‘Tempting, I know what a good shot you are, but it’s more practical.’ He kissed my forehead. ‘Sorry, I need to get back to the office I’m afraid.’
‘Okay… Are you busy tonight?’ I asked, doing my best to sound casual.
‘That was the other thing I wanted to tell you. Trevor contacted me this morning and asked to meet.’ His sunglasses were back down so I couldn’t see the expression on his face properly.
‘Have you decided if you want to or not?’
He nodded slowly. ‘Yes, I’m going to do it. I’ll try to get a few more answers. See what he has to say for himself.’
‘Would you like me to come?’
‘No. Thank you. Not this time.’ He stroked the back of his fingers down my cheek and tipped my chin up. ‘I’ll call you afterwards if it’s not too late.’ He placed a sweet kiss on my mouth and said goodbye.
I watched him disappear into the crowd. The sky was cloudless and blue, the people in the park happy and chattering, and my heart was full. If Stephen could sort out his work things too and figure out a way of finding peace with his father, I dared to let myself hope that a blissful summer lay ahead of us.
Trevor suggested a Greek restaurant in Brooklyn Heights as a good halfway place for us to meet for dinner. It was closer to me than him, but I was working late and didn’t arrive there until nearly nine.
The air was sticky, even at the late hour, hinting that we were heading for another storm, and I was worn out from being on edge at work, waiting for Georgina to come back into the office. I wanted to get this dinner over as quickly as possible. And I wanted to see Noelle again, even though I’d seen her at lunchtime.
I would have seen her every day this week if I could’ve. Instead I’d found talking to her before I went to sleep was the best alternative. That had never happened to me before. Was it because she had been my friend first? Because we’d shared this crazy month of searching in the city together? And when her friend Kaylee had referred to Noelle as my girlfriend in the park earlier, it hadn’t been fear I felt, of Noelle getting the wrong idea, it had been longing.
Trevor was already inside, sitting at a table near the kitchens where we could hear the chef and the waiting staff talking loudly.
‘Sorry about the table, it was the only one they had at short notice. They have a roof garden which is much nicer but obviously that gets full quickly at this time of year,’ he explained, picking at the frayed edge of the blue and white menu, while I sat down opposite to him.
‘This is fine. I’m not such a fan of roof gardens.’
‘Not still scared of heights, are you? Used to scream your head off when I put you up the top of the monkey bars.’
I paused in the act of pulling my chair in closer to the table. ‘I don’t recall that.’ My voice came out frosty.
‘I suppose you wouldn’t, being so small.’
When you left, I added in my head and took a deep breath, trying to remember what Noelle had said to me about how he was probably nervous. Rightly so, but if I wanted him to open up, I was going to have to employ some charm rather than react with my emotions.
The waitress came over and took our drinks orders. Trevor winked at her and she forced a smile. I reconsidered using my charm. Was that where I’d end up in another twenty years? Still thinking I was a smooth operator but actually creeping young women out? A depressing thought.
‘Did you recall what the money could be for?’ I found myself asking, once our beers were brought over and we’d ordered our food. ‘Is that why you wanted to meet?’
‘Yes.’ He poured his beer into the glass slowly, letting it froth and subside. ‘I used to ride a motorbike, a Suzuki. It was my pride and joy.’ He gave a small smile, the lines around his eyes deepening. ‘When I left the first time, your mother took a hammer to it.’
My hand clenched reflexively around my bottle of beer. ‘The first time?’
He nodded. ‘We had a difficult relationship. We were too young and all the fire and the drama that had been exciting when we got together just became tiresome once we were parents and struggling to get by. I left when you were around two, for a month or so. We got back together for a while, but it was never going to work out.’
My thumbnail picked at the edge of the label of the bottle. The same way he’d been doing with the threads on the menu. I stopped. They’d been fiery? Mum had taken a sledgehammer to his motorcycle? That wasn’t something I could imagine my mother doing.
‘You’re saying, you think she wanted to pay you back for the damage she did to yourbike?’
‘Your mum, she liked things to be square. She never wanted to owe anyone.’
I forced my teeth to unclench. ‘I don’t need you to tell me what my mother was like.’
He held up his hands. ‘No. Of course not. Maybe that wasn’t it. Perhaps she changed.’
I took a couple of large gulps of beer, trying to push the anger back down. Maybe itwasall starting to make more sense now. Like Noelle had guessed, Mum had wanted to protect me from the disappointment of him coming in and out of my life, since it had already happened once.
Thinking of Mum in a fiery relationship was hard to reconcile though. She and David had argued, of course they had, but it was rare. And when they did, it was short disagreements, soon resolved. Not the kind of thing that led to one of them walking out or damaging the other’s belongings because they were in such a rage.
