‘Well, that was another really interesting evening.’
I gave a chuff of amusement. ‘They do seem to be our speciality,’ I said, looking out through his car’s windscreen at my flat. I wasn’t going to invite him inside and I don’t think he expected me to.
We’d left the sexually charged atmosphere behind in the pub bathroom, but if it was haunting him the way it was me, I doubted either of us would get much sleep that night.
‘I’ve had a nice evening, Rhys. Thank you.’
‘Me too,’ he said, his expression hidden by the shadows of the car.
This was the moment, if it had been a date, where I would lean in or he would pull me towards him for a goodnight kiss. And I was so scared that he would and so scared that he wouldn’t that I couldn’t get out of the car fast enough. I fumbled with theunfamiliar door catch, but Rhys was already out of the driver’s seat and striding to open the door for me.
We stood on the pavement in a pool of light from a streetlamp, like actors on a stage.
His hands came up to rest lightly on my shoulders.
‘Take care of yourself, Ellie,’ he said, bending to graze a feather-soft kiss on my cheek. ‘Watch out for bees.’
‘You too,’ I said, my voice scarcely more than a whisper.
I turned to walk up my path, knowing his eyes would follow me until I was safely inside. He’d wait for me to unlock the door and slip through it. He probably wouldn’t move until he’d seen the lights go on in my flat. That was the kind of man Rhys Davies was. Don’t ask me how I knew that about him. I just did.
Chapter Ten
The headache was there when I woke up. A tiny man with a very small hammer had set up shop somewhere at the back of my head and was determined to ruin the first free Saturday morning I’d had in ages.
My bathroom cabinet was well stocked with practically every over-the-counter remedy you could wish for, apart from the painkillers I was looking for. As I rummaged among the packets, my thoughts went back to the large bag of medication on the rear seat of Rhys’s car, which I now knew must be for Tasha’s asthma. I knew very little about the condition, but I remembered a boy in my primary class being taken to hospital in an ambulance after a severe flare-up in the school playground. I hoped Tasha wasn’t as badly affected, although the size of the bag seemed to suggest otherwise.
I eventually found the paracetamols on the top shelf of the cabinet. As I stood on tiptoe to reach them, another box tumbled out, landing face-up on the fluffy bathmat beside me. I stooped to pick it up, a frown already forming. I stared at the packet curiously, willing to swear I’d never seen it before in my life. The medication was for travel sickness, and I was surprised to discover half of the pills inside it were gone.
I wasn’t always a good traveller. Cars and trains didn’t affect me, but flying wasn’t great. And as for water... I used to joke that evenlooking at pictures of the sea made me queasy. I’d actually broken it off with a guy I’d been seeing a while ago because his waterbed made me nauseous. Or maybe that had just been a handy excuse. I’d never needed much of a reason to call it a day once the initial spark of interest had flickered out.
Rhys’s face suddenly pushed all other thoughts out of my head. Would it be that way between us if he were free? If he wasn’t caught halfway between giving his relationship with his child’s mother one last chance or walking away. Was I unnecessarily complicating things for him, or was the undeniable attraction mostly coming from my side?
I sprang two paracetamols from their foil sheet to swallow with my morning orange juice, but for some reason I didn’t return the travel pills to the cabinet. Instead, I dropped them into the deep pocket of my towelling robe. They were yet another mystery that was silently pecking away at my consciousness. The other being: why was my mother avoiding my calls? Was she screening them? The thought made me pause halfway through buttering a slice of toast. Had our last squabble been so severe we were no longer speaking at all?
The frustration of not knowing was making me jittery. I pulled the travel pills from one pocket and my mobile phone from the other. There was a connection here, but I just couldn’t work out what it was. I glanced at the clock. It was very early. I never phoned her at this hour – at least I didn’t think I did, but with a memory as unreliable as mine, who was to say?
I felt sneaky hiding my number so that it wouldn’t flash up on her caller ID. Who does that when phoning their own mother?
I poured myself another mug of coffee and sat back down on the breakfast stool, absently toying with the knife on my plate as I waited for the call to connect. I hummed along to the radio,blissfully unaware that in less than ten seconds my whole world was going to be blown apart.
The phone rang, and not just in my ear. I drew it away to check it wasn’t on speaker. It wasn’t. So why could I still hear it ringing? I looked all around, trying to work out where the sound was coming from. There was something vaguely sinister about the overly cheery default ringtone. I slid off the stool and followed the sound. It was coming from beyond the kitchen. Was my mother here, in my flat? How could she have let herself in without me knowing? She had no key to my home.
Once in the hallway, it was easier to determine where the ringing was coming from. My footsteps were hesitant as I walked towards my bedroom. This had all the makings of a great jump scare scene in a film, and it was far too early in the morning for that kind of fright.
The room was empty, just as I’d left it. The duvet was thrown back, the shutters were opened, and there was no parent standing in a room she’d not set foot in for years. And yet the phone continued to ring.
My eyes scoured the bedroom, trying to pinpoint where the sound was coming from. They settled on the large oak chest of drawers beside the window. I swallowed several times, my palms so sweaty I almost dropped my own phone as I crossed the room.
I pulled open the top drawer of the dresser with unnecessary force, as though trying to derail this particularly unpleasant practical joke. Because that was what it was, wasn’t it? Someone was playing a trick on me. And it must have been an incredibly cruel one, because why else would there be tears coursing down my cheeks as I reached for my mother’s phone from the place where it had been stored at the back of the drawer.
‘I forgot. How is that even possible?’
A warm breeze ruffled my hair. Had I brushed it before leaving the flat? It seemed unlikely. I could scarcely even remember pulling on whatever clothes my scrabbling hands had fallen upon and plucking up my car keys.
Clearly, I shouldn’t have driven here. No one that distraught should ever get behind the wheel of a car. Luckily it was the weekend, and the roads had been quiet at the early hour. The car park had even been empty, apart from one other vehicle. Maybe it was always empty, who was to say? It wasn’t as if all the missing pieces had miraculously fallen into place.
Just the major ones; the ones so devastating I was still reeling from the shock.