“In which part?”
“All of it.”
“Hmmmm.” He gently squeezed her nipple. “You’re not kicking me out so I think I passed whatever test you just constructed. Now at least try and go to sleep.”
She smiled and let herself just be, not trying to analyse things any more.
12
The clock in the town square had just chimed one as she finished with her last patient of the morning session. It was as if the residents of Severton and the surrounding villages had taken pity on her for being several shades of blue, and no one had anything anymore problematic than a loose filling.
The door to her treatment room swung open and a paint covered woman stood there, looking at Keren as if she was a naughty child.
It was a look Rayah had perfected, given that she used it several times a day. Keren would’ve been slightly unnerved, but this was Rayah; she’d held her hair while she’d thrown up from drinking too much, let her cry on her shoulder after being dumped and connived ways to stop her parents from finding out about various broken ornaments, bones and illicit nights out in Leeds when they were both underage.
“There’s no point glaring.”
“I have the rest of lunch and my planning time to listen to what you and my cousin were doing together on Saturday. And I brought you a sandwich and a cake from the cook.” Rayah handed a small paper back over.
Keren looked in. The same cook still made the lunches in the primary school where Rayah worked as had done when she and Keren had gone to as kids. “She’s even included a shortbread biscuit.”
“It’s ridiculous how excited you get.”
Keren ate the biscuit first. “She’s a feeder. I like feeders. My boobs and ass like feeders. Keeps them curvy.”
Rayah shook her head. “Scott. I need details. Not all details. Have you slept with him? Did he take advantage of you?”
“Yes. But I slept with him last Sunday first. No, he didn’t take advantage. I came clean off my bike and he looked after me. In fact, I was trying to take advantage of him in the woodman’s hut and he was too worried about my injuries. He was almost a perfect gentleman.”
Rayah’s expression was still cross. “You hate him. He torments you. You spend hours, if not days, talking about what a dick he is when you’re around. Then all of a sudden you’ve become intimately acquainted with his cock? I’m missing a piece of the story here, Key.”
Keren took a bite out of the sandwich. “You remember when Scott started being awful with me?”
“When he came back from uni. In fact, it was the day after Neil Lennox’s party. Jonny had to get me down off the roof.” Rayah mentioned the event like it was an everyday occurrence.
“It was a lose slate. You could’ve left it.”
“If it had rained it would’ve ruined the master bedroom, and they’d just had it redone.”
“And you climbed on it in the middle of the night when you’d drank a couple of ciders and a few shots. Jonny was livid.”
Rayah shrugged. “I was fine. He didn’t need to get up there. And I got down by myself. But I remember him being really nasty the day after and we were all like ‘holy fuck’ where did that come from. It was well timed because it stopped me getting a bigger bollocking than what my parents were planning.”
“You needed a keeper back then,” Keren said, not sure if the ‘back then’ was entirely necessary. Rayah had been on more roofs since.
“What happened at that party?”
“Scott believed that someone asked me what I thought of him in a non-platonic way and apparently I said I wouldn’t be seen dead with a…”
“Weirdo muso.” Rayah finished. “That’s why he went off last week. You didn’t say that about him.”
“Ray, if I had any inkling back then if Scott wanted to ask me out, what would my response have been?”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to think too much about it. But you wouldn’t have called him a weirdo muso. For a start, that’s not you. I remember Dean what’s his face asking you out and he deserved every name under the freaking sun. You were still polite and tried to get a compliment in there.”
“But someone who knew Scott was interested in you reported that back to him.” Rayah said. “The question is who.”
Keren shrugged. “He got mad at me for how I dismissed him. And how he thought I’d changed. I got mad at him for not being honest back then.”
