorm outside was a bit creepy but she had no choice other than to stick it out.
She thought of Nora. Nora hated storms. That was all the motivation she needed to ring her.
‘Hiya, Dixie,’ said Nora. ‘Is everything OK?’
Dixie was so happy to hear her friend’s voice. ‘Sorry it’s late but I know you hate storms so I thought I’d give you a call and check you’re OK.’
‘Is it raining much where you are?’ asked Nora.
‘Yeah, it’s torrential,’ said Dixie, although that was a bit of an exaggeration because now she was peering behind the threadbare curtains it didn’t actually seem that bad. Perhaps the sound was magnified by the van.
‘It’s raining a little but it’s still pretty warm here,’ said Nora. ‘Are you OK?’
‘I might be a tiny bit homesick but I’ll be fine.’ Dixie swallowed hard to stop getting overemotional.
‘I’ll cheer you up,’ said Nora. ‘You’ll never guess what I’ve just done to Liam.’
The next morning Dixie was woken by birdsong.
Outside the window the sun was shining and the sky a flawless blue.
It was as if the storm had never happened.
Chatting to Nora had cheered her up. She’d made Dixie laugh about accidentally flashing one of her exes, which made Dixie feel better about things.
Frequently she felt she was the silly one in any given group of people.
The person most likely to say or do the wrong thing.
It was always reassuring when someone considered to be the sensible one messed up.
Dixie was still smiling to herself as she checked her Instagram.
Her followers had been increasing steadily.
They definitely seemed to be liking the nature posts, but for some reason the post of the angry note had got some serious engagement, and she had to blink hard to take in how many followers she now had.
A lump formed in her throat. Almost five thousand people were now following her Instagram account and countless more had liked the post, with many commenting with support and solidarity and quite a lot of swearing too, which she thought Renee would approve of.
Outside the window something moved quickly and it caught Dixie’s attention.
She pulled back the curtain to have a closer look.
It was a squirrel. She had no idea if it was the same one from the other day.
They all looked the same to her, although now she watched it happily bounding about and scratching at the ground, she noticed that its head was more of a reddish colour than its grey body and the end of its tail was blunt.
She pulled out her phone and started filming.
This was the sort of content her followers loved.
And now she had so many, there was pressure to keep them entertained.
The squirrel obliged and hopped gymnastically about before digging something up and eating it.
Its front paws were like little hands – it was adorably cute.
Dixie decided that she would take something out for the squirrel to eat.
She checked her food supplies. It was unlikely that squirrels ate sourdough crackers or tapenade so she settled on a couple of grapes.
Dixie opened the sliding door slowly in an attempt to keep the noise to a minimum.
Previously she’d not really paid too much attention to the sound the door made but now that she wanted it to be quiet it sounded like a small train trundling along a track.
Opening it just enough to squeeze herself through the gap, she crept around the side of the van but the squirrel was nowhere to be seen.
She locked up and decided to see if she could track down the squirrel and give it the grapes.
Perhaps she could even tame it. That would look great on social media and was the sort of thing that regularly went viral.