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I don’t love you, Stace. I’m in love with Jodie. I’ll always be in love with Jodie.
She started snooping. Started getting paranoid, checking my phone, calling me at work ten times a day. Started pulling a face when I said I was dropping the kids back to Jodie, that I’d probably stay and have a cuppa with Nanna.
She’s not your fucking nanna, Darren!
Darren. That’s when I became Darren. That’s when I thought it was over. I was fucking glad of it.
But then she found the fucking ring.
The light was shining through the gaps in the curtains when I heard the girls. Some argument or other. The thump as Ruby dropped down from the top bunk, the creak of the door handle, the sound of the fridge door opening and closing. The TV.
It was the TV that woke Jodie. She started, rolled onto her back with wide eyes as she acclimatised to where she was. My lips were on hers before she could make a sound, my finger taking their place when I pulled away.
“Shh,” I whispered. “Girls are live and kicking.”
I braced myself for the regret in her eyes, the oh shit, we shouldn’t have noises coming from her pretty mouth, but they didn’t come. She stared up at me with streaky makeup, her hair a right fucking tangle on the pillow, and she smiled. It was a quiet smile, not one of those that bloom quick and fade, this one crept up slowly. This one was real and raw and came with nervous eyes.
This one hit me right in the gut and grabbed tight. My arm snaked around her waist and pulled her close, her wine breath in my face as I smoothed her messy hair from her forehead.
A clatter in the kitchen. Ruby-induced – I’d have put money on it.
Daddddd! Dad are you awake?! Mum gets me frosty hoops now! I don’t like crunchy crispies anymore!
I raised an eyebrow at Jodie.
“Last Wednesday,” she whispered. “She changed her allegiance to frosty hoops last Wednesday.” She was still smiling. “It’s a new thing. I’d still buy the crispies if I were you, I don’t think it’ll last.”
Dadddd!
A groan from Mia. He’s asleep, Ruby, shhhh! Just have crispies!
Who died and made you queen of everything, Mia? Dadddd! Mia’s being mean to me!
Jodie put her hand across her mouth to stop herself laughing, and I felt it, too. I pressed my forehead to hers. “I’d better get out there before they come to blows.”
She nodded. “I’ll have to hide. Just in case.”
“Hide? Righto.”
I pulled the duvet over her head and buried her, squeezing her tight before I got to my feet, loving the way her body moved as she fought the giggles. She peeped out from under the covers as I pulled my jeans on, didn’t stop looking at me as I crept to the bedroom door and checked the coast was clear.
I winked at her as I stepped into the hallway.
She blew me a kiss right back.
Ruby was glaring at the crispies box. She let out one of her most dramatic sighs. “I hate crispies, Dad! I haven’t liked crispies in ages!”
“She’s being a baby,” Mia said, rolling her eyes like we were two adults together. It made me smile.
I ruffled her hair, then Ruby’s after her. “Why don’t you girls get dressed? We’ll see if Granny T can rustle up some egg on toast, how about that?”
They didn’t need much encouragement.
I slipped back in the bedroom and Jodie was right where I’d left her. I’d have given anything to climb back in there after her, but I pulled a t-shirt on and went about keeping this thing under the girls’ radar.
Whatever the fuck this thing was.
I looked at Jodie’s crazy-killer heels by the hamper. “How are your feet?” I whispered.
She gave the so-so gesture with her hand.
“You should stop wearing the bloody things,” I said. I reached into the top of the wardrobe, past a load of old paperwork and boxes of random old shit until I came to a bag at the back. I pulled it out and gave it to Jodie. She looked inside with a puzzled grin.
“Meant to give it back to you,” I said.
Sure I did.
She pulled out an old pair of sandals, the ones she’d worn when we first went to the coast with her parents and Nanna. I still remembered her tapping them on the wall to get the sand out.
“Lifesaver,” she whispered. Next she tugged out the satin robe she used to hang behind the bedroom door, followed by the sparkly bracelet I’d bought her from a market stall down Bristol one Christmas. She covered her mouth as she pulled out the pair of knickers she’d left in the laundry when she moved out.
“They were in the hamper,” I whispered.
“They were?”
I smiled. “Yes, Jodie, they were. Do you take me for some kind of panty sniffer or something?”
