Chapter 9
JAKE
“What’s this I hear about you babysitting some kid?” Leo boomed down the line. “Did the end of the world happen while I wasn’t looking?”
I wondered how long it would take for that news to travel. My mother was a menace.
“Oh, hey,” I sang. “Quick question. Can you hear me rolling my eyes?”
“Jacob.”
“I told you not to call me that, and it’s not some kid. He has a name. It’s Noah.”
“Seriously.” Annoyance pickled Leo’s tone. “What are you doing?”
“Right now I’m shopping.”
I pulled a face at Noah buckled in the front of the trolley, much to his displeasure. His arms were folded in a strop, and he’d almost kicked me in the balls twice now, but I wasn’t here for a repeat performance of his disappearing act.
I considered myself pretty laid back, but the fear that ran through me that day, the thought that I’d let Ellie down, would stay with me forever.
Lesson learned.
“I’m sorry buddy.” I ruffled his hair. “Your mum would be sad if I lost you in the supermarket and we don’t want to make her sad, right?”
Noah softened, but not enough to get him talking so I contorted my face again, poking out my tongue far enough to gag.
He perked up, giggling.
There he is.
“Are you sick?” Leo asked. “What’s happening right now?”
“Nothing.” I pointed to the bag of chocolate chips on the shelf, which Noah dutifully stretched to grab and toss into the trolley.
Thank god his mood swings didn’t last long.
“Why did you call me again? Me and Noah are making cookies today and we’re shopping for ingredients. You’re interrupting our flow here.”
Leo muttered something indecipherable, then, “What are you playing at?”
“I’m not playing at anything.”
“Jake,” he warned.
“Oh, for god’s sake. It’s temporary. We’re helping each other out.”
A pause. “What kind of helping each other out?”
The inference behind his tone had me straightening. “I’m looking after Ellie’s son, and she’s giving me a place to stay. End of story.”
“Look, you’re my brother and I love you. I’ll always support you. You know that. But do you really think you’re the best person to look after a kid?”
My family’s lack of belief in me wasn’t anything new, but Leo usually had my back. Or so I’d thought.
I couldn’t lie. His doubt pinched.
“That’s not supporting me, is it?”
“I—” The line whistled with the strength of his sigh. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“I get your concern, but we’re doing okay. Aren’t we, Noah? Tell Leo we’re doing good.”
He roared the second I held the phone in front of his mouth.
“Sorry about that.” I laughed. This kid… “I think that was an agreement. I’m still figuring out his quirks and sounds. He says some random shit sometimes.”
“Shit,” Noah repeated. “Shiiiiittttt!”
“Oh, fuck. I mean, no. Don’t say that.”
“You know what?” Leo quipped, amusement in his tone now. “On second thought, I think I’m gonna enjoy this.”
“Yeah, yeah. Whatever.”
“Just be careful, okay?”
“Careful is my middle name.”
Leo snort-laughed before I hung up.
Jake
Quick question. How much sugar is too much sugar? Asking for a friend.
Ellie
If he’s running around the room screaming, that’s too much.
Jake
Oh. My bad then.
Ellie
“Before I forget, what kind of things do you like for dinner? I need to do another food shop.”
Ellie sat cross-legged on the floor, a half-completed puzzle spread out on the coffee table. She nursed a glass of rosé wine, the rim smudged with lip balm, while I worked on a bottle of beer, and we shared a giant bag of ready salted crisps.
It was rare to be immersed in this kind of easy, companionable silence, and I needed a few seconds to let my eyes adjust away from the laptop screen.
I seldom had the chance to sit and edit more than a handful of photographs at a time, always on the move somewhere, and I was actually enjoying the novelty. Who knew?
“That’s my fault,” I admitted. “Sorry. I should’ve warned you I eat a lot. Perils of being a growing boy, I guess.”
“Is that right?”
“I’m thirty-one years young, Ellie. Of course that’s right.”
Her grin sparkled in her eyes.
“To answer your question, I’ll eat anything. Obviously. I’m not fussy. Although I do love a roast dinner. I could live off roast potatoes alone.”
“I’m more of a jacket potato gal. The skin has to be crispy though.”
“Agreed. A soggy baked potato is an insult to potatoes. I won’t even acknowledge those soggy bitches.”
Laughing, Ellie scoured the scattered puzzle pieces, and I couldn’t help but smile at her joyful expression when she found the matching interlocking piece.
I’d never searched for joy in such a simple thing, or maybe I’d never slowed down enough to try, and it shifted my perspective a fraction more.
This was nice.
This was really nice.
Ellie sipped her wine, and she really was breathtakingly pretty like this—hair loose and wavy around her shoulders, her face scrubbed clean. Seeing her all rumpled and relaxed was something I’d craved since the moment we met, and it struck me in the most unexpected way.
I cleared my throat and tapped the laptop mousepad to wake up the screen. “I don’t expect you to cook for me, by the way.”
“I like cooking though. It’s actually one of the few times my brain switches off.”
“You need that, do you?”
“Oh, you have no idea,” she muttered, tracing the completed frame of her puzzle. “Besides, we’re housemates now. I’d never leave you out. It’s no bother cooking for three instead of two.”
“Maybe we should come up with some kind of schedule to share the load? We know you love a good planner.”
“You joke, but I really do.”
Jake
How long does it take for the Frozen soundtrack to stop playing in your brain?
Ellie
So, here’s the thing…
Jake
Oh no.
Ellie
Yeah, that’s an earworm. Sorry. You might be the last person on the planet to realise that though. That movie is like 10 years old.
Jake
Well, it’s new to me. I just want to let it go. Why won’t it let go?
Ellie
“Next customer please!”
I wandered over to the kid-sized table where Noah sat in front of his miniature Post Office play set, and carefully lowered myself into a seat clearly not meant for adult-sized asses.
“Hello, Mr, uh, Post Office Person.”
“I’m a Branch Man-a-ger,” Noah said seriously, like I’d committed the most cardinal Post Office sin.
“Oh, my apologies.”
“It’s okay, it happens.”
I tried not to smile, but his phrasing was so distinctly Ellie it was impossible to resist. Kids really did pick up on everything.
“Right. I’d like ten first class stamps please.”
He fiddled around with the pretend paper stamps, bashed a rubber stamp into a pad of red ink and pressed it across the tiny notepad and a bit on the table until the print disappeared.
Then, he held out his little hand and said, “That’ll be one hundred and eighty-five hundred pounds, please.”
“Wow. I don’t remember stamps costing that much. Inflation, am I right?”
He offered me another blank stare. “You’re holding up the queue.”
I sighed in a put-upon way, made a show of fake apologising to the non-existent queue behind me, and rifled through the stack of pretend cash. “The customer service in this place has really gone downhill.”
Clueless to my meaning, Noah accepted the money and dumped it on the weighing scale before giving me 50p in plastic change.
I grinned.
Why is this so funny?
Why is this so fun?
“Write your name on this too,” he added.
“It’s a driving license form. I didn’t ask for that.”
His over-exaggerated shrug actually killed me.
“Fair enough,” I said. “Anything else I might need while I’m here, Mr Branch Manager?”
Noah gave that some serious thought, perusing the items in his toy counter. “A birthday card.” He handed over a small card which read, ‘Happy Grandparents Day.’
I almost snort-laughed. “How much do I owe you for this?”
“Twenty pounds.”
“I have 50p, will that do?”
“Okay. Next customer please!”
“Remind me, am I the next customer? Am I every customer? How does this work?”
Noah looked at me like I’d lost the plot, and the me of last week probably would’ve agreed.
“Please wait your turn,” he scolded, then apologised to the invisible customer beside me.
“Sure.”
I didn’t lose my smile for the rest of the day.