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“My mum has changed. I’d much rather them go to her than them go to your parents.”
“Definitely, but I still don’t feel as though she’d be a good choice for the rest of their lives.”
I wish we had more people in our lives. Good people.
“Sasha and Tommy would be our only other option and I doubt they’ll want to be stuck with our kids,” I murmur and take a large gulp of my wine. It makes my throat tingle.
“We’ll figure it out.”
“Can’t they contest it, though? I mean, if we don’t leave them to family, maybe they’ll contest it and there’s a good chance they’ll win.”
Nathan looks like he wants to punch something… or somebody, hopefully his dad and not the waiter who is heading our way with plates of our food.
“Is this your way of coercing me into going to the Police?” Nathan asks, his brow raised.
“No, of course not, but it would make sense for you to.”
“I just…” His lips thin to a white line and I sense him struggling to meet my eyes.
“I know it’s hard.” I pause when the waiter places our plates in front of us and asks us if we’d like anything else. As soon as he’s gone, I lean forward. “I can only imagine how you feel, but if we take that video footage to the Police, it probably won’t even go to trial. We’ll have his motive for burning the house down too. Not only will he be put away on aiding and abetting a paedophile, he’ll also be on trial for attempted murder and arson.”
He pokes at the food on his plate with a fork, his mind working no doubt a mile a minute. I don’t expect him to speak. I know how difficult it is for him to talk about this. Not only is it traumatising, but to him it’s also embarrassing. He doesn’t like me thinking of him in such a vulnerable position and I don’t blame him. I’d feel the same in his shoes.
My poor Nathan.
“I need time to think,” he whispers after too long of a pause. “Okay?”
I mentally cheer because I know I’ve gotten through to him. “Of course.”
“Shall we eat?”
I nod, feeling lighter from the weight lifting off my chest. “Sounds good. This looks delicious.” Another startling thought hits me, one that sets a childish panic through my heart. “You are still coming for Sasha’s birthday right? Since you’ll be in Essex, which isn’t that far.”
“Of course,” he grins, a stark contrast to how he looked minutes ago. “I wouldn’t miss it. I know how excited you are.”
“Yay.”
When he rolls his eyes lovingly, I know things are good again. At least for tonight anyway.
Chapter Eleven
The morning comes and passes all too soon and work begins even sooner. I miss the days where I just lounged on the couch with new-born Emily, watching TV and trying to nap as Dillan ran riot with his toys.
Working is hard. I thought I could handle it but some days I’m not so sure.
Fortunately, I work with a pleasant group of people, minus the odd one or two grumps that keep to themselves, so it does go quickly. When I’m not constantly preparing plates, I’m laughing with my co-workers. Kerim, though he’s the most intimidating of them all, has to be my favourite person at work. When he’s not being a total twat he’s actually quite fun to be around. He likes to play pranks on the others, like the other day he left a novelty mouse trap in Harold’s pocket and yesterday he hacked into Rex’s phone and changed his ring tone to porn. It was hilarious.
Today it was my turn. After taking off my hat on my break I discover noticeable blue lines across my forehead. He’d painted the inside of the seam blue and I hadn’t even noticed when putting it on. Now I have a jagged stripe across my peachy skin.
“It’s on,” I warn, pointing at him with my blue finger, blue because I used it to try and find what everyone was sniggering about. That saying, ‘Do I have something on my face?’ It came true for me. “It is so on.”
“I’m shaking my shoes,” Kerim laughs, his accent heavy and his sentence lacking proper English, but it only seems to make him funnier.
“In my boots,” I correct, only to receive a napkin to my face. “Ass.”
He grins wickedly as I stomp towards the bathroom to wash the blue off. I’m just praying that he didn’t use permanent marker.
As I’m about to bring water to my forehead, my phone rings on the edge of the basin so using my dry pinkie I accept the call and put it on loud speaker.
“Did you get my text?” Nathan asks.
“No, I’ve only just got on break.” I bring some wet tissue to my forehead and scrub at the blue. It only seems to smudge so I frown at my reflection and resist growling angrily. “What’s wrong?”
