Daring to Date Her Ex

by Annie Claydon

  Amina straightened in her chair. ‘No. This may cause Ava to become a talking point. I cannot allow it.’

  He could feel Thea’s gaze on him. Urging him to do what was right. ‘One of the most valuable lessons I can teach my daughter is to stand up for her friends and to do what’s right. It’s not my place to deny her that and, respectfully, it’s not yours either.’

  He saw Thea’s eyes widen. Had he done this for her? Or for Ava? The certain knowledge dawned on Lucas that he’d done this for himself. Because it was the right thing to do, and if he stood by and watched while another family was ostracised because of ignorance, he’d be as bad as the scare-mongers. Worse, because he knew better.

  Amina nodded slowly. ‘I will convey your invitation to Safiyah.’

  ‘I doubt that’s necessary.’ Lucas quirked his lips downwards. ‘I imagine that Ava and Safiyah are already way ahead of us. I’d be surprised if the whole school doesn’t know about it by now.’

  Finally Amina laughed. ‘Perhaps so. When the other parents see that you have made Safiyah your guest, they may change their minds.’

  That had occurred to Lucas too. ‘I hope so. When they do it’ll make my life easier in two areas. Professionally I need to spread the message that there’s no stigma involved with TB.’

  Thea chuckled. ‘And personally he’s got a teenage daughter.’

  Amina laughed with her. ‘Enough said.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  IT HAD BEEN a busy week again. Thea had called Mariam’s doctor and he had co-operated completely. Mariam had been seen and was indeed suffering from active pulmonary tuberculosis. In one way it made things much clearer, since Mariam had spent the previous summer with her cousins in Birmingham, and Lucas had been able to confirm contact with one of the cases there. But how the infection had travelled six miles, from one school to another, was still a mystery.

  He wasn’t thinking about any of that at the moment, though. This was the one weekend of the year that had to be remembered. He and Ava usually went away with his parents to their cottage in Cornwall, but this time he’d stayed behind. The memories, which had become less painful over the years, weren’t enough any more.

  Sam’s birthday. Exactly a week before Lucas’s own, and when they’d been kids it had been the best week of the year. Now Lucas was sitting on a bench, opposite Sam’s grave, thinking about how his big brother had taught him to ride his new bike.

  Tears sprang to his eyes and Lucas went to wipe them away, even though there was no one there to see them. ‘You were always there to pick me up. What am I going to do now?’ Addressing his brother like this seemed a little weird, but it felt good.

  The gravestone didn’t answer. Of course it didn’t. But somewhere in his head Lucas knew what the answer would be. ‘Don’t look at the ground, or you’ll fall. Keep your eyes on where you want to go.’

  Lucas ventured another observation. ‘I worry about Ava all the time. It’s hard.’

  The gravestone stared back at him blankly. Suddenly Lucas remembered something Sam had said just before he’d died. ‘She’s growing up. That’s not supposed to be easy.’

  Lucas grinned. ‘You and me both, eh, Sam?’

  This was stupid. But he couldn’t move away from this quiet place, surrounded by trees and flowers. And as he was there, he may as well give Sam the whole story.

  ‘I’m working with Thea—you remember Thea. Ava loves her and she makes me want so much more out of life.’

  He waited for an answer. Maybe here was none.

  ‘You need to live your life, Lucas. We may not be breathing the same air, but we’ll always be brothers.’

  Sam’s retort, when Lucas had first told him of his plans to go to Bangladesh and his fears that parting might change everything between them. It occurred to Lucas that this was the last place that Sam would have wanted to see him. That he wouldn’t have wanted Lucas to put his own life on hold any longer.

  ‘I hurt her, Sam.’

  Nothing. Maybe he had to come up with the solution to that one all on his own. The one thing Lucas did know was that it was his responsibility to make sure that Thea wasn’t hurt again.

  He wiped the tears from his face. He should go, before someone found him here, talking to ghosts and voices in his head. But he couldn’t move. And if someone found him crying, who cared? This was between him and his brother.

  * * *

  Two hours later, Lucas said his farewells to Sam and Claire and walked away. He supposed that he should feel better, but he wasn’t quite sure how he felt. Lighter, perhaps. It was difficult to tell. Maybe it was just the sunshine and the quietness, which had cleared his mind a little.

  He got into his car and stared at his phone. Without consciously making a decision about what he was going to do next, he dialled.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘I’m hungry. Do you want some lunch?’

  A pause. ‘What’s going on, Lucas?’

  ‘Nothing.’ Everything. ‘It’s Sam’s birthday today.’

  ‘I remember. A week before yours. You want to talk about something?’

  She remembered his birthday. The thought made Lucas smile. ‘No, I don’t want to talk about anything. I want to have lunch with you.’

  Another pause. ‘What about Ava?’

  ‘She’s in Cornwall with my parents. I stayed behind.’ An idea occurred to him and Lucas found himself grinning into his phone. ‘I could murder a plate of oysters.’

  He heard her laugh quietly. ‘Okay, then. Oysters it is.’

  * * *

  He was parked outside her flat, leaning against the car. Lucas knew she’d be watching for him, and Thea knew in return that he didn’t have a trip to a restaurant in mind. His worn-out jeans and beach shoes confirmed it.

  He eyed the towel poking out of the top of her canvas bag. ‘So much for trying to surprise you.’

  ‘You surprised me when you called. And you can’t go to the beach without paddling.’

  She handed her bag to him. That was all it took to slip back into the easy etiquette of a couple. He stowed it in the back of the car and opened the passenger door for her.

  ‘Music or wind?’ Lucas grinned as she got into his car.

  ‘You know I want music. But as you’ve got a convertible now…’

  He shrugged. ‘I can’t think why. I don’t think I’ve ever driven around with the top down.’

  ‘What?’ She gave him a reproving look. ‘Okay, let’s have music on the motorway, and when we see the sea, we’ll put the top down.’

  ‘Sounds like a plan.’ He slid a CD into the player and fiddled with the volume.

  ‘What’s this?’ She didn’t recognise the song.

  ‘One of Ava’s. We play one track each and this one’s hers. Skip on to the next one if you like.’

  ‘No, let’s have Ava’s as well.’ She settled into her seat. ‘So where exactly are we going?’

  Lucas gave her a melting smile. ‘Take a guess…’

  * * *

  An hour on the motorway and then branching off into Kent was the first clue. They made Whitstable in just over two hours, and it wasn’t long enough for Thea. She could have driven all afternoon with him, favourite tracks on the CD player just begging to be sung along with and the road stretching out in front of them.

  ‘Aha.’ She straightened in her seat. ‘Look, look I see the sea. Over there.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘You missed it. It was there, definitely.’

  ‘Okay.’ He slowed down, pulling into a lay-by and turning the car around.

  ‘What? Don’t you believe me?’

  ‘Just checking.’ He leaned across to see out of the passenger window. Quite unnecessary really, but it seemed essential right now. ‘That’s not the sea. It’s mist.’

  ‘Yeah, mist over the sea. Put the top down.’

  Lucas shrugged and operated the control for the automatic roof of the car. ‘Happy?’

  ‘Very.’


  ‘You want to put your scarf over your head?’ He indicated the bright scarf that she had wrapped around her shoulders.

  ‘No, I want to feel the wind in my hair.’ It might be short, but it was still hair. And this was the seaside.

  They drove down towards the sea, stopping outside a couple of seafood restaurants on the way. Both were fully booked. Fate seemed to be driving them down towards the water, and Lucas finally managed to get them a small table in the open air at a restaurant close to the beach.

  ‘You first.’ He inspected the dozen oysters that lay on a bed of crushed ice in front of them and indicated the plumpest.

  ‘I like that one, for starters.’ Thea indicated another, smaller specimen. ‘I’ll work my way up.’

  He chuckled, lacing the oyster with a few drops of juice from a quarter of lemon, just the way she liked it. Thea reached for the delicacy, but he had already picked it up.

  ‘Ready?’ His lips quirked into a smile.

  ‘Go for it.’

  He put the flat edge of the shell to her lips and tipped. The oyster slid into her mouth, without spilling a drop of the juice.

  ‘Mmm.’ She chewed once, and the taste of the sea filled her mouth. Then sweetness on her tongue. ‘These are very good. Try one.’

  He picked out one for himself and downed it. ‘They are, aren’t they? Maybe we should have had two dozen.’

  ‘Too rich. I haven’t eaten oysters in ages. I’d have to work myself up to having a whole dozen of them.’

  He nodded. ‘Yeah. Baby steps to start with, eh?’ Lucas looked up as the waiter approached with an ice bucket and expertly wrested the cork from a bottle of champage without anything more than a demure pop.

  ‘More champagne?’ Thea grinned at him. ‘What are you trying to do, prop up the industry?’

  ‘I reckoned on a toast. Seeing that it’s Sam’s birthday today and mine in a week’s time.’

  He was smiling. That strained look whenever he talked about Sam seemed to have blown away on the wind.

  ‘That’s a great idea. Down in one, and then smash the glasses.’ She looked at the two, mass-produced glasses that the waiter had brought, wondering if she dared.

  Lucas laughed. ‘Do you know why they smash glasses after a toast?’

  ‘No. Why?’ Thea had always thought it had an air of finality about it.

  ‘It’s a way of making sure that the glass can never again be used to drink a toast to someone else, who may be less important.’ He took the bottle from the ice bucket, pouring a little into each of their glasses, the foam fizzing up.

  ‘Mmm. I like that.’ She squeezed a little lemon juice onto two oysters, handing him one. ‘Oysters, and then you make the toast.’

  ‘Down in one?’

  ‘Absolutely.’ She grinned at him. That was the way that she and Lucas had always done things. Never by halves.

  They swallowed the oysters and then Lucas held his glass towards hers. ‘To Sam and Claire. Happy birthday, Sam.’

  A tear glistened at the corner of his eye, but he was smiling. Thea tipped her glass against his.

  ‘Sam and Claire.’

  She drank, and bubbles rushed up her nose. ‘Oh. That’s good stuff.’

  ‘What, you want me to get a cheap bottle for Sam and Claire?’

  It really didn’t matter. They could have drunk the toast in cold tea and it would have meant the same. It was the change that had been wrought in Lucas’s heart that mattered. The way he seemed to be celebrating his brother’s life, instead of thinking only of his death.

  ‘You should do this every year. Go somewhere and drink a toast.’

  He shrugged. ‘Perhaps I will.’ His gaze caught hers and held it. ‘Maybe it just needed to be done the once.’

  ‘Then let’s do it right.’ Thea tightened her fingers around the slender stem of the glass, snapping it in two.

  He gave a small nod, snapping the stem of his own glass and putting the pieces onto a napkin. ‘Sam would have said this was a terrible waste. He was always the practical one.’ A tiny trickle of blood ran over Lucas’s trembling fingers and he brushed it away.

  ‘No, he wouldn’t. You said that he used to look after his little brother.’

  ‘Yes, he did.’

  Lucas turned to the waiter, who had hurried over and was looking questioningly at the two broken glasses on the table. He pulled a note from his wallet, which covered the cost of the glasses plus a generous tip, and the waiter didn’t ask, just gathered up the pieces in a napkin.

  ‘I’ll bring another two glasses, sir.’

  ‘No. Do you have a couple of paper cups so we can take this away and drink it on the beach?’

  ‘You can’t drink champagne out of paper cups.’ The waiter looked mildly affronted. Clearly he didn’t know Lucas. ‘I’ll bring another couple of glasses and you can take them with you. This’ll cover it.’

  * * *

  They had picked their way across the smooth, sun-baked pebbles on the beach and found a spot out of the wind by one of the heavy wooden groynes that ran down the beach and into the sea. Lucas poured a full glass of champagne for Thea and a half for himself.

  ‘Hey, what are you trying to do, get me drunk?’

  ‘I’m driving.’ He grinned. ‘Getting you drunk is just a side agenda.’

  She flopped back onto the warm shingle. ‘I’ll go and get some orange juice later to dilute it.’

  He chuckled. ‘That doesn’t make any difference. And how many more ways can you think of to ruin good champagne?’

  ‘Hundreds…possibly thousands.’ Thea stared up at the clear blue sky. This was heaven. ‘So what are you doing for your birthday?’

  ‘Dunno. You’ll keep the evening free?’

  ‘If you like.’ The invitation was very casual, and her answer was equally offhand. But then Lucas touched the cold champagne bottle to the top of her arm, making her shiver. He could turn the smallest gesture into an act of slow, melting seduction.

  ‘You’re sure you know the date?’

  ‘I know it. Tenth of July. Eighteen hundred hours.’

  ‘You know what time I was born? I don’t even know that.’

  ‘Six o’clock is when we get off work. You were probably born at two in the morning, but I’m not going to wake up and sing “Happy Birthday” to you then.’ Thea adjusted the concept. It was almost second nature now to believe that they must be sleeping together, even though they’d barely touched today. ‘You probably wouldn’t answer your phone, anyway.’

  He chuckled. ‘I’ll put it on vibrate and tape it over my heart.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THEY STAYED ON the beach until the sun began to graze the horizon, then wandered back up to the car, stowing the half-drunk bottle in the footwell in the hope that it might retain some of its fizz after they got home, and putting the two glasses back on an empty table outside the restaurant. Lucas got chips from a fish and chip shop a couple of doors along, and they walked back to the beach to eat them.

  ‘Mayonnaise. You remembered.’ Thea dunked one of her chips in the tub of home-made mayonnaise that Lucas had bought for her.

  ‘Yeah. I remember all your bizarre culinary preferences.’ He dunked his own chip into a similar tub of tomato sauce.

  ‘What, chips and mayonnaise? Nothing wrong with that is there? Try some.’

  ‘Nah. Not after oysters.’ He flopped onto his back on the sun-warmed shingle, leaving Thea to stare out across the bay.

  ‘Can I ask you something?’ The question had been bugging her since he’d first called that morning. ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Yeah, of course.’

  ‘What are we doing here?’

  Lucas took a while to mull over the answer. ‘I reckon we’ve known each other too long to be acquaintances. We’re either friends or enemies, and I really want it to be friends.’

  So did she. ‘Okay. Friends is good.’

  They finished their chips and strolled back down towards the sea again, tak
ing off their shoes and leaving them on the thick posts of one of the wooden groynes. Thea rolled up her trouser legs, picking her way over the sand and stones and into the water.

  ‘How is it?’

  ‘Lovely and cool. It’s a bit squishy, though. I’m sinking into the sand.’

  ‘Well, don’t stay in one place for too long. You might get sucked under and then I’d have to explain to Michael Freeman how I managed to lose his best doctor.’

  ‘Hah! So you wouldn’t come in and rescue me?’ Thea threw down the challenge.

  ‘Nah, I don’t want to get wet. Hey!’ He dodged to one side as Thea splashed some water towards him. ‘Watch out.’

  He bent, rolling up the legs of his jeans as far as they would go. Thea picked her way further into the sea, and he splashed after her. The gentle incline of the beach meant that by the time he caught her they were still only standing in six inches of water.

  ‘You want to get me wet, eh?’ He swept her off her feet and into his arms, bending over as if he was going to dunk her into the water and then straightening up at the last moment.

  ‘No!’ Telling him he wouldn’t dare would only make him do it. She wound her arms tightly around his neck and gave him a pleading look. ‘Don’t…’

  ‘Say it nicely.’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘Nicer than that.’

  She leaned in to him, her lips grazing his cheek as she spoke. ‘Please.’ She planted a kiss behind his ear, and felt him shudder.

  Slowly he let her down, and she felt her feet touch the water. She kept her arms around his neck, as if losing contact with him now would be letting him go for ever.

  He kissed the top of her head. ‘I think…’

  ‘Don’t think, Lucas.’

  * * *

  When she tipped her face up towards him, Lucas almost lost his balance in the water. Her pale skin was almost ethereal in the setting sun and her eyes…her eyes were like the soft lights of home, glimmering out into the dusk.

  She didn’t hesitate but she didn’t rush things either. Her lips met his, just when he thought he couldn’t stand it any longer, and broke away just at the right moment. It wasn’t quite what Lucas had been thinking when he’d said ‘friends’ but he couldn’t help it.