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All she’d really learnt from her conversation with Kate was to be herself, which was not at all helpful. Being Sophie was to be a little awkward and a bit anxious all the time, and she couldn’t help but think that wasn’t particularly attractive to a member of the opposite sex.
No, she thought. She could do this. It wasn’t a blind date from the internet this time. This was Liam. She sort of knew him. And he sort of knew her. And he knew what kind of clothes she wore and what her hair looked like normally, so there was no need to worry. He’d seen her covered in glitter and at her most embarrassed. It couldn’t get any worse, could it?
Whatever she was using to justify things to herself, the truth was, time was passing, and she had no choice but to make some kind of decision – any kind of decision so that she didn’t end up going over to Liam Hawthorn’s house in her pants and bra. She shook a fleeting notion of what that could lead to out of her mind.
Sitting up with a groan, she brushed her hair and straightened it. She decided that jeans and a jumper would be laid-back and help her feel relaxed in what, for Sophie, would definitely be a stressful situation.
Time flew past far too quickly for Sophie’s liking, and before long, her phone buzzed. Liam’s text simply said:
Downstairs.
She told herself that she didn’t have time to analyse the message and that one word really didn’t warrant analysis, anyway.
Running the brush through her hair one last time, she grabbed her coat and doubled back on herself three times to check and check again that she’d turned her straighteners off before locking the door behind her as she left.
Liam was waiting at the front of her block of flats in his Land Rover. It was one of the big ones, where you had to go up a couple of steps to get into it. The sides were splattered with mud and Sophie could see from where she stood on the pavement that it was battered and well used. Standing on her tiptoes and peeping through the window, she gave a little wave. Liam popped open the door.
‘I almost didn’t see you there,’ he said, laughing as Sophie held on to the door and threw herself up into the passenger seat. It wasn’t a brilliant start. She couldn’t imagine that there was a graceful way to get herself into a vehicle when the passenger seat was on what felt like the second floor, but she’d given it her best shot.
‘Hi,’ she said finally, once she’d settled into the seat and adjusted her clothes.
‘Hi,’ he replied, smiling. ‘I’d have helped you in if you’d waited.’
Sophie grimaced – her first faux pas – she hoped not the first of many, although past experience didn’t fill her with confidence.
‘It’s fine,’ she said. But it wasn’t. She’d literally launched herself into the car. She hid her embarrassment behind her hair.
Reaching for the gearstick, only centimetres from Sophie’s knee, Liam put the Land Rover into first and pulled off, looking carefully in all of his mirrors as he did so. He noticed Sophie watching him.
‘You can never be too careful.’
He seemed borderline obsessive of road safety. As they drove, Sophie tried to decide whether it was endearing or a little frustrating. It would have been a lot less stressful simply to drive herself over to the farm this afternoon. She wouldn’t have embarrassed herself by jumping into his car for a start.
They drove for several minutes through the town in what Sophie hoped was a companionable silence. She glanced over at him and noticed the muscles in his arms tensing as he controlled the vehicle. He’d shaved that day and his hair was less unruly than it normally was. She desperately wracked her brain for something witty or interesting to say. Her heart was pounding in her chest and her throat was getting dry so that even if she could think of something to say, she was sure it would come out all croaky.
‘Thank you for picking me up,’ she said after a while. It was the best she could do.
‘That’s no problem,’ Liam said, taking his eyes off the road for a moment to smile at her before looking back ahead.
‘I would have driven myself, you know.’
‘I know. But it’s fine. Like I said, the roads can be treacherous around here – especially the single-track ones near to the farm,’ he explained. ‘They get icy and never thaw out because of the hedgerows.’
‘Well, thank you, anyway.’ Then, after a moment, she said, ‘How was Cassie after what happened the other day?’
‘Fine, thanks to you. She really likes you as a teacher, you know,’ Liam said. ‘She might be going through a tough time at the moment – delayed grief or something, the doctor said. But she trusts you and is happy to talk about those difficult things with you, which I’m so grateful for. It’s tough for her, not having a mother figure to talk to or guide her.’
‘Well, I’m glad I could help,’ she said after a moment, pulling at a thread at the end of her coat sleeve. ‘I didn’t know you were planning on talking to a doctor.’
‘It felt like it was time.’
‘Was it helpful?’
‘I think so. It helped to put a few things in perspective, manage our expectations, that sort of thing.’ He smiled a sad smile and glanced at Sophie, his eyes softening when he met hers. ‘I didn’t think moving back would be so difficult for her.’
They pulled into a single-track lane where the hedgerow was laced with frost. The ice hadn’t yet melted, and the road was covered in lumps of mud thrown from tractors. All around there were fields, desolate and barren for now, hibernating and ready for spring to arrive. It was a pretty scene, though, and Sophie sat up straight to look out the window and get a better view. She seldom ventured out of town in this direction and she didn’t realise how beautiful the landscape was out here.
‘I can see what you mean about the roads,’ Sophie said. ‘Did you live on the farm before you moved away?’
