‘Last night.’ He lifted Gus out of his carrier and rested him on his knee. My nephew stared at me with huge brown eyes, tufts of black hair shooting straight up in an accidental static mohawk on top of his head. ‘She was babysitting.’
He held the baby up and I took him, bouncing him up and down in my arms until he smiled. If only the rest of the world was so easy to impress.
‘And?’
‘She looked a state,’ he said again. ‘Like she hadn’t slept a wink.’
‘Oh.’
I turned my back to my brother and danced Gus back and forth, trying not to look as pleased as I felt.
‘Or she could have been hungover,’ he suggested.
Gus stuck out his tongue as the smile wiped right off my face.
‘If that’s all you came over to tell me then I’m busy,’ I told him, wedging the baby under my arm. ‘I’ve got a meeting with the people I’m building a bar for tomorrow.’
‘How’s that going?’ he asked, showing no desire to leave. ‘You nearly done?’
‘I’ve only just started,’ I replied, shaking my head at my nephew. His dad never listened but I was grateful to be off the topic of my relationship woes. ‘They’ve approved the design, now I’ve got to buy all the materials and then actually build the bloody thing.’
Chris squinted at the plans on the table and nodded slowly as though they made any sort of sense. ‘Do they pay for that up front or does that all come out of your pocket?’
‘They pay part of it up front,’ I said while Gus chewed on my finger. Good job I’d just washed my hands. ‘But most of it is out of pocket. I took out a business loan.’
Chris sucked the air in through his teeth and made a clucking sound.
‘Should have asked me for a loan,’ he tutted. ‘Lending rates are mental at the moment, you’ll be paying that back forever.’
‘Yeah, borrowing money from my brother, that sounds like a good idea,’ I replied. My brother who never failed to remind me how much money my parents had spent on law school, my brother who never failed to remind me how lucky I was to be living in our grandparents’ house. Not that moving in here had ever been at the top of my to-do list but when my dad suggested it after I dropped out before finishing my exams, I didn’t really feel as though I had that many alternatives.
Besides, everything had worked out, more or less. I hadn’t been desperate to leave London but if I hadn’t moved to Long Harrington, I might never have taken up carpentry and I might never have met Liv and now they were the two most important things in my life. Provided I still had Liv in my life at the end of all this.
‘Let’s hope you don’t cock it up,’ Chris wiggled the metal tab back and forth on the top of his can until it snapped off in his fingers. ‘Last thing you need right now is the bank on your arse.’
‘Thanks for the vote of confidence,’ I said, raising my own can to his in a toast. ‘I can do this.’
It was funny, but I sounded so much more certain than I felt.
‘So, I’m sure it won’t mean anything to you but Cass says Liv offered her a job,’ he said, scratching the back of his neck. ‘At the surgery.’
Whenever my brother wanted to talk about something important, he had to pretend he really, really didn’t care about your opinion, just in case you didn’t share the decision he’d already made.
‘Did she now?’
It was strange not to know anything about it. If we hadn’t been ‘on a break’, Liv would definitely have discussed something this huge with me before she spoke to Cass and I hated that she hadn’t. It felt like another shove backwards out of her life.
‘Because you know her dad’s retiring.’
I nodded. I did know that.
‘And she needs to bring another vet into the surgery. So she asked Cass to do it.’
‘But Cass is a teacher now,’ I replied, trying to remember the story as to why Cass had packed in working as a vet. I knew she’d told me but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember. ‘Doesn’t she have to go back to school soon?’
‘We’ve been talking about her maybe not going back,’ Chris said, tracing the metal tab from his can up and down the grids of my bar designs. ‘She might not go back to work at all.’
He stared down at the squared paper, his tongue sticking out the corner of his mouth as he concentrated on sounding not at all concerned.
‘And that’s OK with you, is it?’ I asked, settling back in my chair with Gus in my lap.
‘We don’t need the money,’ he replied quickly. ‘She doesn’t need to work.’
‘That doesn’t mean she shouldn’t work,’ I said. I stared at Gus who stared back with a funny smile on his face. ‘Although I can imagine how much she must want to stay at home with this one.’
‘Yeah,’ Chris agreed, flipping the metal tag through his fingers. I waited patiently, tapping Gus on the nose and waiting for him to finish his thought. ‘Never really thought she’d pack in work though.’
For all his bluster, one thing I could never take away from my brother was his work ethic. He’d always had a job, a paper round when we were kids, McDonald’s when he was a teenager, bartending through uni, and the very day after he graduated he started his first day of work. While I was off getting a kidney infection in Chile, he was working an IT job, somewhere in Kettering, taking night classes and online courses in coding and constantly looking for the next big thing. But it had never really occurred to me that he’d expect the same level of ambition from his missus.
‘I get why she doesn’t want to go back to that school …’ He tapped his fingers on his can of Coke, much to Gus’s delight. ‘It’s a right hole, but I didn’t think she’d want to give it up altogether. Now she’s talking about trying for another baby but I don’t know if I’m ready.’
‘Have you told her that?’ I asked.
He looked up, totally gone out.
‘Of course not,’ he replied, as though I’d suggested he kick her in the crotch. ‘I don’t want her to think I don’t want to have another baby.’
‘But you don’t?’
‘Not right now,’ he said. ‘But you know, sooner or later.’
‘So you do want to have another baby but not right away,’ I said, trying to get to the bottom of the enigma that was Chris Floyd. ‘And you’re fine with her not working but you’d rather she did.’
‘I didn’t say that,’ he said. ‘We don’t need the money, Adam.’
I closed my eyes and took a calming breath.
‘I know that,’ I said slowly. ‘But that doesn’t mean you can’t prefer her to work. I’d probably feel weird if Liv packed in working and all the responsibility was on me.’
‘That’s because you wouldn’t know responsibility if it kicked you up the arse,’ he said with a grunt.
‘OK,’ I said, passing the baby across the table. Gus kicked his little legs in protest as I handed him off. ‘I was only trying to help, I won’t bother next time.’
Chris jostled my nephew back into the carrier, squeezing his chubby legs back through the cushioned holes.
‘Sorry,’ he said, stiff. ‘I feel like it’s a lot of pressure on me, that’s all. Single income, two kids, wife not working. It feels like a lot.’
‘I’m sure it is. Just like me taking out this loan to do the bar,’ I replied, trying to empathize. ‘I get it.’
‘Not really the same,’ he muttered, chugging from the can over Gus’s head. ‘But yeah.’
‘Talk to your wife,’ I ordered, quickly running out of patience. ‘It’s hardly like she’s running around pissing your money up a wall, is it? She just wants to be a stay-at-home mum. Cass is beyond reasonable.’
‘I suppose.’ Crumpling his empty can of Coke, Chris stood up and bounced up and down on the spot, making sure Gus’s carrier was secure. ‘I’m going round to Mum and Dad’s if you want to come? She’s got her photos back from India.’
‘I’ll pass,’ I replied quickly. ‘Like I said, I’ve got a meet
ing with the owners of the bar tomorrow and I want to make sure everything is in line before I get started.’
‘Oh yeah,’ he agreed, grabbing his key fob from the table. No actual car keys of course, he had keyless entry. ‘You can’t be messing clients around once you’ve agreed your terms.’
‘Maybe you can help me build an app once I’m up and running,’ I suggested, walking the two of them out to the door. ‘Like, a catalogue of my work or something.’
‘Yeah, that’s not really what I do,’ he said with an annoying smirk. ‘But I could probably put you in touch with someone who does that kind of thing. My interface is a lot more complex.’
‘Of course it is,’ I said, patting Gus on the head and pushing them backwards out the door. ‘Night, Chris.’
‘Night, Nutsack,’ he called through the door. ‘Oh. Evening, Mrs Johnson.’
After turning on the deadbolt in case he decided to come back, I went back into the kitchen to stare at my designs and go over the budget again.
‘Just once,’ I told myself, sitting down at the table to stare at the pale blue paper in front of me. I brought up the calculator app on my phone to go through the numbers and instead found my fingers hovering over Liv’s name. What would she think about Cassie quitting work? If she wanted to pack everything in and start a second career as a baby factory, I was sure we’d at least have a conversation before she announced her decision.
‘I could call her,’ I said to my reflection in the window. ‘She said I could call.’
But that one random article you read on the internet told you not to, the reflection reminded me. Give her some space.
I stared down at her name and the little picture of Daniel Craig that popped up beside it before swiping back to the calculator. Maybe I’d call her tomorrow, after my meeting. Good news about the bar plus Cass and Chris gossip was a surefire combination for a successful phone call after all. She couldn’t possibly be mad at me calling with all of that.
I would definitely call her tomorrow.
‘Knock, knock.’
‘If you’re a burglar, can you take the rubbish with you on your way out?’ I shouted from my mess in the middle of the living room.
Daniel Craig, who had been fast asleep for hours, shot to his three feet as soon he realized the front door was open. Without so much as a second look at his loving human mother, he raced down the stairs, startling my visitor and wailing off into the night.
‘Cat got out,’ Cass said as she trotted up the stairs. Cass was not a cat person. ‘Is that bad?’
‘Not until he wants to be let in at two in the morning,’ I said, waving to her underneath a pile of magazines. ‘The cat flap is broken, it only works one way.’
‘And you call yourself a vet,’ she asked, placing a large canvas tote bag on my dining room table.
‘Did we take different courses in uni?’ I pushed away my poster board and Pritt Stick and stood up to give her an ever so slightly awkward hug. ‘I don’t remember the cat flap fixing class.’
‘Fair point.’ She squeezed harder and I squeaked as my breath left my body. ‘About yesterday.’
‘I swear, the TV was all in Spanish when I got there,’ I said, breaking free of her oppressive embrace. ‘And I thought you had more milk, really.’
‘No, I mean all the stuff I said about the job business.’ She heaved the tote bag from the table and kicked a path clear to the sofa. ‘I was out of order. Possibly a little bit defensive.’
‘And a little bit right,’ I said, following in her wake. ‘Why should you go back to work if you don’t want to and don’t have to? I was out of order.’
‘Maybe, but I shouldn’t have had a go at you and a certainly shouldn’t have brought Adam into it. I was tired and stressed and I didn’t want to go out for dinner but I absolutely shouldn’t have taken it out on you.’
I gave a noncommittal sniff and turned my attention to filling the kettle. I was terrible at arguing and I was even worse at accepting an apology but I was relieved to have cleared the air and at least part of my world felt right again.
‘Where’s Gus?’ I asked, searching for clean mugs.
‘Chris took him over to his mum’s.’ Cass shook out all three cushions on the sofa, one after the other. ‘I told him I had to drop off your phone charger and I’d meet him over there later.’
‘I didn’t leave my phone charger,’ I said, looking over to the little white cable still plugged into the wall where it lived.
‘But if Chris asks, you did,’ she replied with a bright smile. ‘How are you feeling today?’
‘Still hungover from Saturday,’ I admitted, dropping two teabags into the teapot. ‘And generally a bit shit. I was thinking about what you said, that maybe chucking Adam was a kneejerk reaction. Do you really think it’s a mistake?’
‘I really don’t know,’ she replied. ‘Does it feel like a mistake?’
Turning away, I continued with the business of tea. Cass sat in silence while it brewed and I poured milk into both our mugs. Silence was one of her gifts, something Abi and David were utterly incapable of. She had never felt the need to fill a moment with needless chatter when you didn’t know quite what to say, truly a rare and wonderful quality. Cass wasn’t afraid to let a moment breathe, unlike Abi who had to hammer it to death with logic and debate.
‘I’m still really upset about the nonexistent proposal,’ I started slowly when I returned to the settee, tea in hand. ‘And the not-a-break-up-break-up.’
‘That’s reasonable,’ she said before taking a cursory sip of tea instead of adding her own opinion the way most people would, myself included.
I blew on mine and felt my shoulders tighten as thoughts of Adam and my dad began to tick over in my head. I couldn’t even think about them without getting mad.
‘And I’m annoyed that he thought he could just say sorry and expect me to be over something so huge. It’s a big deal, isn’t it? To say you want to break up when you were supposed to be proposing?’
‘Yes,’ she agreed tentatively. ‘But you have to remember, he doesn’t know you knew about the proposal.’
‘He doesn’t know I know,’ I repeated. ‘And he doesn’t know you know?’
‘No,’ she shook her head. ‘Although, he did tell Chris which means the postman’s cousin’s wife’s dentist probably knows. I find it really difficult to believe he wouldn’t assume Chris would tell me.’
‘Well, regardless, even if it was just the three a.m. dumping we were talking about, I’d still be well within my rights to be peeved,’ I said, accidentally kicking an issue of Condé Nast Traveller across the room. ‘And then there’s all the surgery nonsense to deal with on top of that.’
‘You’re mad because your dad wants you to take on the surgery?’ she asked, trying to check her phone without me seeing her check her phone. Thankfully, Chris seemed to be surviving without her for once. ‘Explain to me why that’s bad.’
‘It’s not bad per se.’ I blew out a long, thoughtful raspberry. ‘Obviously, I love being a vet, I love working with the animals and most of the people. I just wasn’t expecting it, especially not in the middle of his birthday party in front of a million people, without having discussed it with me first.’
‘How many people?’
‘A million,’ I insisted. ‘At least sixty-five.’
Cass gave me a look.
‘At least seventy.’
She raised an eyebrow.
‘About forty-five.’
‘Talk to your dad,’ she ordered. ‘He is a painfully sensible man, Liv. He’s hardly going to dump the business on you and skip off into the sunset if he knows you need help. The surgery is just as much his baby as you are.’
‘I know that,’ I replied, curling my leg underneath me. I was still wearing my scrubs and everything smelled a little bit too much like antiseptic for my liking. ‘It’s not the doing it, it’s the way it was done. Shouldn’t there have been a discussion or something? What if I wanted to r
un off and join the circus? Or knock out fifteen babies? I could be pregnant for all he knows and this would be terrible timing.’
‘You’re not though, are you?’ Cass looked alarmed. ‘Because that would probably change things.’
‘No.’ I poked myself in the belly. ‘Although I could pass for it right now. Why am I a stress eater? Why can’t I be one of those women who starves herself when she’s sad?’
‘You have to find the positive in this,’ she said, showing off her patented brand of Cassie Huang optimism and bypassing my potbelly pity party. ‘You’ve got to admit you’ve been frustrated with your dad recently, haven’t you? This is a chance to make the business your own.’
‘If he lets me.’ I thought back to our conversation during Karen the Cow’s delivery. ‘He seems to have some very clear ideas about how he thinks things should be run.’
‘Let him have them,’ she said simply. ‘It won’t matter once you’re running the show, will it?’
‘Maybe you’re right.’ I looked at my mess of a living room and brushed my hair back from my face. ‘Maybe I’ve been overreacting about all of this.’
‘I didn’t say that.’ Cass squeezed my knee gently and gave me a small smile. ‘The Adam stuff is tough. I don’t know what I would do in that situation. I think asking him for a break is really brave, it would be a lot easier just to take his apology and get on with things.’
‘And go slowly mad, waiting for him to break up with me again?’ I added. ‘It’s the right thing to do, I think. The only problem is, I have no idea how I’ll know when the break is over. I feel like I’m testing both of us but neither of us know the right answer. I’m scared to be the one to make the first move in case he’s decided he doesn’t want to be with me after all. I know I wasn’t chasing him down the aisle or anything but it just hadn’t occurred to me that we would ever not be together. And now I don’t quite know what to do with the possibility.’
‘In three days?’ Cass looked doubtful. ‘I told you, he told Chris it was cold feet. Add jet lag and lack of sleep and male ego and you have a recipe for disaster.’
‘And does Adam know that you and I know what he told Chris?’