Page 29 of If We Were Young

“Ronnie,” Amanda said. “Please say you will work on this. Yours was the only pitch we were interested in.”

“Why?”

It’s Matthew who spoke. “Because you care.” His gaze held an unanswered question.

“I’ve got a team of staff of my own who are hoping I can keep them employed.”

His stare didn’t break; it destroyed me from the inside out. Piece by piece it took me apart until I was left returned to nothing more than a teenage girl filled with want and longing so intense it was like I was filled with fire. “So then you get the situation we are in.”

I nodded once. I’d rue it, I knew I would. But I couldn’t say no. My brain wouldn’t allow me to. He knew that. He’d remembered that about me.

“I’m assuming the creditors have given you a time frame to show them a contingency plan.” It’s sad how much I’d researched the bankruptcy procedure.

“Two weeks, otherwise they start administration.”

“Two weeks?” I gasped low and gawked at him openly. “Two weeks? Are you sure?”

My chest tightened with his nod.

Two weeks? I couldn’t come up with a menu plan for home in less than two weeks, let alone a branding that could save a slumping cheap supermarket chain.

A waiter came up with a tray of drinks and settled it on the table. I smiled at him, thankful for the distraction.

“Oh, I ordered you tea while you were in the bathroom.” Matthew’s voice lilted, a strum of A major chord.

The waiter placed a mug of tea in front of me and then one in front of him. Angela got a fancy cup with a cappuccino. I glanced at the other tables, all laid with smart glassware and fine china and then I looked at the builder’s mug in front of me.

That’s not dining room china; it’s kitchen.

There could be no feasible reason for my drink to be in a wide and ugly bit of ceramic, other than he’d asked for it. “Two mugs of tea, bigger the better.” Remembering the long-forgotten words punched like a dead weight in my gut.

Then I did something terrible. I met his gaze and I saw him in the deep recesses of blue. I didn’t see the man in the suit, I saw him.

“Sugar?” Another strum of A major. He pushed the bowl towards me and his shirt sleeve moved and around the wrist of his left arm I spotted cords of cotton plaited together and tied tight around his skin. Ragged and old; the ends frayed; “That makes us best friends now.”

“Thanks.” I took the sugar bowl and concentrated on spooning a heap into the tea. And then another heap just because I didn’t want to look up again, didn’t want him to see the memories on my face, or that I fucking cared, because I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to care, but I couldn’t seem to do anything else.

And this opportunity, this chance to succeed, had just turned into a nightmare I didn’t know I could survive. In two weeks, he’d be gone again, and I’d have to go back to being angry, mourning and hating. But this time I’d be even angrier because I’d know he still had cotton threaded around his wrist and he in turn hadn’t forgotten either, no matter how much he pretended otherwise.

Take me to hell. No. Don’t bother. I’m sure I’m already there.

I glanced up to find him watching me, his gaze a complex puzzle of expectation. “Two weeks. Do you think you can?”

Aha! Another thing he’d remembered. My complete inability to create anything until my muse whispered in my ear. Lucky for me I had Fred who could perform without incentive.

I opened my mouth to say, ‘yes, sure, no problem.’ But instead I said, “Two weeks with you?”

“Just like old times.” His lips curved at the edges and my heart clanged with a long-forgotten tune.

Doomed. I was doomed.

* * *

“Mum?”

I groaned into the duvet. “She’s on holiday.”

“Nonna wanted to know if you are planning to cook dinner?”