“That would be lame. Do your legs still work? If not, I’ll bring coffee over.”
She arched her back and stretched some more and I made a mental note to thank whoever it was who had decided the snuggle chairs would be a good idea for the end of the aisles. “I need to abandon my apartment and move in here. I don’t have much stuff. No one would notice.”
“I’m not sure the clientele would appreciate the overwhelming smell of your atrocious pizzas.” I offered a hand to help her up, not that I thought she needed it, but I wanted to touch her again.
“There’s nothing wrong with my pizza, Anders,” she said, standing up and bouncing on her heels. “My legs might’ve gone to sleep though.” She bent down to pick up her book, her tight jeans sticking to every curve and I couldn’t fail to notice that. I wanted to offer to help wake them up, to tell her that it was nothing that a good massage wouldn’t fix but instinct told me to remain in the friend zone.
“Can you walk or shall I send a courtesy mobility scooter for you?” I said, keeping the tone cutting.
“Walking’s fine,” she said. “This has been lush though. Sitting here and just reading. I can’t remember the last time I did this.”
“Why?” I said. I got when my friends who had kids couldn’t find time, but the rest—skip Netflix, skip a night out or make it a thing to finish work on time, not even early, and go home to pick up a good book to lose yourself in.
“Because. Work,” she said. “I’m too exhausted when I get in to focus. Hell, you saw the state of where I live.”
“I get that,” I said, and I did. “But if you love reading then read a chapter a night to switch off from work.”
She walked to me and stretched to reach up to put her fingers in my hair, pulling it sharply. “You don’t need to use your sales techniques on me. Now, find me coffee or I’ll have an incredible hulk moment right here.”
* * *
We were sitting near the café for all of two minutes before my mother found us, a bit like a heat-seeking missile but with better sorting powers. “You must be Payton,” she said, tucking her long skirt up before trying to climb into one of the high stools I’d wrongly thought would be a deterrent.
“Some days I decide I’m actually She-Ra or Lara Croft, it’s just the rest of the world fails to acknowledge me as that,” Payton said, her face completely expressionless and her tone flat.
My mother nodded. She was a master of subtleties and unfortunately they were going to get along. Unlike Amber, my ex, Payton had a sense of humour.
“If I cast myself as Lara I’m afraid they’d have me sectioned. However, I can get away with the odd Frasier or Seinfeld character. As long as no one from a medical profession is nearby. How’s your niece?”
Payton’s face lit up like fireworks on New Year’s Eve. “Gorgeous. She’ll be home in a couple of days so I get to see her whenever my sister needs a sleep.”
“Move in then. The first few weeks are hard because you’re terrified they’ve stopped breathing or they’re crying and you can’t hear it. I was dreadful with Owen until he was about four, but that was because he was such a good sleeper.”
“It was all the herbs you exposed me to, Mum,” I said, needing to get some control over the conversation as I knew where she would take this. “I’ve told Payton about your youth.”
My mother rolled her eyes. “He knows nothing. You, however, can sort the mess that my ex has left us in. You look like a pixie, so let’s hope you have fairy powers too.”
I tried not to physically cringe. Payton, however, looked enamoured, which was the effect my mother had on most people.
“It will be sorted,” Payton said. “These sorts of disagreements are unfortunately quite common. I’ll have a forensic accountant put forward a suggestion of how much his half of the business is worth and we’ll go from there. I doubt your ex will accept the first offer, but it gives us a starting point to head into mediation with.”
“What’s mediation?” my mother asked. She had worked for Cases since I opened it and was now pretty much a general manger. She had a talent with staff; training them, managing them and disciplining them when necessary.
“Mediation is when two parties try to come to an agreement without going to court. It’s more cost-effective and time-effective than getting a judge involved,” Payton said, pushing her hair back behind her ears. She didn’t look as tired as she did yesterday; her eyes were brighter and her smile was wider. I’d seen the photos on Instagram of her tidied apartment and the celebratory hashtags she’d added.
“Does that mean Owen will have to sit in a room with him?” my mum asked, with a roll of her eyes and a loud sigh. “He will drag this out for as long as possible.”
“I’m not bothered by seeing him,” I said. “You’re the one who’s fallen out with him for whatever reason.”
“Why did you split up?” Payton asked, accepting a latte that I’d ordered as soon as we’d sat down. “Did he cheat?”
My mother shook her head. “No. It was just time.”
“Time for what?” I asked. That was more than she’d given away before. Neither her nor Dave had said anything other than it was ‘complicated’. Wasn’t everything fucking complicated?
“Owen told me your niece was born yesterday,” my mother said.
I knew there was no chance of any further information. We had a curious relationship. She’d always been there, for whatever I’d needed whether that had been as someone to be angry with for no reason when I was thirteen and hitting puberty like a train, or when I’d needed a quick lesson in contraception at fifteen and my girlfriend (who was older than me) was over and I’d forgotten the essentials, or when I’d needed a good hard kick up the arse when my now-ex had the guts to call it a day on our relationship which was way past its use-by-date. But she’d never given me anything to rebel against. Her hippy principals allowed me the freedom to try, as long as I was safe or knew how to be safe. She had never said no. My requests had been met with ‘have you considered what will happen if?’ and I learnt how to take a risk.
