by Lindsey Kelk
I matched his gaze, searching his face for the answer to a question I wasn’t sure I’d asked.
‘This is what you call a birthday party?’
Almost three hours late and carrying a white cardboard box in his arms, Patrick appeared at the top of the stairs.
‘You’re here!’ I cried, jumping to my feet. ‘I thought you weren’t coming.’
‘I’m so sorry, I got caught up in work and lost track of the time,’ he said as my heart thudded in my chest. The drink, the staring contest, the Patrick of it all. It was too much. ‘Where is everyone? Did I miss dinner?’
‘They’ve gone and you did,’ I said, breathless. He pressed his lips to mine, catching the side of my mouth as he turned his head at the last moment to look at John.
‘Oh, um, Patrick, this is Sumi’s friend, John. John, this is Patrick.’ I touched the side of my lips with my fingers, covering up our almost kiss. It was always awkward to have an audience.
‘You must be the boyfriend,’ John said, holding out his hand without standing up.
‘John runs the bar,’ I added before Patrick could answer.
‘Owns the bar,’ he corrected from his seat.
‘Nice place,’ Patrick replied, ignoring John’s hand and turning his attention back to me. ‘I can’t believe I missed the party, I brought cupcakes as well.’
He placed the big white pastry box on the table and opened it up to reveal a rainbow of sugary goodness.
‘This is what happens when I try to make a good impression,’ he said, showing off his easy smile. ‘They really went home already? Even Sumi?’
‘See?’ I said, grinning at John. ‘I told you! This is very out of character for her.’
He replied with a short, sharp shrug. ‘I wouldn’t say that. Yes, Sumi likes a drink but she also likes to be in bed before Love Island.’
‘Sumi doesn’t watch Love Island,’ I scoffed before doubt softened my voice. ‘Does she?’
‘I can’t believe I came all this way and they’re not even here,’ Patrick said with a groan, flipping the lid of the box up and down. ‘What are we going to do with all these bloody cupcakes? Even you couldn’t eat all of them.’
‘That’s what you think. I could take care of more of them than would make you comfortable,’ I promised. ‘Seriously, at first you’d be impressed, but by the end of it you’d just be worried about my blood sugar levels.’
‘I don’t want you to eat yourself into type two diabetes, I can’t stand needles. How about we leave them here?’ he suggested, pushing the box towards John. ‘You can give them out to the staff, if you’d like?’
‘Very generous of you,’ John replied. ‘Why don’t you take a photo of them to send to Sumi?’
‘Good idea,’ I agreed, plucking two cupcakes out the box and handing them to Patrick. ‘Say happy birthday Sumi!’
Patrick held the cakes up to his face, mountains of frosting obscuring his features.
‘You get in the picture as well,’ John instructed. ‘I’ll take it.’
I handed over my phone with an appreciative smile before taking one of the cupcakes from Patrick. Before I could do anything, he swiped a dollop of frosting onto my nose right as I was blinded by my phone’s flash.
‘If the party’s over, maybe we should just go back to mine,’ Patrick said in a low, promising voice, licking the remaining frosting from his finger. I cleaned my nose off with a napkin as he slid his hand into mine. ‘You look amazing by the way.’
‘We should stay and help tidy up,’ I offered, even though I really just wanted to get out of there. The atmosphere was thicker than the frosting on the cupcakes. ‘John, what can we do to help?’
‘Not at all, you go,’ he said, staring at the screen of my phone before he handed it over, a too-big smile on his face that didn’t quite make it all the way up to his eyes. ‘I’ll get this taken care of.’
‘Only if you’re sure,’ I said, immediately edging towards the stairs. I couldn’t quite say why but having him and Patrick in the same place without the buffer of other people just felt wrong. ‘Thanks for hosting.’
He raised two fingers to his temple in a semi-salute, one side of his mouth turned upwards in a crooked smile.
‘No worries,’ he replied. ‘Oh, and Ros?’
‘Yes?’ I called back from halfway down the stairs.
‘Just so you know, I always figure out the puzzle eventually.’
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
‘I can’t believe you brought cupcakes for everyone,’ I said, clutching Patrick’s hand tightly as we climbed the last few steps in the tube station nearest his house. My friends might have called it an early night but the rest of London seemed in agreement that it was a perfect evening for late-night adventures, the street was still so busy. ‘That was so sweet of you.’
‘Why do you sound so surprised?’ He swung my hand back and forth, a wolfish smile on his absurdly beautiful face. ‘I’m very sweet.’
‘You are a lot of things,’ I smiled at a group of girls, blatantly checking him out as they walked by. ‘But I wouldn’t call you sweet.’
‘I can absolutely be sweet,’ Patrick replied, stopping in the middle of the pavement and wrapping his hands around my face. He lowered his face to mine and placed the softest kiss on my lips. Down the street, I heard the group of girls sigh in chorus. ‘See?’
‘That was a good effort,’ I murmured, pushing up onto my tiptoes to secure another kiss.
‘I’ve always wondered what’s in this garden,’ he said, lifting his gaze over my head. I turned as far as I could without letting go of him to see a private park, the tall black railings lined with trees and bushes, obscuring whatever might be hiding inside. ‘What do you reckon?’
‘Portal to another reality, probably,’ I replied as he disengaged his arms from around my neck and wandered off to peer into the bushes. ‘That or it’s a secret meeting place for the Resistance.’
He looked back at me with an affectionate smile. ‘You’re an odd girl,’ he said. ‘Do you know that?’
‘Yes,’ I answered before licking my lips thoughtfully. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got any more of those cupcakes back at yours?’
‘I bet,’ Patrick said, his strong eyebrows set with determination. ‘If I gave you a leg-up, we could get inside.’
My own eyebrows lifted in disbelief.
‘But it’s private,’ I whispered. ‘We’re not allowed inside.’
He laughed, clearly delighted with my response. ‘And that’s why it’s fun,’ he said, squatting down and linking his hands together. ‘Come on, up and over.’
‘What if we get arrested?’ My head swam with police sirens and flashing lights and disappointed parents and tequila even as I did as I was told. I was one hundred percent that girl who would jump off a cliff if all my friends were doing it.
‘You know, you used to be a lot more spontaneous,’ Patrick admonished. Before he could say another word, I had one foot in his palm, the other swinging over the fence. A sharp pain shot through my backside as I hurled myself over the fence and my skating injury came back to haunt me. With a less than elegant tumble, I crumpled to the floor then sprang back up, determined not to let him down.
‘Amazing,’ he said, glancing over his shoulder. ‘There should be a latch on the inside of the gate, there, to your left. Got it?’
I fumbled with it at first; the latch had been painted over with thick, black paint at least hundred times, and the warm summer weather had turned it into something like tar.
‘Got it,’ I gasped as I released the latch and pulled the gate in towards me. Patrick stepped into the garden easily, as though he took an evening constitutional every single night of his life, closing the gate behind him.
‘Wow,’ I breathed, weaving my fingers through his as we walked inside. ‘It’s beautiful.’
And it was. A crisp green lawn was set at the centre of the garden, bordered by tall trees and thick bushes, and pretty periwinkle blue plants, which I was fai
rly sure weren’t periwinkles, wove themselves in and out of the branches. A bus whooshed by on the other side of the fence but safely behind the black bars of the garden, we were in another world.
‘We shouldn’t be in here,’ I said, looking back at the gate as Patrick lay down in the grass, stretching his arms up behind his head. ‘What if someone comes in?’
‘It’s eleven thirty on a Saturday night. No one is nipping into the park now.’
‘We’re here,’ I reasoned. ‘Anyone could come in.’
‘Unless you’re the terrible sort of person who would break in, you have to have a key to get inside,’ he replied. ‘And only rich people have keys. Rich people don’t like to cause a fuss. If someone comes in, we’ll just quietly let ourselves out.’
I couldn’t argue with his logic.
Carefully, I lowered myself down beside him, rolling onto my side to avoid my tender injury. Patrick shifted onto his side until we were nose to nose.
‘I hope you didn’t have too much fun without me tonight,’ he said softly, running his finger along the line of my cheekbone, all the way down to my lips. ‘I am sorry I was so late.’
‘I understand,’ I told him as I kissed his fingertips. ‘And I would have had more fun if I hadn’t completely decked it at the roller rink and fallen flat on my arse. It’s going to be black and blue by morning.’
Patrick laughed and leaned in to replace his fingertips with his lips. The kiss was long and warm and lazy and, for several seconds, I couldn’t feel anything else at all. ‘Can’t leave you alone for a minute, can I?’
‘Do you remember that time we went ice skating at Somerset House and I went absolutely flying?’ I asked as he pulled away, our eyes still locked on one another. ‘It was even worse than that. How I haven’t broken my neck before now, I’ll never know.’
‘Hmm,’ Patrick replied, his eyes misting over for a moment. He rolled onto his back and I moved with him, resting my head on his chest. ‘That guy back at the bar,’ he said. ‘What’s his deal?’
‘John?’ I asked, practically purring as he combed his fingers through my hair. ‘He’s a friend of Sumi’s.’
‘Seems like a bit of a twat.’
‘Definitely doesn’t give a good first impression,’ I agreed, coming to as he pulled his hands away. ‘I think he might be all right though.’
It was the nicest thing I’d ever said or thought about John McMahon.
‘He’s married,’ I added quickly, not quite sure why. ‘His wife is really tall.’
‘Oh.’ Patrick shifted suddenly and my head slipped off his chest and onto the hard ground. ‘I didn’t care for the “You must be the boyfriend” remark.’
‘No?’ I sat back up, rubbing the sore spot on my head. ‘Why not? Do you not want people to think you’re my boyfriend?’
‘It’s not what he said, it’s the way he said it,’ he replied, eyes up on the darkening sky. ‘I am obviously flattered that anyone would think I am your boyfriend.’
I wove my fingers into the grass, wrapping my fingers around the long, green blades and smiled.
‘But it was the implication that I’m just your boyfriend. It’s reductive. You wouldn’t like it if I went around introducing you to people as just my girlfriend, would you?’ Patrick went on. I said absolutely nothing. Because I would love it. ‘Besides, we just started seeing each other again and I know you don’t want to go around slapping big labels on things.’
I yanked a handful of grass right out of the ground. Patrick had always had an ego but it didn’t bother me, I considered it well earned. He very much wanted people to know how clever he was, what a brilliant writer he was. I’d always assumed that if I were as clever and as successful as him, perhaps I would feel the same way.
‘I know it’s early days and things are still delicate,’ I said slowly, wiping off my hand and pressing the displaced clump of grass back into the earth. ‘But I would be perfectly happy if you wanted to put a label on this. I mean, it’s not as though we only just met, is it? And you did bring Sumi cupcakes, that’s fairly boyfriend-y behaviour. Boyfriend-ish at the very least.’
‘I can do lots of things that are boyfriend-ish,’ he grinned, sliding his hands inside my shirt and glancing over at the gate to check for passersby. ‘How quiet can you be?’
‘Not that quiet,’ I breathed, yielding to his wandering hands, my words catching in my throat. ‘You’re not really annoyed that he called you my boyfriend, are you?’
He pulled back so I could see his clear light eyes and his huge, dilated pupils.
‘Do I look annoyed?’
He didn’t. He looked handsome and horny and like someone who left his important work to come out on a Saturday night to meet me and my friends with a box full of freshly baked cupcakes.
‘Let’s go,’ he said, removing his hands from inside my shirt and leaving a chill. ‘I’ll come up with a way to work off those cakes.’
‘Sounds like a plan,’ I agreed, clambering to my feet and chasing him back to the entrance, just as an elderly man walking a stately Dalmatian placed his key in the lock on the other side of the gate.
‘Evening, sir,’ Patrick said as I rubbed at the grass stains on my backside before we both burst out laughing and ran off down the street.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
‘Now, do you think we need this many peanuts?’
I stared at my father from behind the enormous red trolley, already jam-packed with more food and drink than any assembly of humans would ever be able to consume.
‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘People love peanuts.’
With an unintelligible grunt, he wedged a jar of peanuts as big as a carry-on suitcase into the trolley.
Nothing said love like a father–daughter excursion to the cash and carry on a Sunday afternoon.
‘Your mum loves peanuts,’ Dad reasoned as he dragged the trolley onwards. ‘I want to make sure we have enough.’
My plan had been to stay in bed with Patrick until I lost the use of my legs and yet, here I was, traipsing around the Croydon Costco (not the closest Costco but Dad’s favourite Costco), buying up the entire store in preparation for their vow renewal. I’d had a panicked call from my mother first thing this morning, asking me to accompany Dad on his shopping trip while she took one for the team and went to visit my nan who had apparently been ‘causing trouble’ at the nursing home and had her phone confiscated. Again.
‘I don’t think she’s going to spend the entire day shovelling KP Dry Roasted down her throat,’ I said while he considered a family-sized tub of wasabi peas. ‘Aren’t there other things to organize first?’
‘Such as?’
‘Venue, invitations, music, flowers, decorations, favours,’ I replied, counting off on my fingers. ‘And I’m assuming you’ve got something to wear.’
‘I’m wearing my suit.’ He swapped the wasabi peas for a giant box of Bombay Mix, then pointed at the label. ‘Can you still call it that?’
‘I think so,’ I said, even though I wasn’t actually sure. He shrugged and dumped it in the trolley. ‘You don’t mean your old grey suit?’
‘It’s a perfectly good suit.’
My dad was a man of few words and even fewer clothes. He wore his jeans until they fell apart and then he had Mum hem them into regrettable denim shorts which wore until the crotch split in two. And the less said about that particular family holiday to Lanzarote, the better.
‘It’s just, Mum’s gone all out on the dress so you might want to think about getting a new one,’ I suggested as I took in his stripy polo shirt and cargo trousers, each and every pocket filled to bursting with some sort of dad essential. ‘And you’ve had that one for a while, could be time to invest in a new one.’
He considered this, stroking his unshaven chin as we walked. Sunday was the only day my dad did not shave. It was a treat he held sacrosanct, along with his Chelsea bun from the village bakery and forty-five unquestioned minutes, in the toilet, with the newspaper.
‘It was good enough for your graduation,’ he said, turning his blue eyes on me. I had Dad’s hair but Mum’s eyes. Alan Reynolds had been blessed with dark brown hair and blue eyes, a startling combo he’d passed on to his youngest daughter, leaving me with Mum’s dark brown peepers. I knew they hadn’t done it on purpose but still, it was very genetically selfish.
‘And I graduated eleven years ago,’ I reminded him, the strain of doing the maths showing on his face. ‘Maybe it’s time for a refresher.’
‘Maybe I’ll see what they’ve got in Debenhams,’ he relented as he reached for a forty-eight pack of Mini Cheddars. ‘How’s work going?’
‘Good,’ I said, pushing the trolley on ahead. ‘It’s going well.’
‘You think you’ll stick this one out then, do you?’
My dad had worked the same job since the day he left school. Literally, he finished his last exam and went directly to my granddad’s shop and started training as a plumber. From there, he started to specialize in fitting kitchens and bathrooms and eventually opened his own bathroom design company, Reynolds’ Bathrooms. It wasn’t the most creative name since the dawn of time but it did what it said on the tin. I knew he was still half heartbroken that I hadn’t followed him into the family business but what could I say? Low flush toilets left me cold. And I couldn’t really see Jo leaving Cambridge with a degree in physics to join him on a January jolly to the Kitchens, Bedrooms and Bathrooms Expo in Cologne.
‘I think it’s very romantic, you know,’ I told him as we trundled around the corner and up the chocolate aisle. I lingered in front of a plastic pyramid of Ferrero Rocher.
‘What is?’ Dad asked, distracted by what claimed to be the world’s largest tin of Quality Street.
‘The second wedding.’
‘Oh. Hmm.’
When we were growing up, Dad wasn’t around very much. I’d never really thought about it until Mum’s changing-room confessional because, at the time, it didn’t seem that strange. I knew everything about my friends’ mums but I knew next to nothing about anyone’s dad. Some mums worked, some mums didn’t, but all of them took the lead with their kids. Dads went to work, dads came home and dads were, for the most part, not to be disturbed. Mums were there to answer questions and help with projects while dads were tired and only available to drive you to the ice rink on Saturdays if they really had to. When my mum was told she’d have to have a caesarean with Jo, I vividly recalled a long and involved debate between my parents as to whether or not I’d have to go and live with my nan for a few weeks, since Mum would be unable to take care of me. I’d made a very vocal case at the time, about how I was fourteen and hardly needed a babysitter, but that was how hands-off my dad was. Sure, he was occasionally around to crack a joke, give a girl a piggyback or destroy my burgeoning sense of self with a casual comment about how my Doc Martens would make all the boys think I was a lesbian, but we really didn’t know each other that well.