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‘Dad, can we?’
‘If Sophie’s sure she doesn’t mind,’ Liam said, lighting the hob and turning around to check.
Sophie shook her head and smiled. ‘I don’t mind. But you might mind when you see what my cookie-decorating skills look like.’
‘Yay!’ Cassie said.
Liam passed her a Tupperware full of cookies that they must have made the previous evening. Sophie liked that they did things like that together.
‘Here, you have this one,’ Cassie said, passing her a bauble-shaped biscuit with a hole in the top. Tubes of icing and pots of glitter and silver balls were already spread out on the table – almost as if Cassie had planned it.
Liam poured out two mugs of tea and set one down in front of Sophie, who was already smearing a bright red base layer of icing onto her biscuit.
‘Thank you,’ she said, without looking up, her tongue poking out from between her lips in concentration. Cassie looked across at Sophie and mirrored her actions, choosing white icing as a sensible starting point for her snowman biscuit.
While they worked, Liam made his way around the kitchen, concocting his famous spag bol. At one point, Sophie looked up to see him emptying a tin of baked beans into the pan. But she guessed that suddenly finding yourself as a single parent to a young child probably led to its culinary challenges – and experiments.
‘Right, here we go!’ Liam said, lifting the pan off the hob and bringing it over to the table. He had attempted to lay out the mats and cutlery around the mess that Sophie and Cassie had made with their biscuits.
Sophie quickly shuffled things around and put the decorating paraphernalia to one side. ‘Maybe your dad will let us try one afterwards,’ she said, with a conspiratorial wink towards Cassie.
‘Can we, Dad?’ Cassie wriggled in the chair to get in a suitable position for eating.
‘Only if you eat all your veggies,’ he said, placing a well-timed bowl of steamed vegetables on the table. Cassie went straight for the serving spoon, clearly wanting to make sure one of the cookies came her way for dessert.
Sophie scooped up a spoonful of the spaghetti bolognese and popped it into her mouth. ‘It’s actually very good.’
‘You sound surprised,’ Liam said.
‘Well, you did put baked beans in it,’ Sophie said, a little uncertainly. Cassie laughed from across the table.
‘Ok, you have sort of got a point there,’ agreed Liam.
Dinner didn’t last very long. The spaghetti bolognese turned out to be delicious and although Sophie thought she’d probably be too nervous to eat, in fact, Liam and Cassie made her feel at home and for the first time she could remember in a long time, she felt relaxed. They devoured the meal in no time.
Sophie didn’t relax for long, though. Only an hour or so later, it was Cassie’s bedtime. And she knew that once Liam had put Cassie to bed, they’d be alone.
‘Say good night to Sophie.’
‘Good night, Sophie,’ Cassie said, skipping over to Sophie and giving her a hug. Sophie was surprised and bent over to hug her back. She kissed Cassie on the head.
‘Thank you for inviting me to dinner,’ she said. ‘Good night, Cassie.’
Cassie went upstairs and Liam followed her. ‘Back in a minute,’ he said before disappearing up the stairs behind her.
Sophie brought their two mugs of mulled wine over to the sofa and sat down. It was softer than she’d expected, and she sank suddenly into it, holding her wine up in the air to avoid it spilling everywhere.
Liam had already filled the room with candles and lit the wood burner so that the space was flooded with a pool of ambient light. The Christmas tree lights twinkled in the corner, glinting off the ornaments they’d hung together the previous weekend.
‘She’s already closing her eyes,’ Liam whispered as he reentered the room and shut the door to the hallway softly behind him.
‘She’s a lovely girl,’ Sophie said. ‘You’ve done such a good job with her.’
‘Her mum had her on the right track before she died,’ Liam said, sitting next to Sophie on the sofa and reaching over for his wine.
‘What happened?’ Sophie asked. She couldn’t help herself. If anything was going to happen with this man, she needed to know what he had dealt with in the past, before they’d met.
Liam looked thoughtful, and his eyes glazed over as if his mind were travelling to a different place. He ran his finger along the edge of his wine glass. ‘She skidded on some black ice just before Christmas five years ago. Her car went across the middle of the road. The lorry coming from the other direction just didn’t have time to stop.’
