Page 97 of One for the Road
“I was trying to be thoughtful,” I countered, feeling Isla’s rumble of laughter against my rib cage. That, I didn’t mind so much. She could laugh at me all day, as long as she kept that smile on her face.
“How did Mrs Jackson take it?” Isla asked.
“I think she saw the funny side,” I said. “But her husband had a thing or two to say about it.”
That was putting it mildly. Thirty years later I still crossed the road when I saw Rory Jackson walking through the village. “If we’re done recounting my embarrassing childhood, maybe we can actually eat.”
“I like the embarrassing stories.” Isla grinned at me, sliding off the stool while Heather called the girls in from the garden.
The perfect ordinariness of the day washed over me. This was how every weekend went for my family, how it would continue to be when I left in a few months. And I’d go back to spending my weekends in the gym. Or in line at a soulless coffee chain with a dozen strangers.
I knocked the thought aside, like an errant fly.
“Care to share one of your own?” I rumbled in her ear. I don’t know if it was my words or my proximity, but Isla’s cheeks caught fire.
I’d never wanted to kiss someone so badly in my entire life. And for the first time since this scheme began, I might just be weak enough to actually do it.
26
Isla
Lunch had been loud. A little overwhelming, if I’m honest. Laughter and voices talking over one another and multiple spilled drinks, like the kids had teamed up to get every person at the table as sticky as possible.
Alistair had seemed determined to make me eat, loading up my plate with enough pasta, garlic bread and salad to feed a small army, while I’d fixed Teddy’s plate.
Afterwards, I’d helped load the dishwasher, given Teddy a thorough scrub down, then we joined the others in the living room where the family spread out across the many sofas.
Teddy, Ava and Emily spilled the contents of the toybox out onto the carpet, hosting a wedding between two Ken dolls. Beach Ken was dressed a little casually for his wedding day with a surfboard tucked beneath his arm, but who was I to judge?
I’d never been in a house quite like this one. I couldn’t stop looking at the family photos lining the walls. Baby pictures, first steps out on the front drive, all four Macabe children squeezed onto the same sofa I was currently sitting on.
Alistair on the outside of the group, his skinny arm thrown around Mal’s shoulders. Coke-bottle glasses halfway down his nose, his smile was a little less broad than his siblings’, just wide enough to show his missing front tooth.
From Cameron’s Instagram posts, I knew the few pictures I’d hung up in my old home –hishome – were gone with all the work he and Annabelle had done on the house. The original hardwood floors I’d fallen in love with from our first viewing had been replaced with carpet. Even Teddy’s height chart on the kitchen wall had been painted over like, with enough beige paint, we could be erased from his life.
“Here, it’s a little full . . .” Alistair’s voice pulled me from the thought as he handed me another glass of Coke. He sat down beside me, his thigh pressing against the length of mine.
“Oh, thank you.”
“I think we need to put a ban on those words from your vocabulary,” he murmured the words low enough to appear playful, flirtatious even, but just loud enough for his family to overhear.
“Are you morally opposed to politeness?”
“I’m morally opposed to being thanked for something that should go without saying.”
“You lot are sickening,” Heather muttered from the floor, where she was packing away some of the toys the girls had abandoned.
“Heather, stop teasing your brothers,” Iris said, returning from checking the pie warming in the oven. Squeezing my shoulder as she passed with so much warmth, a pit opened up in my stomach.
“Yeah, Heather, stop teasing your brothers,” Callum chimed in.
She glared. “Can one of you at least move up so I can sit down?”
Alistair didn’t hesitate. Sliding further into my space, his body was hot and hard against mine as he lifted my legs and deposited them on his lap.
My muscles tensed as I fought not to fidget.
To keep breathing.
