So Now You're Back

by Heidi Rice

  About as relaxing as making a baked Alaska in the Sahara Desert, if you must know.

  He picked up the mug of coffee she’d poured and took a sip, watching her intently over the rim. The careful consideration unsettled her.

  As a girl, she’d never been able to figure out what Luke was thinking. It had frightened her then, eventually making her hideously insecure. Unfortunately, that inscrutable expression didn’t have a completely negligible effect on her nerves now, either, if the rabbit punches of her pulse were anything to go by.

  ‘I agreed to come all the way to Tennessee,’ she continued, ‘and to be your plus-one for this stupid article. Apparently, I also agreed to do a load of extreme sports activities that will probably kill me. And to share a cabin with you.’ Stop babbling and get to the point. He doesn’t make you that nervous. ‘And while I could dispute that, I won’t.’ She emptied the second espresso shot into her mug.

  ‘That’s big of you.’

  ‘Yes, I thought so,’ she replied, matching his sarcasm and raising it. ‘But I did not agree to spend two weeks playing house.’ She’d done that once for three years. She did not need a reminder. ‘So while we’re here, alone …’ She took a gulp of the coffee, then winced at the bitter aftertaste. ‘I will stay out of your way, and I’d appreciate it if you would stay out of mine.

  I.e.: no shared hot-tub time.

  He drained his mug and leaned past her to place it in the sink. She shifted to the side to make space for him, the fine hairs on her forearm prickling alarmingly as his elbow skimmed the skin. His gaze caught hers as he stepped back.

  And she knew. If he had been unaware of those inappropriate hormone bumps before, he certainly wasn’t now. Because she could see the knowledge reflected in his eyes.

  ‘I’ll stay out of your way on one condition,’ he said.

  ‘What condition?’ Deal or no deal, Present Halle wasn’t going to be suckered into agreeing to any more impossible bargains Future Halle would be forced to fulfil.

  ‘Once you’re back in London, I can email you directly about Lizzie, without getting your damn solicitor involved.’

  ‘Done.’ She capitulated quickly, relieved by the harmlessness of the request. And a little surprised how easy it was to agree to.

  Maybe she’d been wrong to keep him out of the loop for so long. As Lizzie’s dad, he was the only other person who cared about Lizzie as much as she did. Talking with him about their daughter didn’t have to be bad.

  As long as he was safely on the end of an email. In another country.

  Face-to-face, in a luxury mountain cabin in the Tennessee mountains, with no Wi-Fi? Not so much.

  ‘You want to shake on that?’ He held out his hand, the way he had in Paris.

  She stared at the long blunt fingers, the sun-browned skin, the curved scar by the base of his thumb. And, for one breathless moment, recalled exactly what those calloused fingers had once been capable of.

  ‘No, that’s OK.’ She wrapped sweaty palms round her mug, the hormone bumps coming out to party as if it were 1999 again. ‘I’m good.’

  Or as good as I’m gonna get, under the circumstances.

  Chapter 11

  Sunday mornings suck.

  Lizzie grabbed some freshly squeezed OJ from the overstocked fridge to combat the worst case of dry mouth ever.

  Especially Sunday mornings when you get woken up by a vodka hangover that would make Vladimir Putin weep.

  The zing of citrus cut through some of the fuzz in her throat but not much. Her mouth still felt like Aldo’s hamster had been bedding down by her tonsils. The ache in her head concentrated in her temples as she poured herself a mug of coffee from the pot already percolating. She controlled the whimper of self-pity. Her symptoms were all totally self-inflicted. Unfortunately, they hadn’t been self-inflicted in a good cause, like an all-night rave, but rather were the result of one—or maybe five—too many vodka shots while watching back-to-back episodes of Come Dine with Me on her new iPad last night.

  Was there anything more tragic than getting pissed alone while watching some loud-mouthed bank clerk with a comb-over cook pigs’ trotters for three people who couldn’t stand him?

  No wonder her mum’s show was such a hit. At least there was proper cooking in it.

  Coffee slopped over the lid of the pot as she dumped it back on the hotplate.

  Mr Perfecto must be up already. Probably sneaking around being useful. Making coffee and avoiding her. Resentment edged out the self-pity. She wouldn’t have had to barricade herself in her room last night and find her own amusement in the bottom of a vodka bottle if Trey and Aldo hadn’t commandeered the games room to watch the Chelsea match and then finish constructing Stamford Bridge on Minecraft.

  Not that she was enough of a loser yet to play with fake digital Lego, but it was the principle of the thing. They’d totally left her out. Trey especially. She might as well have been invisible. He’d spoken to her exactly twice during the match. She’d counted. And only after she’d asked him a direct question.

  He’d moved into the room across from Aldo’s on Friday afternoon and after a day and a half of non-stop activities to which she hadn’t been invited she was starting to feel as if she had the Black Death.

  She sipped the coffee black, the acrid chicory taste going some way to unstick her tongue from the roof of her mouth, and began riffling the drawers for her mum’s emergency supply of ibuprofen. What she needed now was drugs and lots of them.

  She prised the round pink pills out of their casing and popped three in her mouth. Mr Perfecto himself strolled into the kitchen and then stopped on the threshold. She almost choked on the last pill, then gulped it down with some coffee.

  He must have just had his shower. She’d never seen him like this before, fresh and damp and rumpled. His cropped hair flattened against his head in grooves where he’d fingerdried it with a few impatient swipes. The smooth olive skin on his jaw was reddened where he’d shaved.

  After pausing on the threshold, he walked into the room, his loose-limbed stride casual but not entirely relaxed. Pronounced pecs stretched the light blue weave of his polo shirt. Clean but worn Levi’s clung to the long muscles of his thighs and hung loose at his lean waist. Those scuffed Nike high-tops padded on the floor in time to the thump of her heartbeat. How could he look good even in that lame shirt?

  ‘You’re up?’ He didn’t disguise his surprise as he reached for a mug from the cabinet behind her left shoulder. She got a fleeting glimpse of a flat, lightly furred belly when his lame polo shirt rose up. And stored away the knowledge that he had an outie belly button. He lifted the coffee pot and the citrus scent of his shower gel surrounded her. She inhaled before she could stop herself. He smelled delicious, clean and fresh—unlike her.

  ‘Couldn’t sleep,’ she said, sidestepping away from him to perch on one of the stools that rimmed the breakfast bar. And avoid asphyxiating him with the sour smell that probably clung to her. She crossed her arms under her breasts, embarrassed by the shapeless T-shirt and old boxer shorts she had on—and her complete lack of a bra. Not that she had much to hold up, but her breasts felt heavier than usual all of a sudden.

  New rule: No more coming down to breakfast in your rattiest night gear while Mr Perfecto, now also known as Mr Lame-But-Hot, is in residence.

  ‘Have you got another outing planned for today?’ she asked.

  ‘The Serpentine. I thought we’d go swimming. My weather app says it’s going to hit the thirties.’

  She nodded. ‘Sounds like a plan.’

  Why did the fact he had a weather app suddenly seem cute instead of moist, too? She imagined him in swimming trunks and suntan lotion and got light-headed. She had to get an invite—she wasn’t spending another day pondering her crappy life while even her little brother saw more action. And a swim would be one way to blitz her hangover. That or kill her, which, either way you looked at it, would cure the problem. Plus, the one good thing about all the weight she’d
lost when she’d dumped Liam a year ago was her bum looked virtually non-existent in a bikini. ‘Could I come?’

  ‘Do you want to?’

  ‘Why not? I haven’t got anything better to do.’ It wasn’t exactly gracious, but then he’d smell a rat the size of Japan if she were too eager.

  ‘I guess you can. But I’ll check with Aldo that he’s on-board first, before we make a final decision.’

  Aldo will do as I tell him. He’s not the boss of me.

  ‘Don’t worry, Aldo will be on-board if you suggest it. You’re the Aldo Whisperer now,’ she said drily, to cover the spike of anticipation. No need to get too excited. It was only a stupid trip to the Serpentine.

  ‘The what?’

  ‘Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed Aldo hero-worships you.’ As he used to do with her. Back when he was a toddler and she wasn’t a bitch.

  ‘Yeah, right.’ Trey heaped a bowl with Cheerios. ‘I wish.’

  ‘He doesn’t …?’ Was that the tiniest hint of snark? And why did it please her so much? It hardly mattered to her whether Aldo genuflected whenever Mr Lame-But-Hot appeared.

  He glanced up and she could see him deliberating for a moment. ‘I just happen to know the top-secret formula to handling ten-year-old boys.’

  ‘Which is?’ she asked, stupidly pleased by the hint of confidentiality in his tone.

  He splashed half a pint of milk into the Cheerios, shovelled a spoonful in his mouth. Chewed and swallowed. ‘If I told you that, I’d have to kill you.’

  The joke was so cute and so unexpected, she grinned. ‘Only if I rat to the au pair police, and I won’t.’

  ‘All right, then, here it is …’ He propped his elbow on the breakfast bar and leaned towards her, bringing his face close enough for her to pick out the compelling hints of hazelnut in the chocolate brown. And see the small abrasion on his chin where he’d nicked himself shaving. ‘Feed them, water them and exhaust them,’ he murmured. ‘Not necessarily in that order.’

  ‘But that’s … way too easy.’ Aldo had been a complete nightmare until her mum had hired Trey. Lizzie had been jealous while also a little awed by his ability to solve all her brother’s problems, when a team of child psychologists, behavioural therapists and remedial teaching staff had failed.

  ‘Easy?’ he scoffed, cradling the bowl in his hand to take another gigantic spoonful. ‘Try exhausting a ten-year-old boy. It’s not easy. It’s bloody hard work. They have more energy than Mo Farah on speed.’

  ‘How did you figure it out?’ she asked, the awe showing through.

  ‘Simple. I was a ten-year-old boy myself once with more energy than I knew what to do with. I know what it’s like having it all bubbling away inside you. Unless you work it off regularly, you feel like you’re going to explode right out of your skin.’

  She couldn’t imagine him as a ten-year-old boy, he seemed so confident and mature. She could, however, imagine him having enough energy to explode out of his skin. The way his biceps bulged and flexed as he focused on scooping the last of the cereal into his mouth looked powerful, and ridiculously erotic.

  She wondered what he did to work all that energy off now?

  ‘And did you?’ she asked, not too bothered by the husky timbre of her voice. Even if it was a dead giveaway to the filthy direction of her thoughts. ‘Explode, I mean.’

  He was far too square to jack off on a regular basis. And far too polite to guess her ratty pyjama shorts were getting a damp spot while she speculated on the possibility.

  He finished demolishing the Cheerios and placed the bowl in the dishwasher. But when his eyes met hers, colour crept into her cheeks at the long, considering look. The damp spot grew as she wondered if she’d overestimated his squareness. Or underestimated his mind-reading abilities. She crossed her legs to ease the growing ache between her thighs. And recrossed her arms under her breasts, which now felt as if they had swollen to twice their normal size: i.e., almost big enough to fill a B-cup.

  ‘Not quite.’ He broke eye contact to wipe the coffee spill off the countertop with a paper towel. ‘Although the school authorities would probably have disagreed.’

  She should have apologised for leaving the spill, but she was too rapt by the conversation and the insight into his past. ‘Why?’

  ‘Perhaps because I spent more time on exclusion than I did at school.’ He pitched the towel into the kitchen bin. All nonchalance. ‘Detentions, time outs didn’t work on me, so they went large. And that didn’t work, either.’

  ‘You got excluded from school? I don’t believe it.’ Mr Perfecto, a problem child? Get outta here.

  His eyebrow hiked up. Then his crooked smile sent a jolt of pleasure through her. She’d never seen him smile like that before. Not polite and distant, but warm and a bit wicked. Or at least not at her.

  ‘Why not? Because I’m supposed to be Mr Perfecto?’

  ‘You know about that?’

  His lips quirked. ‘You don’t have a lot of volume control when you’re mad.’

  She felt instantly contrite. It was a novel feeling. ‘I’m sorry. That stuff …’ She hesitated, not wanting to explain. ‘It’s not really about you.’ Although she had included him in her war of attrition with her mother. Because she’d been jealous of his success with Aldo, and how much her mum raved about him. And not her. When she hadn’t given her mum much reason to rave about her of late. It all felt rather small and petty and juvenile now.

  ‘That’s OK.’ The smile didn’t falter as he shrugged. ‘Better to be Mr Perfecto than Mr Arsehole.’

  The comment made her feel insecure. Was he sharing the joke with her or taking the piss? He probably didn’t like her much. Why would he?

  ‘Why don’t I make brownies to take with us to the Serps?’ It was a peace offering, pure and simple. She studied his expression to gauge his reaction, keeping watch for any signs of the contempt she’d seen so often from Liam when she’d tried too hard to please him.

  ‘Cool. I’ll make the sandwiches.’ He seemed relaxed, making it impossible to be sure one way or the other.

  Bummer. He was much harder to read than Liam.

  They worked together in silence, the sun streaming through the basement window and lightening Lizzie’s mood. After gathering all the ingredients she needed from her mum’s larder, she started melting the chocolate. She sensed Trey behind her, slicing the bread and raiding the larder for tins of sweetcorn and tuna to make the sandwich filling Aldo adored. Normally, she would have moaned on principle. Why did Aldo always get the filling he wanted? Just because he refused to eat anything else. The calories in her mum’s home-made mayo were catastrophic. But she was too busy catching glimpses of Trey as he worked. At one point, he leaned over her to grab a bowl from the cabinet above her head and she got another heady whiff of that woodsy shower gel. She caught sight of his biceps, round and sturdy beneath the short sleeve of his polo shirt. Did he do weights? Have a gym membership? Liam had always been super skinny. But what had seemed edgy and cool a year ago seemed weedy now next to Trey’s solid strength.

  Awareness pulsed in places she didn’t want it to as his long fingers gripped the sweetcorn tin, his wide wrist flexing as he worked the can opener.

  He caught her looking and she averted her eyes, suddenly absorbed in folding beaten eggs and flour in with the melted chocolate and butter mixture. She greased the baking tin and hoped he couldn’t see the blotchy blush working its way up the back of her neck like a Virginia creeper.

  Slopping the gloopy mixture into the greased tin, she chopped up some salted peanuts and sprinkled them on top. She refused to look his way again while she listened to the sounds of him cling-filming the sandwiches.

  ‘You didn’t weigh anything?’

  She glanced over her shoulder at the enquiry. ‘No need. It’s a simple recipe. I’ve made it with my mum a billion times.’ Back in the days when her mum had let her help out with all the baking chores on a Saturday morning.

  ‘You and your mu
m used to bake together?’ The question was tinged with astonishment. As if he couldn’t imagine her being helpful.

  ‘Yes, she always had tons to do at the weekend—party food mostly. Kids party catering was how she made her money in the early days, before the cake designing took off.’

  ‘Did you enjoy it?’ If he wasn’t so hard to read, she might almost have thought he sounded wistful.

  She pushed the tray into the oven and slammed the door on the memories. ‘It was OK.’ She shook off the moment of melancholy. No point in getting cheesy about the good old days. Her mum certainly never did. And why would she? Her mum didn’t need her help any more because she had a whole army of helpers who could do the job better than Lizzie ever had.

  It was a glorious day for a visit to Hyde Park, the weather having thrown London for a loop by deciding it was mid-August in the south of France instead of early July in the UK. The sun warmed the still verdant grass, which hadn’t had a chance to be beaten down by a thousand tourist loafers yet. The cool spots under the horse chestnut trees, as they walked across Kensington Gardens, smelled of wet earth and tree sap rather than dust and dog shit. After they’d paid the nine pounds for a family ticket to enter the Lido enclosure, Aldo raced ahead to find ‘the best spot’. Lizzie hung back with Trey, darting glances past the few other groups already there to make sure none of her friends had decided to come for a morning swim. The last thing she wanted was to get spotted on something as shudderingly uncool as a ‘family outing’. She relaxed, though, after scanning the crowd and seeing no one between the ages of sixteen and thirty, except her and Trey. She relaxed more when it occurred to her it was only ten o’clock. None of her friends would even be out of bed yet and she wasn’t sure any of them could swim. And, even if they could, they probably wouldn’t be caught dead swimming in the Serpentine with its dark water and squidgy lake bottom—which sunk through your bare toes and made you wonder how much of it was really just duck poo.