‘Seven. You said I could wake you up at seven.’
‘Did I?’ Why hadn’t she said eight? Or nine? Or ten?
‘Will you open your Easter egg present now?’
‘I’ll open it at eight. Come back then. Love you.’
Autumn was back what felt like about three minutes later, brandishing the egg and a big plate.
‘Is it really already eight?’ Evie asked.
‘Yes. Look, I brought you a plate so that you don’t make a mess if the chocolate cracks.’
‘You’re very clever.’ Evie sat up in bed and took the egg while Autumn bounced up and down on the end of her bed. She took the egg out of its blue foil and gave it a little smack against the plate. ‘Oh.’
‘It’s a key,’ Autumn said. ‘Why has he given you a key?’ She bounced herself down onto her bottom and shuffled forwards and inspected the plate. ‘It’s got a message on it. “Twenty-two A Hartfield Road”. What’s that?’
That was Matthew’s address. On the back of the address message he’d written,So that you can come and go as you like.
Wow. Giving someone a key was huge. And unnerving.
Nice, of course.
But very unnerving.
At least he hadn’t asked her to move in with him. She definitely wasn’t ready for that.
Evie thought about Dan and his baby and about Matthew and hownicehe was.
‘That’s a strange present,’ Autumn said. ‘Grown-ups do boring things.’
‘Mmm.’
Seventeen
Now – May 2022
Dan
Dan’s phone buzzed. Sasha. She was up in London for the May bank holiday weekend and he’d seen her for lunch yesterday.
‘Hi, it’s me,’ she said. ‘You got any plans for this evening? Working? Going out?’
‘No. Why?’
‘Perfect, perfect, perfect. We need someone extra for a quiz night. I’ll text you the details. It starts at seven. See you then. There’s curry. Don’t eat.’
He experienced a wave of annoyance that reminded him of being about twelve and furious with his bossy little sister. He should text her and say he wasn’t going.
Although, Sunday evening. It had been raining all day, he’d had a depressing text from Hannah earlier, saying that she was still thinking about next steps but that New York in the autumn was looking likely, and he’d been planning to catch up on some admin this evening but really didn’t fancy it right now. A quiz night wouldn’t hurt to take his mind off things.
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘See you later.’
Sasha’s text with the details pinged through. It was in an upstairs function room at a pub in Kew. He could drive out there.
Would Evie be there? She might be. Did he want to see her? It depended. It was always nice to catch up with her but he wasn’t really up for watching her with her boyfriend.
By the looks of things, i.e. the one empty seat at their table of eight, Dan was the last to arrive. There was no sign of the blond guy Evie had taken to Sasha’s engagement party. Maybe they weren’t together any more.
