Marianne crossed her fingers on both hands. ‘I think so too.’
Gio was about to call a taxi for them both when Bess offered to give them a lift home. And all the while she was driving, Marianne couldn’t stop chatting. It was a good sign.
While Marianne went inside first because she was desperateto use the loo, Gio hovered on the pavement, leaning the best he could towards Bess’s open driver’s side window.
‘Thanks for this, Bess.’
‘Saves you the challenge of the bus or a taxi fare.’
‘It does.’ He smiled. ‘But also it’s a thank you for the room, for giving Mum a chance.’
‘Mutual benefit – I need the money.’
‘She’ll be in for Christmas; is that okay?’
‘The sooner, the better.’
His eyes locked with hers and he sensed this was more than needing a little bit of extra cash but Bess, confident and bubbly, wasn’t about to let it show. ‘Anything I need to know?’ he asked.
‘I’d say it’s probably none of your business.’ And although she said it with a little laugh, he had a suspicion she meant it.
‘I shouldn’t have asked.’
She groaned. ‘I’m doing it again, snapping at you.’
‘You’re going to have to apologise to me you know. You could do it by letting me take you to dinner?’
‘We’ll see.’ It wasn’t a no but the window closed, putting a partition between them again, and he waved his goodbyes.
‘She’s wonderful, isn’t she?’ said his mum as Gio stepped inside out of the cold.
All he could do was agree that yes, she really was.
But selfishly, he hoped his mum wouldn’t do something to mess this up because if she did, it could ruin his chances with Bess for good. He’d always held back from making a move, but since his accident, he’d begun to flirt around her. She thought it was him, it was the way he was with every woman, and she’d be right in some ways. But not with this. He was interested in Bess properly, as if all the dating up until now had been a practice run.
And to be honest, feeling that way scared the hell out of him.
16
Bess told herself she’d get used to it, having someone in her home. She told herself to think of the money because with the extra pounds coming in, she could allay some of the worry.
She’d made the decision to rent out her spare room after talking it through with Maya the evening Maya insisted they go to her place and wouldn’t take no for an answer.
‘I’ve been thinking…’ Maya had said as she served up the pasta dish. ‘Isaac struggled to find a student house for this academic year and we were almost at the point of renting a spare room, anywhere, in a family home, whatever it took.’ Isaac was Maya’s son, who was at university in Scotland.
‘Are you suggesting I take in a lodger?’
‘Why not? You have a lovely spare room – I should know; I’ve stayed in it a couple of times after the pub. And you don’t have many guests as your friends and your mum are local. You wouldn’t have to do it forever, but you could make a few hundred quid a month, enough to top up your income and get you on top of things.’
That day, Bess’s initial reaction wasnowaybut then an image of those bills piled one on top of the other had come into her head and she’d changed her mind.
But now Marianne had only been living here for just over a week and Bess was struggling. It didn’t help that Bess’s shifts had been confined to days, which meant that she only had an hour of quiet before Marianne got home.
It wasn’t Marianne herself that was the problem; it was more that Bess liked a bit of space. As sociable as she was at work, even she needed her alone time and she missed it. Which made her feel terrible because Marianne was trying her best.
And so was Gio. He called his mum every day; Bess often caught the tail end of conversations and had to admit she was beginning to see a deeper side to him, a man with heart, a man with soul.
Marianne’s humming carried down the stairs as Bess cooked dinner but she bit back the temptation to call up to ask her to be quiet. Tolerance was something she had to learn and Marianne was pulling her weight in the house. This morning, she’d cleaned the bathroom and done a way better job than Bess ever had, and before Bess could stop her, she’d vacuumed the hallway, stairs and then the landing. She’d claimed she could do cleaning in half the time of anyone else given it was her profession.
