“Not an espresso.” My daughter had developed a taste for strong coffee, no sugar. I had no idea who she’d inherited that from.
“I could do with ten of them. Why does school have to start so early?” Her head sank to the table, hair sticking up everywhere. Mornings were not her forte.
“So you get to finish early and get to dance practice.” I broke eggs into a bowl. Light scrambled eggs and sourdough would get her through the rest of the morning.
“How’s your boss?” Her eyes focused above her, expression teasing.
“Asleep, so don’t wake her.” I should’ve reminded her that she had a name, but it was too early and I knew Lauren was trying to push my buttons.
“You think she’d chat to me about dance? She sounds like she knows a lot about it.”
I turned on the coffee machine. A double espresso was sounding like a great idea.
“I think she’d love to. She’s a good dancer.” Remembering how we’d danced two nights ago was not sensible right now because my body would start to remember it too. Maybe when I got back in bed.
Lauren raised her brows. “It seems you’ve got to know her pretty well. I hope you’re being careful, Dad. Not sure I’m ready for a little brother or sister yet.”
I laughed quietly, scrambling the eggs, the smell of toasting bread starting to waft through the room. “Get the butter from the fridge and sort the coffee. What are you plans this weekend?”
She actually moved without argument, which was unusual.
“There’s a party tomorrow night.”
There was also no question, which meant she wasn’t sure she wanted to go.
“But I want to go to the centre on Sunday and see if Uncle Rob is there. Are we still doing the sponsored sleep out?”
Coldness flooded my veins. I never forgot about Robert. Somewhere in the back of my head he was a constant, just as he had been when he was in Afghanistan and Iraq before that.
“If you want to.” The centre did an event each year where people slept rough for one night and raised money to keep the organisation alive. Lauren and I had done it for the last two years, since Robert had moved out of the third flat I’d found for him.
He couldn’t be enclosed. Four walls drove him madder than he already was, in his words. Being on his own in an enclosed space gave him too much room with too many thoughts and therein lay the madness.
“I want to. Lily asked if she could do it too. We thought we could raise more money in school and maybe at dance too. I was thinking of asking Miss if we could put on a show to raise funds for the centre.”
She was speaking quickly, her words falling out like pennies from a pocket. A key sign that she was worried.
“There’s no harm in asking.” And her dance teacher would probably agree anyway.
“Cool.” She paused, accepting the plate of breakfast. “Do you think Uncle Rob is okay?”
Uncle Rob hadn’t been okay for a decade. I couldn’t completely lie to her. “I don’t know, Lolly. He’s disappeared before and been fine so I hope so. But I don’t know.”
She looked at her plate. “Can we look for him?”
“I’ve been asking people to. He might’ve gone up north for a bit. He has friends up there.”
“I hope that’s where he is.” Her phone started to vibrate and her expression changed.
“Put your plate in the dishwasher before you leave.”
I don’t think she heard. Instead of checking I decided to head back to Simone.
* * *
For the firsttime in months, I went back to sleep after making Lauren breakfast, waking around nine-thirty, my arms full of soft woman, her hands full of hard cock.
“Holy shit.” My words certainly weren’t poetry.
