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‘All in the kitchen,’ she tells Leo while I stand there suitably impressed. ‘Paige should be in bed but may need a story. Say I’ve gone to the shops so she doesn’t worry. You have my number. Maybe Nate will get back before me, who knows?’
I stand up and give her a long reassuring hug while Leohelps Bella with her coat and hat. ‘We’ll be fine. Let us know how you get on.’
Bella jumps into her arms and I walk her to the front door. I had thought she’d be consumed and preoccupied by panic at this very moment but as soon as Leo is out of sight and she’s in the hallway, she turns to me and hits me across the arm.
‘You were on a date with Leo. Leo with the good teeth!’ she loud whispers.
‘Possibly,’ I mumble back.
‘Why didn’t you tell me? I am your best mate. He seems nice. I like him. Wasn’t he nice, Bella?’
Bella nods. ‘He has blue eyes like a wolf. I like him.’
‘And Bella knows because when she was a baby, she’d always cry when our neighbour held her and it turns out he was cheating on his wife,’ Gemma reliably informs me. ‘If you need something to get you in the mood, there’s half a bottle of red on the counter. Help yourself to anything.’ She looks down to see my trolley bag in the hallway. ‘Why did you pack a bag? Were you off to a hotel or something? What’s in the bag?’ she mutters. ‘It’s not…’ she mouths the words ‘sex toys’ away from Bella’s eyes.
‘NO! I was coming back from a few days away and he met me at the station,’ I tell her.
She pouts and nudges me with her elbow, grabbing her car keys from a shelf by the door. ‘Aunty Maggie has a new friend,’ she says in sing-song accents to Bella who giggles. ‘I have a good feeling about this one,’ she tells me. ‘Right, let’s get you sorted, little missy. I love you, you’re the greatest. Forever,’ she says, walking down the pathway as Bella waves at me, her legs wrapped around her mum.
I close the door softly and go into the living room to find Leo has disappeared. I poke my head out the door and head into the kitchen to see him opening cupboards, trying to locateplates, the food out on the kitchen table. ‘Second cupboard next to the window,’ I tell him.
He finds what he needs and comes back to the table. I lean over and give him a peck on the cheek. ‘Thank you,’ I say. He blushes. ‘You’re good with kids.’
‘I have nieces and nephews. I’ve been around kids,’ he tells me. ‘So that is Gemma?’
I gave Leo a brief rundown of who she is in the taxi over. ‘Yes. I’d like to say she’s normally less manic than that but even before having kids, she always has had that big energy.’
‘I like it, I like her,’ he says, looking around the kitchen to see trails of decorations and numerous Christmas cards hanging off bits of string. ‘Do you want me to re-warm the pizza?’ he asks me.
‘Nah,’ I say, reaching for a piece. ‘I’m good.’
This is not a low-lit romantic trattoria with checked tablecloths and Dean Martin serenading us with Christmas songs but it’s nice to know that we don’t quite need that to sustain the moment. Instead, we can sit around Gemma’s pine table, one half covered in bills and tubes of wrapping paper and it still feels kind of right. In this case, his chair next to me, our bodies almost at angles to each other, our knees touching.
‘Aunty Maggie!’ a voice suddenly says, peeking through around the stairs and Paige runs through to the kitchen to come and hug me and sit on my lap. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Your mum had to go and do some things and she asked me to come round and sit with you lot. Is that OK?’ I ask her.
‘Of course!’ she says, hugging me again. I feel her body tighten when she sees Leo sitting next to me though. ‘Who are you?’
‘Leo.’
‘Like a lion.’
‘Sort of. Except I’m far less scary. Are you Paige?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, how do you do?’
‘Oooh, pizza!’ she cries, far less interested in my friend here and Leo gets up to grab her a plate.
‘Is this allowed?’ I ask Leo. I wasn’t given rules about food.
Leo puts a finger to his lips. ‘It’s Christmas, Aunty Maggie.’
That’s won Paige over for sure and she dives in, still sitting on my lap but watching Leo curiously. ‘So what do you want for Christmas, Leo?’ she asks him, nibbling on a crust.
He looks at me and smiles. ‘I already got something I wanted but I wouldn’t say no to a PS5.’
