‘She always did like a bit of drama.’ Jesse finished the last of his roll and wiped his hands. His sister stood back, hands on hips.
‘A bloody tree fell on her house! I don’t think I can be accused of exaggerating anything!’
‘No, unfortunately not,’ I agreed.
Jesse shrugged.
Julie turned to me. ‘He makes out like he’s all cool about stuff but if he wasn’t worried, then why did he turn up at your house?’ She arched her eyebrow at him. They were a great shape. I really needed to ask who she went to for them.
‘I was being neighbourly,’ her brother replied. ‘We all know the house still needs work. I’d have done the same for anyone,’ he said, shooting a meaningful look at his sister. ‘Did you bring Felicity some clothes?’
She stared back at him for a moment, clearly unintimidated despite the differences in their size. I smiled at my petite, but fierce friend.
‘I’ve brought some jeans and a couple of T-shirts and a sweatshirt. I’ve left a coat and trainers in the hallway. There’s a couple of pairs of knickers in there too but I wasn’t sure about the bra…’
A grin slid onto my face. Julie had been at the front of the line when boobs were being dolled out. I was later to the party and consequently got the leftovers, which wasn’t much.
‘Thank you. I’m pretty sure I can get away with going braless.’
Beside me, Jesse’s coffee took a wrong turn and he gave a sudden cough. Julie whacked him on the back. ‘You all right there?’
He nodded, cleared his throat and took another sip, which apparently knew the correct way down.
‘Thanks for this, Julie. It’s really kind.’
‘No problem at all. I’m just glad you’re all right. You must have been terrified! You should have rung me. Oh, of course, you don’t have my number. Good job this one was on the ball.’ She jerked her head towards her brother. ‘What’s your number, Felicity?’
I reeled it off and a moment later, my phone beeped.
‘There, now you’ve got mine too,’ Julie said.
‘I’m hoping no more trees plan on launching themselves at my house!’ I smiled, only half joking as I picked up my phone and sent a kiss face and the words,Thank youto Julie.
‘I’m sure they won’t. But now I can see if you want a coffee some time or something.’ She looked at the message, grinned and leant over and gave me another hug. ‘I’m so glad you’re safe.’
A lump formed in my throat, constricting my reply, so I made a small nod instead. These two people, people I barely knew, had both put themselves out for me, come to my aid, with no expectation of anything in return. It was a rare and unusual experience for me and I was a little off-balanced by it.
‘Thank you,’ I forced out. ‘Thank you, both of you, for everything you’ve done. I don’t know how to repay you.’
Jesse’s chair scraped as he stood. ‘No repayment needed. Do you want to go and get changed and we’ll go up to the house and see what’s what?’
I pushed my own chair out, a sudden wash of nausea rolling over me as the thought of what we were going to find – and how much it was going to cost – hit me. I gripped the edge of the table as Jesse’s shovel-sized hand came to rest gently on my shoulder. ‘Hey.’
I started. ‘Sorry. Yes, of course. I’ll just go and change. Thanks again, Julie.’
‘You’re welcome,’ she said, seeing herself out. ‘I’ll call you later.’
‘OK,’ I said, already looking forward to it. The door closed behind her. Jesse’s hand remained in place and I looked up at him.
‘It’s going to be OK.’ His voice was soft, assured and steady, and if I hadn’t witnessed a sodding great tree land on my house last night, I might have felt better.
6
‘Thank you. I really do appreciate the sentiment but I’m pretty sure everything’s a disaster. What I don’t know at the moment is exactly how much of a disaster it is.’ I looked up at Jesse.
‘We’ll fix it.’
We?
