What Matters

by Gracie Leigh

  Cringing, Eddie let him have his moment, and then pushed him away. “That’s enough, Ian. I’ll see you around, okay?”

  Ian sighed. “Okay, Eddie. Take care, won’t you? And don’t be a stranger?”

  “I won’t,” Eddie promised, though she had no intention of seeing Ian anytime soon, if ever again.

  She shut the door on him and let out a long breath. The next few days were her busiest yet, packed with rehearsals, lectures, and working at the café, but for the first time since she’d left Italy last year, she felt free.

  Chapter Eight

  Eddie didn’t hear from Sam all day. She attended her Saturday lectures and a gruelling four-hour orchestra rehearsal, and checked her phone every moment she could, but it remained blank, and by the time she left campus, a righteous anger had begun to tickle her veins. After all, Sam had fucked her and then left her without so much as a word. How dare he?

  But her belligerence was quickly overcome by embarrassment. What was it he’d said? “You’re annoying, but I fucked you anyway?” Not quite, but paraphrasing suited her mood.

  She went home, half-hoping to find Sam on the doorstep. Of course, she didn’t, and she considered passing by the café, but pride kept her at home. Instead, she washed Ian’s coffee cup, took a shower, and climbed into a bed that still smelled of Sam Nowak.

  The next day was the first Sunday that Eddie had been asked to work. She turned up to her breakfast shift all guns blazing, but found old Mr. Nowak cleaning the grill.

  “Sam doesn’t work most Sundays,” Mr. Nowak growled out. “He looks after his babcia for me and cooks the dinner at my house. You’ll see him tomorrow.”

  Bastard, though Eddie knew she couldn’t slate Sam for taking care of his grandparents, when it had been the one thing that she’d immediately liked about him.

  Irritated, she got to work filling the condiment bottles and the salt and pepper pots. When that was done, Mr. Nowak called her to the grill. “You want to cook today?”

  “Cook?” Horror shuddered through Eddie. “Me?”

  “Why not?” Mr. Nowak countered. “My grandson is always complaining about being tied to the grill. Let him clean the tables.”

  Despite herself, Eddie grinned, and didn’t point out that Sam cleaned plenty of tables when she was around. She took Mr. Nowak’s spatula and studied the flat top of the grill nervously. “How do you scramble eggs on this?”

  “I’ll show you. Don’t worry. Sunday is a different crowd to the rest of the week. They shout less.”

  Eddie wasn’t sure she believed him, but she followed his instructions on setting up to cook anyway. Sam and his grandfather ran the grill, the toaster, and the hot plates singlehanded, often making hot drinks and serving on the till at the same time. Eddie, apparently, would spend the morning limited to just the grill—bacon, sausages, mushrooms, and eggs. Black pudding and the café’s famous bubble and squeak. Tomatoes and fried bread.

  The idea of handling the deeply-scented kielbasa sausages made Eddie feel slightly ill, but the challenge of cooking for Vauxhall’s hungry breakfast crowd was oddly exciting. And really, how hard could it be to flip a few bits of meat and fry some eggs?

  Very, as it turned out, and even though Eddie had far fewer tickets in front of her than Sam or Mr. Nowak ever had, she struggled to keep up.

  “You got that bubble, missy?” Mr. Nowak roared. “Customers waiting.”

  “It’s coming,” Eddie snapped. Then she scanned the grill and realised the delicious dollop of crushed potatoes and vegetables she’d slopped on the grill was perilously close to catching fire.

  Damn it. She scraped it into the bin, hoping Mr. Nowak wouldn’t notice that it was the third portion she’d ruined. Or the collection of overcooked eggs she’d stashed under an empty bacon packet.

  The morning rushed by in a haze of singed mushrooms and sausage grease. Eddie was taken aback when Mr. Nowak pried the spatula out of her hand and told her it was time for her own breakfast. “Already?”

  “It’s midday. Let’s eat.”

  Eddie wasn’t about to argue. At Mr. Nowak’s instruction, she fixed herself a plate of eggs, mushrooms, and bubble and squeak, and him a collection of as much meat as possible, topped off with a huge pile of grilled tomatoes.

  At the same table Eddie and Sam had sat at on Friday night, Mr. Nowak cast a critical eye over her plate. “Still no meat?”

  “I’m a vegetarian,” Eddie insisted for the millionth time. “Besides, not starving myself, am I?”

  Mr. Nowak couldn’t argue with her heaping plate and dug into his own breakfast. Eddie did the same, and for a while they ate in companionable silence, washing their food down with big mugs of Mr. Nowak’s special sweet tea.

  The taste of it took her back to the morning she’d rocked up on his doorstep, and she wondered what he made of her now. Apparently Sam thought her a good worker, but what about Mr. Nowak? Did he think she was worth the tea, toast, and shelter he’d bestowed on her that fateful wet morning?

  Mr. Nowak’s face was as unreadable as Sam’s when he wasn’t roaring for plates of burned bubble and squeak, and it was on the tip of her tongue to ask, but that’s not what came out when she opened her mouth. “Did you see Sam yesterday?”

  Oops. But Mr. Nowak didn’t seem bemused by the question. “’Course I saw him. He brought me the takings last night and got a clip round the ear for his trouble.”

  Eddie couldn’t help smiling. “Really? Why was that?”

  “Because he’s rude. All morning he has a face like a smacked behind, and then he’s still sulking when I see him later. That boy needs to cheer up.”

  Eddie’s smile faltered. “He was in a bad mood?”

  “He’s always in a bad mood.”

  A few days ago, Eddie would’ve been inclined to agree, but with the image of him bearing down on her, his lips curled in a wicked smirk, so fresh and raw, she couldn’t deny that she’d seen another side of Sam—a side she was already darkly addicted to.

  I want to fuck him again.

  The realisation shocked her, and delivered another dose of the devilish heat she’d carried since Sam had first laid a hand on her. Mr. Nowak said something. She blinked. “Sorry. What?”

  “You kids.” Mr Nowak shook his head. “You’re all the same—away with the fairies. At least you eat, though, and take care of yourself. Not like that grandson of mine.”

  Eddie frowned. “What do you mean?”

  But Mr. Nowak’s answer was cut off by the arrival of a group of people he clearly knew. Eddie forgotten, he rose and rushed to greet them, leaving her to clear the table and get back to work. Which she did until Mr. Nowak sent her home.

  It was gone three when she let herself into an empty flat. Her cryptic conversation with Mr. Nowak still on her mind, she took a shower, and then went to the spare room and spent the rest of the day mastering the passage of music she’d been unable to get right all term.

  Vanquishing that particular demon was liberating, but she couldn’t dissuade her Sam-obsessed brain from returning to Mr. Nowak’s assessment of Sam’s mood the previous day. His absence from Eddie’s bed now made sense—he’d gone to open the café, of course he had—but his subsequent black mood stung. Had she been that bad in bed?

  Eddie’s self-esteem was precarious enough to wonder, but her memories of that night wouldn’t have it. The connection between her and Sam had been dangerous—explosive—and undeniable. It wasn’t that. It couldn’t be.

  Perhaps it’s got nothing to do with you. Ever think of that?

  Eddie thought about it now, and decided it was a convenient truth that she could live with. Sam’s radio silence bothered her more than she cared to admit, but there was no doubt in her mind that Sam fucking her like that, so hard and raw, had been as good for him as it had for her.

  Right?

  She was no closer to figuring it out when she arrived for her early shift on Tuesday morning and found Sam already there, hacking up tomatoes and mush
rooms like they’d run over his dog.

  “Morning,” she said hesitantly. “Um…I’ve brought my violin with me because I have uni after work. Is there somewhere safe I can store it?”

  It wasn’t quite the breezy, nonchalant entrance she’d planned, but being in Sam’s presence again had tripped her up, wiping her brain of coherent thought. It even took her a few moments to notice that Sam’s answering chuckle held little humour.

  “Figures,” he muttered darkly.

  “What does?”

  Sam tossed his knife on the counter and showed her his face for the first time since he’d left her splayed out on her bed. “That you’re one of those posh music students who walk around town with their noses in the air. Let me guess. Daddy bought you such a prized instrument that the insurance policy is more than your rent? And you want me to hide it upstairs for you so the poor people don’t see it?”

  His tone was so scathing that Eddie took an instinctive step back, though he wasn’t wrong. Her Stradivarius was worth more than the car she’d left at her parents’ Buckinghamshire estate, and the monthly insurance bill she’d recently become responsible for made her eyes bleed.

  Eddie met the stern glare Sam was treating her to. “Is something wrong?”

  “Nope.”

  “Sure about that? You seem to be in a bad mood.”

  “I’m just fine, thanks. Are you working, or what? Don’t pay you to stand around the kitchen.”

  “I’m going to get changed now, I just need—”

  “Yeah, yeah…your crown jewels. Give it here, I’ll take it upstairs.”

  Nonplussed into silence, Eddie handed over the violin, cringing as Sam took it and stormed out of the kitchen, letting the door to the café bang noisily behind him.

  “Pissed him off already?”

  Eddie jumped a mile and whirled around. At the back door stood a man around Sam’s age who clearly shared his taste in sinfully tight jeans and Motörhead T-shirts. “Who on earth are you?”

  “Dylan,” the man said easily. “I came to see Sam, but I guess I’ll leave if he’s in that mood.”

  “That mood?”

  Dylan grinned, flashing Eddie a set of perfect white teeth. “Yeah, that mood. The one where he growls a lot and punches walls.”

  Brilliant. As charming as Dylan seemed to be, Eddie couldn’t raise a smile. What she’d expected from Sam, she wasn’t quite sure, but the proverbial kick in the teeth had fallen way short of the mark. “I’m going to get changed.”

  Dylan nodded, and Eddie left him to his doorway leaning, assuming he’d have found something better to do by the time she came back.

  He hadn’t, and Sam was still absent too, and so nothing had changed. Eddie got to work rescuing the produce that Sam appeared set on pulverising, and when Dylan ventured further into the kitchen and perched himself on the counter beside her, she cast him a curious glance. “You must be pretty good friends with Sam if he lets you sit on the counter.”

  Dylan reached across Eddie and snagged a tomato. “He’s my best mate, not that I ever see him. He’s always holed up here, or running around for his grandparents.”

  “That’s what I’m here for,” Eddie said absently. “To give him and his grandfather more time to themselves.”

  “Well, you’re not doing a very good job. I haven’t seen Sam for a week, and now I come by to find him in one of his rages.”

  “Excuse me?” Eddie began indignantly, then she looked up again and caught the mirth in Dylan’s gaze. “I’m not responsible for Sam’s moods. The man is a mystery to me.”

  The last part was true, but Eddie couldn’t shake the worrying inkling that she’d inadvertently riled Sam’s temper. Though quite how, she had no idea, aside from the now dismissed theory that she was simply a crap shag.

  On cue, Sam appeared in the kitchen. “Your violin is on my couch. Better hope my cat don’t piss on it.”

  “You don’t have a cat,” Dylan piped up before Eddie could have a coronary.

  “How would you know? You haven’t been round for weeks.”

  “One week, actually,” Dylan countered. “I came by last weekend, but your grandpa said you were having trouble—”

  “Shut the fuck up.”

  The vehemence in Sam’s growl turned Eddie around, but he wasn’t looking her way; he was glaring daggers at Dylan, who appeared unrepentant, though he said no more.

  Eddie went back to her chopping. Dylan flashed her a cheeky wink that set off his blue eyes and hair that was as light as Sam’s was dark, then he slid sinuously off the counter and followed Sam out of the kitchen.

  Nice to meet you.

  Eddie shook her head slightly as she tipped her prepped produce into the large plastic containers Sam and Mr. Nowak kept in the fridge beneath the grill. In his own way, Dylan was as intriguing as Sam, and the exchange of two men who were apparently best friends had left her a little bemused. Shut the fuck up. Why? What had Dylan been about to say that Sam didn’t want her to hear?

  And why did she care when he so clearly didn’t give a stuff about her?

  The righteous anger that had niggled at Eddie since Sam had initiated radio silence returned full force. I’ve had enough of this. She rinsed her hands under the tap and then stalked out of the kitchen in search of Sam. Dylan be damned, she was having this out with him right now.

  But Sam was nowhere to be seen, Dylan either, and Eddie’s frustration boiled over. She slapped her hand down on the nearest table, absorbing the impact as it rattled up her bow arm and into her shoulder blade, prodding an old injury she couldn’t afford to awaken. Damn Sam Nowak. I hate him.

  The abrupt onslaught of emotion, along with the sound of footsteps on the stairs, sent Eddie running back into the kitchen. She was back at her chopping station when Dylan reappeared.

  “Yup. He’s in a stinker, all right,” he said.

  “Not my business.” Eddie looked in the fridge for bubble and squeak ingredients. “I’m sure he’ll get over it, though.”

  “Erm…I don’t think so, but do me a favour, will you?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Make sure he eats something before you get busy. He doesn’t look after himself.”

  Eddie frowned. That was the second time she’d heard that in as many days, and coming from Dylan who didn’t look much older than her, it sunk in all the more. He doesn’t look after himself. What did that even mean?

  Clueless as ever—when it came to Sam Nowak, at least—Eddie didn’t know, and when Sam came back to the kitchen, his scowl firmly in place, she decided that she didn’t care. He’d survived twenty-six years without her concern. Let him stew.

  But her resolve grumbled instantly a little while later when she came out of the kitchen, weighed down by a tray of full milk jugs, to find Sam slumped at a table, his head on his arms.

  Eddie set the tray down and moved quickly to Sam’s side. She touched his arm and immediately felt the heat radiating through his T-shirt. “Sam? What’s the matter?”

  Sam’s response was muffled by his arms, but the set of his shoulders gave off his message loud and clear: Leave me alone.

  Fine.

  Eddie went back to the counter and noisily stowed the jugs away by the fruit juices. She half-expected Sam to yell at her for chipping crockery, but when that didn’t happen, she glanced at him again to see that he hadn’t moved.

  Eddie checked her watch—five minutes to six—which meant the café was about to open. Dylan’s request flashed into her mind. “Make sure he eats something before you get busy.” Though Eddie couldn’t think why Dylan had felt the need to drop by at the crack of dawn to say such a thing, his instruction was something she could actually do.

  Flicking the toaster on with one hand, she rummaged for bread with the other. She retrieved four slices of the cheap white bread the café’s patrons preferred and chucked them under the heat.

  She searched for something to put on it. Butter, obviously, and then a jar of honey caught her
eye—London honey, apparently, from a hive just down the road.

  When the toast was as dark as it could go without burning, Eddie rescued it and slathered on the honey. She took two slices on a plate, and a glass of orange juice, to Sam and banged them on the table.

  Clearly startled, he raised his head, his face pale and drawn. “What’s that?”

  “Breakfast,” Eddie snapped, fighting the urge to brush his wayward hair out of his face. “Eat it and pull yourself together. I can’t serve everyone by myself.”

  She forced herself to walk away and get on with the last few jobs setting the café up, without checking back on Sam. A few minutes later, she felt, rather than heard, him get up and go into the kitchen. She had no intention of following him, but as the clock struck six and the front door keys were nowhere to be seen, she sighed heavily and barged through the kitchen door.

  Sam was by the freezer, jabbing something that looked suspiciously like a needle into his abdomen. He jumped when he noticed Eddie, and thrust whatever it was into his pocket.

  Oh no you don’t. Eddie strode to him and shoved her hand into his pocket. “What on earth are you doing? Are you bloody mad?”

  Perhaps taken by surprise, Sam didn’t react at first, and Eddie had her fingers around something small and plastic before he suddenly moved and ripped her hand out of his pocket.

  The plastic object went flying across the kitchen and clattered into the sink. Eddie wrenched her hand free of Sam’s vice-like grip and lunged for it, snatching it and holding it up in the air. “What the hell are you doing? Does your grandfather know about this?”

  “About my insulin pen? Yeah, I’d say so.”

  “Your what?”

  “My insulin pen.” Sam crossed the room in two strides and pried Eddie’s fingers open. “What did you think it was? A fucking smack fix?”

  Eddie opened her mouth. Shut it again, as she realised that she actually had no idea what she’d been thinking when she’d thrown herself at Sam. Just that her imagination had driven her to assume the worst. That the sight of him injecting God-knew-what into his stomach had terrified her. “I’m sorry.”