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And she answered with just as much interest in hers.
“I doubt you really have to ask that.”
“Leeds, then. Probably round Kirkstall.”
“We were about five minutes from it.”
“Your dad go down the Brudenell?”
God, she thought.He even knows that.
He knows the local pubs.
And he was right about her dad, too.
“He did. Couple of times a week.”
“And the rest.”
“Yeah. And the rest.”
“Thought as much.”
So you did guess then, she thought. About a second before he nodded, likeYeah.I saw it in you and you see it in me—that hole left in you by fathers who go boozing every night of the week and piss away your lunch money and do awful things like sell your kiddie diary to keep them in pints for the foreseeable future.
Because his dad had done that last one to him in particular, she knew.
She had seen the things people had said about it, even though she hadn’t been able to bring herself to read the excerpts. It had felt like too much of an invasion. Too much like rewarding a scumbag for hurting him. Hell, it hurt to even think about it.
So she did her best to make things a little lighter.
“It did strike me that our backstories had some similarities when I was investigating your criminal organization in a slinky red dress while smoking a cigarette in a holder,” she said.
And was pleased when it worked.
“So suddenly you’re Jessica Rabbit.”
“Maybe not quite that.”
“But not far off.”
What does that mean, her brain kicked up.
But he didn’t so much as almost look down at her boobs.
There was zero impression that he meant it as a compliment.
So she ignored it, and carried on. “Yes. Except with alky fathers and soft mums and schools where someone got stabbed or trapped under collapsing ceilings. Once a week. Until everybody was suspended or in hospital except you.”
“Assemblies sure were weird with just one person.”
“Oh god, yeah. If there were any questions asked, it had to be you that answered.”
“True,” he agreed. “But at least we won all the awards. I mean, I skived for a whole term and still got best attendance.”
“Three years in a row I got neatest in my year, and just look at me.”
She waved a hand at herself. At the dungarees, mostly.
