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‘I need to get a few other bits and bobs, too. I left most of my stuff at home when I came down to visit my grandma.’
‘So you hadn’t arranged to decorate Elsie’s flat then?’
‘Nope. I came down in a rush when I heard my grandma had been taken to hospital and hadn’t planned on staying all that long. Just enough time to see her on her feet again.’ He pulled the handbrake up and jumped out of the van.
Undoing her seatbelt, Brooke joined him on the tarmac. ‘What happened to her? Did she have a fall or something? Sorry, that was really nosey of me.’
‘No, not at all. She had a blood clot. Heidi and Liam found her, actually. She owes her life to those two. If Heidi hadn’t realised she hadn’t been in for her afternoon latte and gone round to her house, I dread to think what would have happened.’ He shuddered as he pulled a trolley from the trolley park outside the shop.
‘So you’re staying around for a bit, then?’
‘Yes, I think so. For as long as I can be away from the business, at least.’
‘You’ve not got any work lined up?’ As they stepped through the automatic doors, a wall of cool air-conditioned air hit them.
‘I do, but my business partner has agreed to take care of them for now.’ He pulled a handwritten list from the back pocket of his jeans. ‘How about you? Isn’t your work missing you?’
‘I actually don’t have a job at the moment. The hotel chain I worked for was bought out by a bigger company and they decided to ‘streamline’ the staff.’ She hooked her fingers around the word ‘streamline’.
‘Sorry to hear that.’
Brooke shrugged. ‘I’ve had a few things going on recently. I’m trying to look at it as a good thing. I mean, it’s rubbish. I’ve had to give up my home and my car, but hopefully, it will mean I can find something else. Something better. I’d been in the job since I’d left uni, so it’s probably about time I changed jobs.’ She laughed. There wasn’t anything she could do about it. The decision hadn’t even come from her immediate boss, or that’s what they’d been told. She wouldn’t have put it past him if it had done. No, she had to believe it wasn’t a reflection on her. She had to believe it was just a numbers game.
‘Where are you living? Where will you live when you’ve finished volunteering at Elsie’s bakery?’
She followed him as they turned down another aisle, rolls of wallpapers stacked on the shelves. ‘Immediately after, I’ll go back to my grandparents’ old house. My gran passed away a few months ago and left me the house, so I’m selling it. Too many memories.’ She picked up a grey and yellow geometric patterned roll of wallpaper, pulled it out a little and then rolled it back up, replacing it where it had come from. She had tried so hard to focus on the good memories, the memories of childhood parties, family Christmases and just day-to-day life—coming home from school to the smell of baking, helping her granddad clean out his large aviary in the garden, sitting and listening while her gran read one of the poems from the large ‘A Poem For Every Day of the Year’ book at the breakfast table before school, all the little things. She’d tried so hard to push the image of her granddad getting sicker and sicker or walking into the empty house for the first time after being told her gran had passed away. Others could do it, could breathe new life into a house they had inherited, but she knew she couldn’t. She knew she needed a fresh start, and she knew her grandparents would have agreed with her decision.
‘I’m so sorry to hear that.’ Max paused, the trolley slowing to a halt, and turned to her. ‘What about your parents? Can you stay with them a while until your grandparents’ house sells?’
‘I never knew my dad, and my mum passed away when I was younger.’ She paused. She could almost see the creases on his forehead appear one by one as she waited for the all too familiar look of pity to glaze his eyes, but it never came. She frowned.
‘I lost my parents a few years ago, too. I can’t imagine losing them when I was a child, though. It must have been awful.’
‘Sorry to hear that.’ That’s why. It was because he understood. ‘I had a happy childhood. My grandparents did a good job of bringing me up. Crazy golf on a Saturday, help with my homework and being as I was the only grandchild they doted on me. I had a good childhood.’ She smiled. She hadn’t really known any different. Yes, she had often daydreamed about what it would be like to have her mum or dad in her life, but her grandparents had loved her and done all they could for her, and more.
Max looked across at her and raised his eyebrow, the corner of his lips turning up. ‘Are you sure about that?’
‘Oi! What are you trying to say?’ Laughing, she pushed in front of him and took control of the trolley, glad he’d made light of a difficult conversation.
‘Just that the first time you met me you greeted me by throwing scorching drink and cake all over me.’ He chuckled.
‘Ah, fair enough. It hadn’t occurred to me that the lattes would have been that hot. Did I really burn you?’ She paused and looked back at him.
‘Nah, it wasn’t particularly hot. I just included the scorching bit to add effect.’
‘Well... maybe if you hadn’t been so annoying...’
‘I’d only said hi to you, I think!’ He was standing next to her now, his hand on the silver metal of the trolley.
She shrugged. ‘What can I say? I am a good judge of character and could tell you were annoying.’
Shaking his head, Max grinned and looked at her.
Maybe he wasn’t so annoying, after all. Brooke looked back at him and met his gaze.
‘Excuse me, please. Can I just get to that roll there?’
Shaking her head, Brooke looked at the man in front of them and moved the trolley away. ‘Sorry.’
