by Fiona Lucas
“I’m not sure yet,” she said, “but some way to connect other people so they can talk with each other like we have.”
“Other people? Talking to each other?”
“Something like that. I need to get it straight in my head before I get going with it. I’ll keep you posted as I work it all out.” She paused and took a breath before carrying on. “And talking of moving on, on finding healing after loss, there’s another big step I’ve decided to take.”
Brody was so relieved at the thought he was still going to have Anna all to himself that he said, almost absentmindedly, “Oh, yes?”
“I’m going to ask Jeremy if he’d like to have dinner with me.”
Brody recoiled from her words as he would from a punch. “Uh . . .” was all he managed to say. He hadn’t been expecting that. She’d hardly mentioned the guy in the last couple of months; he’d been lulled into a false sense of security.
Her voice wavered. “You don’t think it’s a good idea?”
No, he bloody well didn’t think it was a good idea! But he wasn’t going to tell Anna that, he realized almost instantly. How could he? Why would he? What was he going to say: Give Mr. Slick the elbow and have dinner with me instead? Especially with everything he’d just been about to reveal to her.
“Brody . . . ?”
She was waiting for his answer, yet he couldn’t say what he wanted to say. He didn’t need a million reasons why he couldn’t ask her to dinner. Five were enough.
First, they lived hundreds of miles apart. Second and third, he didn’t know her full name or her address, but those were tiny hurdles compared to the fourth reason: even if he knew these things, it wouldn’t do him any good. What was he going to do? Travel to London on a packed train, meet her in a café or a swish restaurant? How exactly would that go?
And if that wasn’t enough, the last reason knocked the rest down like a bowling ball hitting wooden pins. He’d be a ball and chain around this amazing woman’s leg. Instead of letting her reach her full potential, he’d drag her back into the shadowy valley of guilt and grief with him, back into everything she was escaping from. He couldn’t do that to her.
He cleared his throat and answered her. “No.”
“No, you don’t think I should ask him?”
“I meant, ‘No, it’s not a bad idea.’” He paused briefly, caught off guard by the tightening in his chest. “I think you should ask him. Go for it.”
He could tell a smile was blooming on her face as she exhaled softly. It only made the crushing sensation around his rib cage worse.
“Okay, then,” she said, sounding more certain. Sounding happy.
Brody wanted to punch something.
“I’ll tell you how it goes—if I work up the courage!” she added.
He kicked an exposed root with his boot, then closed his eyes and let his head fall back. “You do that.”
Chapter Thirty
Anna sat at a table in a nice little Italian restaurant, knotting and unknotting a thick linen napkin as she watched the large clock behind the bar. She’d got here deliberately early, knowing she’d need some time to center herself before Jeremy arrived. Not for the first time that evening, she made herself breathe out slowly.
La Cucina wasn’t in the town center. That had felt too public—which was ridiculous, seeing as a restaurant, by definition, is a public space—so she’d chosen a small, family-run establishment in the middle of a little parade of shops in a residential area.
So here she was, ready for her first “first date” in well over a decade. It all felt very strange. Anna glanced at the clock again. Ten minutes.
The waiter approached. “Is there anything else you would like, madam? An aperitif? Some olives for the table?”
“No. No, thank you,” Anna replied, so he busied himself straightening the cutlery and filling her glass with water, even though it didn’t need topping up. He’d been like this since the moment she stepped in the door, always bustling, fussing over little details. It was as if someone had set him on a gentle mode of fast-forward. She supposed he thought it made him appear attentive and efficient but, frankly, he was starting to tire her out. It made her jitters twice as bad.
She was on the verge of ordering a cocktail, just to make him go away, when her phone buzzed. She fished it out of her handbag, and when she opened up her messages, she saw the text was from Gabi.
Good luck!!! xxxx, it said with a row of hearts and flowers and champagne glass emojis following in procession afterward.
Another one popped up as she was reading: Just relax
Easier said than done, thought Anna.
Gabi finished off in a manner that was so typically Gabi that Anna had to smile, even while her heart galloped: And don’t forget to kiss him at the end of the night! (That’s an order!)
Anna closed her eyes and did the long, slow breathing out thing. Oh, Lord. She couldn’t even think about that. Dealing with the beginning of the night was hard enough.
And as if fate knew her level of jitteriness was maxed out, Jeremy chose that moment to walk through the door. Anna resisted the urge to slide under the table and hide, but instead stood and smiled as he walked toward her. He always looked good, but he looked particularly handsome tonight, in a nice shirt and jeans. Thankfully, Jeremy’s effortless, easygoing charm papered over the cracks of her nervousness, and by the time the waiter had come to take their orders and had retreated again, she was feeling on much more of an even keel.
Jeremy took a sip of his wine and sat back in his chair, looking at Anna with a thoughtful expression. “I must admit, I was surprised when you called.”
Anna laughed nervously. “Me too.”
“I’m glad you did.”
Anna didn’t reply with words but with a smile that started off small and just grew bigger and bigger, seemingly of its own accord.
Jeremy sat back in his chair and regarded her thoughtfully. “Back in the summer, you told me you weren’t ready.”
Anna nodded. “I know.”
“But you are now?”
Anna could see the questions in his eyes, but they didn’t annoy her like those of her friends and family did. These questions belonged there. He had a right to them after all the mixed signals she’d been giving him. If Anna was a traffic light, she’d been flickering between amber and red where Jeremy was concerned. “I am.”
“What changed?”
Anna put down her knife and fork. “I have,” she said simply, realizing that this was the truth. She no longer felt like a zombie stumbling through life in a haze.
“I want you to know I’m not just after a fling. I’m looking for something more serious.”
Anna sighed. “You might have already guessed this, but you’re the first person I’ve dated since Spencer passed away. It all feels a bit new and a bit strange . . .”
She looked up and he didn’t seem fazed or perplexed, just accepting. It gave her the courage to carry on. She needed to be honest with him from the start, give him a chance to back out if they weren’t on the same page. “I’m not sure I can promise you forever, Jeremy, especially not on a first date. I’m not even sure I believe in forever anymore. I mean, the ‘till death do us part’ bit still looms over that concept like a large black thundercloud.”
“I’m not asking for that,” he said, his eyes crinkling as he gave her a gentle smile. “Just that you’re willing to see where this goes. And I know this isn’t easy for you, that we might have to take things step by step.”
Anna understood what he was asking for. A green light. Not to the end of a road that stretched out forever, but he was looking for a sign. Something. She reckoned she was ready for something. “Yes,” she said. “I’d like to see where this goes too.”
IT FELT STRANGE walking down the road with a man, a man who wasn’t Spencer. Strange, but not awful.
Anna had deliberately left her car at home, partly because she’d wanted the fresh air on the twenty-minute walk to La Cucina t
o clear her head before the date, and partly because she suspected a couple of glasses of wine might bolster her courage. She’d been intending to call a cab at the end of the evening, but Jeremy had suggested walking her back and they’d been having such a good time she hadn’t been ready to end the evening yet. However, as she got closer to home, she started to wonder if this had been a mistake.
What is he expecting? she thought as they turned into her road.
She wasn’t ready to ask him inside her house. Not even a little bit. Not even for “coffee” that actually meant coffee. It would be too weird. This was the house she and Spencer had planned to build a life in, and she couldn’t imagine another masculine presence inside it. Baby steps, she told herself. Baby steps.
And those baby steps eventually brought her right outside her house. Anna opened the gate and glanced at Jeremy as he released her hand and let her walk up the path in front of him. She couldn’t read his expression, couldn’t get any hint of what he thought the next five minutes—or longer—might hold. It unnerved her and her heart began to thud. When she got to the front door, she stopped and turned. Her voice came out thin, her tone patchy. “It was a lovely evening.”
He stepped in closer, until their faces were only centimeters apart. “It still is.”
Not Spencer! Her little internal alarm squawked. It was the first time she’d heard it that evening, but even now it was weak and half-hearted. Instead of reacting to it as she normally did, she turned and faced it. Replied to it.
No, he’s not Spencer, she told it, both firmly and gently, like a primary teacher explaining a basic rule to a new batch of rosy-cheeked four-year-olds. But maybe that’s okay. Maybe I just need to jump over this hurdle and it won’t be such a big thing going forward.
And just to prove it she leaned in and kissed Jeremy. As soon as her lips touched his, his arms came around her, pulling her closer, deepening the kiss a little. It was strange—he kissed differently from how Spencer had kissed. It wasn’t all tingling skin and fireworks like it had been with her husband, but it wasn’t horrible either. It was a nice kiss, a perfectly fine kiss.
When he pulled away, he said, “Would you like to do dinner again—next Saturday, if that’s not too soon?”
Anna nodded again, and then realized that talking might help her seem less of a wet lettuce, and added, “Next Saturday it is.” They kissed again, and then he turned and walked down the path.
She watched him for a moment, then slipped inside, closing the door softly behind herself. She shrugged off her jacket and dropped it on the chair in the hallway then went into the living room and sat down in the corner of the big sofa and stared straight ahead.
Did I just do that? Did I actually just kiss another man?
It all seemed a bit unreal.
Are you okay with this? she silently whispered into the air, once again wishing more than anything that Spencer could answer her. She was pretty sure, logically speaking, he’d want her to be happy, to take life by the horns the way he had always done, but thinking it in her head and feeling it in her heart were two completely different things.
She reached over and turned on a lamp and as she did so, she realized she was sitting in the spot she always nestled in when she phoned Brody. Instinctively, she reached into her bag and pulled her mobile out, preparing to dial his number.
A missed call? From Brody? Anna blinked and checked the time. The call log said it had gone unanswered at ten thirty-eight. About five minutes ago—about the time she’d been standing on her front doorstep kissing Jeremy. She prepared to hit the button to call him back, but then hesitated.
It was a reflex now, she realized, to reach for her phone and call Brody any time anything significant happened in her life, good or bad, but even though she’d glibly told him that she’d give him all the gory details of her date, she wasn’t sure she wanted to.
Why? Why was this weird?
She closed her eyes and exhaled. The truth was that she didn’t know why she was feeling this way, she just was, and it was merely the last stop on a roller coaster of emotions she’d experienced that evening. Maybe she should just let herself calm down and tell him about it tomorrow?
Chapter Thirty-One
The following evening, Anna wrapped herself in a warm cardigan and sat at the table and chairs on her patio. The sky was a deep indigo, a shade so rich she wished she could reach out and touch it. This had been a favorite spot of hers and Spencer’s. In the summer, they’d had long, lazy evening meals out here, laughing and talking, wishing on stars and building dreams for the future.
Those same stars twinkled back at her now, but she refused to tip her head back and study them the way she’d once loved to do. She hadn’t quite forgiven them yet for not doing their jobs, for not holding on to those promises and wishes she’d given them for safekeeping, but she was coming around to it. Slowly.
She glanced down at the phone in her hand. She needed advice about something she’d been putting off thinking about, but now time was running out and she needed to make a decision. On any other day, she’d have dialed Brody instantly, but she felt bad for not calling him back last night. It was strange. It felt as if something had changed in their relationship, and she didn’t know what.
She was on the verge of putting her phone back in her pocket when she stopped herself being so stupid. Instead, she rang his number and waited for him to pick up. He always picked up, she realized. He was always there when she needed him.
“So sorry I didn’t call back last night! I was out, and I had my phone on silent.”
“It’s okay,” he said, sounding as grave and unreadable, as he often did. “Did you have a good evening?”
She swallowed. “Yes. I, er . . . I went on a date.” She paused, grimacing slightly as she added, “With Jeremy.”
A silence fell thick and hard. Eventually, he asked, “How did it go?”
“Well—I think . . .” Anna closed her eyes. She wished she hadn’t started this now. Her weirdness about this was obviously giving the whole conversation a funny vibe. Better to move on to another subject. “How are you? Is everything okay?”
“Yes. Why?”
“I just wondered if something was up, if you’d wanted to talk about something in particular last night.”
All Anna could hear for a few seconds was the distant noise of traffic on the main road a few streets away from her, the wail of a neighbor’s cat.
“No. Not really.” He paused again.
Anna frowned. She’d had the strangest feeling for a while now that Brody’s nothing was actually something, filling the spaces in their conversations he often left empty. What wasn’t he telling her?
“I just wanted to talk to you . . . Hear your voice.”
There was an honesty about the way he said those words that brought a lump to her throat and she instantly hated herself for having doubted him. “Brody . . . I think that’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“It’s true,” he said, a puzzling hint of resignation in his tone.
She looked down at her feet. She could hardly see the details of her shoes now. They were just blurry gray shapes in the darkness. All the awkwardness she’d been feeling earlier drained away. They were back in their bubble, a unit of two. “I don’t know what I’d do without you,” she replied. “You’re one of my best friends.”
There was a slight noise at the other end of the line. She hoped it was him huffing slightly as he smiled. At least, that’s what it sounded like. “Good” was all he said. But for Anna, it was enough. She smiled too.
“Oh! I almost forgot! I need to ask your advice about something. Again. Sorry!”
She heard his soft laughter properly this time. “Don’t apologize. The only other person who gets the benefit of my advice is Lewis, and I’m not sure he’s very appreciative. What’s happened?”
“You know I said Teresa had invited me to her birthday party in a couple of weeks?”
“Mm-hmm . . .
”
“Well, I was chatting to her about it earlier today. I had assumed it was going to be mostly friends—especially as she said she wanted to make up for the wild bash she should have had when she turned thirty but didn’t because she was too depressed about it. Well, it turns out I was wrong. It’s going to be a family party, everyone from all generations invited, and that means—”
“Ah. I see . . . Gayle.”
“Exactly,” Anna replied. “I’m dreading it. I haven’t seen her since the day I called her a cold-hearted bitch. But I can’t not go. I can’t punish Teresa for what Gayle did, especially as she and I have been getting along so well recently.”
Ever since she’d visited when Little Spencer (as everyone now called him) had been born, something had shifted in her relationship with Teresa. They’d always liked each other, but now they had a bond. Teresa felt like . . . well, family.
“I think you’ve answered your own question,” Brody said.
Anna sighed and brought her feet up onto the seat, tucking one under the other. “I know. But what am I going to do about Gayle?”
“Do you have to do anything about her?”
Anna pinned the corner of her lip with her teeth. Did she? The idea that she might not was oddly liberating. “You’re saying, just go—no apologies, no explanations—and ignore her?”
“I was thinking just be cordial, but it’s up to you.”
“Don’t react, in other words?”
He laughed. “Bingo.”
She slumped forward onto the table, supporting her head with one hand. “Why do family gatherings have to be so exhausting? I’m already dreading Christmas, even though it’s still more than three months away, and don’t even get me started about New Year’s Eve!”
“Which is worse, do you think?” Brody mused. “Christmas or New Year?”
There was a heartbeat while they both pondered the answer. “New Year,” they both said at exactly the same time, which made them both laugh. Anna hugged her knees and glanced up at the stars. It was starting to get a little bit chilly now, but she didn’t want to go inside. As she watched one star, trying to work out if it was winking a pale green color or whether it was just her imagination, a thought came to her. “Then why don’t we not do New Year’s Eve this year,” she said.