‘It’s better in person…’
Tom sounded cagey now for sure.
She’s pregnant.
Emme groaned internally. Perhaps she wasn’t over him. This obsession with Tristan was all just suspended reality.
She took a deep breath, which was interrupted by a shout.
‘EMME!’ Harry bellowed.
Emme gasped.
On the television, Jack Black sang the notes of theJawstheme tune as he clutched the DVD box.
‘What’s the matter?’ Tom asked.
‘Oh, I have to go–’
‘Emme!’ Harry shouted again, sounding more scared than princely.
‘Harry needs me –’
‘Harry? Who’s Harry?’ asked Tom.
‘I’ll call you back.’
Emme ended the call and rushed to Harry’s bedroom, just as he came out of it, sobbing. He saw Emme and ran into her arms, clinging onto her for dear life.
‘Shhh, hey it’s OK, I’m here…’
‘There were monsters, and I wasn’t allowed to look at them… and I feel sick…’ Harry grasped for air between sobs.
‘Hey, it’s OK,’ Emme said, rubbing Harry’s back in her embrace. ‘Sounds like a bad dream.’
‘I feel dizzy.’
He rested his head on her shoulder.
‘Shhh …’
Emme held him for a few minutes crouched in the hallway and then said she’d get him a glass of water and a thermometer, before leading him back to bed. She checked his temperature as the thermometer beeped.
‘Hmmm, 37.4, a little on the high side but I think you’re OK, buddy. Have another sip of water,’ she said, passing him the glass from the bedside table.
‘Will you sit with me?’ Harry sighed.
‘Yes,’ Emme said, wedging herself in.
Emme sat propped up next to Harry until he fell back asleep and as she watched his eyes flicker, she realised how far they’d come in a few weeks. The boy who had disdainfully cast aside his ‘lame’ Paddington bear clearly needed her in his hour of need.
Emme was starting to drift off herself when she heard a gentle knock at the front door and opened her eyes.Never a dull moment,she thought.
Emme checked Harry’s brow with her free hand and, reassured by its temperature, she carefully unlooped his arm from her waist so she could extricate herself. The knock sounded again. She’d left her phone in the living room so couldn’t see who had got through the downstairs entrance and up to the front door on the BUZZ app.
‘Coming,’ she stage whispered, as she padded down the warm hallway.
Emme opened the door to see Cat on the other side of it.
