AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Dani will be here in a minute. Please cover up your Superman pants.” And with that, I turn and check on Mum again. I managed to have an almost coherent conversation earlier where I explained I was going out, and I was going to leave all my numbers and the phone on the table by the side of her chair, and if she could try not to turn the gas hob on while I was out, I would be eternally thankful.
“Mum, you okay?”
“Fine, fine. Where’s your dad?”
“Not here, Mum.” She’s getting worse. She talks about him constantly and every time I have to tell her he’s no longer here, it starts her heartbreak all over again. I’ve been keeping my answers vague the last couple of days, and it seems to be helping.
It’s not lying; it’s just not telling the whole truth. It’s a bit like when she used to ask me if I’d been smoking out of my bedroom window when I was younger and I’d tell her it was Dani who was smoking. It was true, but I didn’t tell her the whole truth in which I was smoking as well.
She waves her hand at me, so I don’t disturb her viewing ofThe One Show, so I leave her to it.
A toot of a horn stops me from stressing out and flapping any longer. “Isaac, now!” I scream up the stairs, my nerves making me sharper than I would like.
“What’s wound you up?” he asks, stropping down to the hallway.
“Don’t be rude, I’m your mother.”
We pull faces at each other as I slam the door shut behind us.
I peer in confusion down the drive. It’s not Dani’s chavvy 4x4 down the end of the drive, but one of the old racing cars the Bale and Son’s garage is famous for.
My stomach sinks to my feet, my tongue swelling and sticking to the roof of my mouth.
“Cool,” Isaac whoops as I watch Freddy step his long legs out of the vehicle. I promised years ago after Freddy’s near-death accident, I would never step into one of those cars. Not ever.
“Hi,” Freddy greets Isaac first, a flitter of shyness chasing across his features.
I hold my breath, worried about how Isaac will respond to Freddy after finding us lock-lipped on the front porch, but I needn’t worry. Isaac is about to explode with excitement and is frantically waving his arms around. “Dude! Is that your car?” Isaac’s voice is three octaves higher than normal.
Freddy lets out a chuckle, which sounds on the border of relieved. “Dude.” He grins and leans against the car. “It’s one of them.” There is hesitation in his voice, like maybe he’s not sure how far to take the communicating with my son thing. His eyes flit to mine, and this time I see outright nerves pinching across the bridge of his nose. “Do you like cars, Isaac?”
Isaac thinks about this with the deep, universe understanding clarity of a not quite ten- year-old. “Don’t know. Mum’s car’s rubbish.”
Freddy laughs again, his shoulders relaxing. “Well, if you ever want to find out, I know just the place.”
“Cool,” Isaac states and then pushes past us to clamber into the hideously fragile vehicle.
Freddy turns towards me, a hand running ruefully through his hair. “Still anti—Roadster 140?”
I raise an eyebrow. “What do you think?”
“Yes.”
“You’re not wrong.” Adjusting the hem of my red summer dress, I try to make the material stretch and grow. The dress seems much smaller and the material far thinner now I’m standing on the driveway with a breeze drifting around my bare knees.
Freddy grins at me, sliding his hands into the pockets of his dark jeans, and I marvel again at how the years don’t seem to have touched him at all. What is he? Thirty now? It doesn’t show. I on the other hand look haggard and old.
‘How about you get in and I promise to drive at twenty miles an hour the whole way there?”
“What are you doing here, Freddy?” My tone echoes the confusion I have simmering under the surface.
His grin widens. “Dani said you couldn’t drive because you can’t face a night with the Bale’s without being drunk.”
There’s not much point disputing that fact, so I don’t.
“Are you getting in or not, Amber?”
His hand catches hold of mine. The breeze that was chilling my knees moments earlier vanishes and I begin to warm at an alarming rate as he guides me towards the passenger door. Isaac has already jumped in despite the fact he doesn’t really know whose car he is getting into. What was it I used to teach him about getting into cars with strangers? It’s good, though, because he won’t see me blush the same colour as my clothes. It’s as I unwillingly pull the door closed that I notice Freddy’s t-shirt is the exact same colour red as my cotton dress. We are going to dinner with his family in matching outfits. This has got to be a return to town, stalking fail if ever there was one.
