I narrowed my eyes. “What are you on about, Ethel?”
“That was Patricia on the phone. She said we’re invited round for family dinner now you and Amy have finally gotten together.”
I groaned. “Ethel, it’s not like tha?—”
“When were you going to share that with little old me? I know I’m old and senile, but you can’t just keep major secrets from me! And with how much shit I give you about finding someone?”
“Okay, that’s a bit dramatic,” I said, standing up. “You’re not fully senile yet.”
“It isn’t!” she said, standing as well. I didn’t like how quickly she bounced up, putting all her weight on one foot to walk over to me.
“Come on, Ethel,” I said, gesturing towards her feet. “You’re gonna break an ankle again if you’re not careful. Last time you were a nightmare for the ten weeks you were in that boot.” It had also escalated a lot of her dementia symptoms, but that wasn’t helpful to mention.
“Who’s being dramatic now?” she asked, doing what looked to be an attempt at the can-can as if to prove her point.
“That is so unnecessary.”
“I had no idea you two were a couple, Philip. I feel like a fool.”
I sighed, less in frustration than in pity, though I daren’t let Ethel know that. “I promise,” I said, “if there was something to tell you I would. This whole thing has blown massively out of proportion. We’re not actually together.”
“Well, maybe you should tell her that,” Ethel said, pointing around me. I turned to follow her gaze, and I couldn’t help the way my breath hitched when I looked through the open bay window at the front of the room, past the crystals that dotted the low windowsill, to see Amy walking up the front path.
I let her in through the front door, and Ethel immediately pushed past me.
“So good to see you, Amy,” she said, wrapping Amy in a hug. “And I should be very cross with you, I know, but I’m just so happy for you both.”
Amy’s face went red as she caught my eye.
“I’ll leave you two lovebirds to yourselves,” Ethel said suggestively as she pulled back, disappearing into the lounge.
I reached into the kitchen for the tin holding the leftover pain au chocolat, then led Amy outside into the garden, where the table was still pulled into the middle of the grass from when I’d charged the crystal a few days ago. Instead of moving the table back onto the patio, I pulled the plastic chairs onto the small lawn so we could sit there, further away from any eavesdroppers. I felt a chair leg sink into the grass as I sat.
“Want one?” I asked, pulling the lid off the tin and showing Amy the pastries.
“My favourite!” she gasped, removing one delicately from the tin and immediately sinking her teeth into it. I was particularly satisfied by the crunch it made as she bit into it, but then she moaned in pleasure, evoking a very different idea of satisfaction that I quickly banished from my mind.
“So, Ethel heard,” I said. “Your mum told her we’re together, and she got mad that I hadn’t told her.”
“I know,” Amy said, her mouth still half full, burying her face in her spare hand. “I swear I told Mum we weren’t together, but she thought I was just being secretive. Trying to throw her off the scent.”
“Let me guess, Jack?” That guy pretended to be chill, but he could be messy as hell when he wanted to be.
“Yup.”
“Listen, about the kiss—” I started, resolved to get to the bottom of things. Had it meant as much to her as it had to me?
“I know,” she said, cutting me off. “You were my knight in shining armour with that one. It was probably a bad idea, I know, but Chris just looked so smug, and when he called you a townie…”
I tried not to feel disappointed that she’d brushed it off so quickly. “Yeah, that guy was a prick. I’m not sure what you ever saw in him.”
“Honestly? Not much,” she admitted, and I frowned.
“How does that happen?” I couldn’t imagine for a second that Amy would have had a hard time finding a boyfriend, and she could have done much better. In fact, she couldn’t have done much worse, from what I’d seen. I knew the broad strokes of what had happened in Manchester, but I wanted to hear it from her.
“Honestly, it was Niamh who pushed me on him. Looking back, I think she thought he would never like her back, so she was trying to live vicariously through me. And we did all have fun together.”
“Were you all friends then?” It was hard to imagine Amy with another group of friends like ours, but she’d lived there for two years after all.
