Page 40 of Brighter Together

I look around the table again.

This is what I noticed at lunch.

The ease of them.

No one is performing.

No one seems worried about saying the wrong thing.

They take the piss out of each other constantly and somehow there’s still so much affection underneath it.

It makes something ache quietly inside me.

Not badly.

Just enough to remind me that I’ve never really had this.

“Sorry we’re late.”

I look up.

A tall, dark-haired man approaches the table with a heavily pregnant woman beside him.

Tommy immediately stands.

“There they are.”

He pulls out a chair.

“Ella, these are Chris and Suzie. They’re the last two members of our unit you haven’t met. And, rather conveniently, they’re married to each other.”

“Hi.” Suzie smiles as she lowers herself carefully into the seat. “Sorry we’re late.”

Chris sits beside her.

“Drama at the farm,” he sighs.

“Max,” she corrects him.

“Same thing.”

She gives him a look.

He grins.

“Max is our son,” Suzie explains to me.

“And we now have a pet snail,” Chris adds.

There is a pause.

Alex lowers his pint. “A what?”

“A snail,” Suzie says, and the look on her face makes it very clear to everyone that this wasn’t her idea.

Nick leans forward. “Why?”

Chris rubs a hand over his face. “Because apparently I’m weak.”