Finn grins.
Jo finds she is grinning back.
Then Finn starts to laugh.
Jo feels the answering laughter brimming up within her and it spills into the shop carried on a huge wave of relief.
‘Come here, Sorsby!’ Finn declares.
Jo heads round the edge of the counter and straight into his open arms.
They stand locked together in a huge hug, rocking slightly and laughing.
‘Oh Finn,’ Jo says, giving him a final squeeze, before letting go. She thinks how good it is to hold him, to just hug someone. She finds herself wondering how long it has been since someone gave Malcolm a hug.
‘We good?’ Finn asks, releasing her and looking down at her.
‘Yeah,’ Jo says, and she knows that they are. ‘Coffee?’
‘Yep,’ Finn replies, dragging his bag over towards the counter and pulling up a stool.
When Jo returns with two mugs, he is doodling something with one of her fountain pens. ‘You’ve been ignoring me,’ he says accusingly, but with the laughter still in his voice.
‘Well, you weren’t exactly getting in touch with me,’ she responds, tartly, looking down at the cycle Finn is drawing. ‘Have you told Lucy?’ she asks him.
He looks up quickly at this. ‘Are you kidding?! You know what Lucy’s like – she’s more like my mum than my sister.’
Jo knows this to be true. Their mother was an erratic presence in their lives, coming and going as the drink took her, her life reflected in the maudlin and tragic country-and-western songs that she sang so well. Lucy ebbed and flowed to her father’s side, picking up where her mother left off to help him raise their bevy of boys, none of whom had inherited much from their mother, except her strawberry-blonde hair. Certainly none of them could sing. It was Lucy who was given that one gift by her mother.
So Finn, the youngest of the brothers, was someone always referred to as if he was still barely more than a teenager. And what is he now? Thirty-two? A respected environmental consultant. Still dressing like a surfer and into his bikes, cycling miles most days. But still, to her, Lucy’s younger brother.
Out of bounds.
‘And that makes that night what? Like sleeping with your mum’s friend?’
‘Ah, go on, Jo. It was good.’ He looks up at her and smiles softly. ‘Was always going to happen, ever since Reading Festival.’
‘Yeah, I guess,’ she agrees.
She always knew Finn had liked her. From thirteen, when she was nineteen, it had been as obvious as the pimples and blemishes that had covered his face. Not a spot in sight now though, Jo thinks, with a half-smile. Oh, there had always been something between them. Nothing ever said, Jo always acting the older sister. Apart from that one time at the Reading Festival. She had been twenty-seven, Finn turned twenty-one. That kiss. Jo smiles slowly at the memory. It was so good. So long in coming. But she knew it was wrong. Called a halt to anything else.
It was a memory she would cherish. But nothing more.
Until that night in Newcastle. It was two weeks before she left for London. She was out with old friends from work, saying goodbye. The database, geeky crowd. At work it was always so good. The in-jokes and teasing. But in that neon-lit bar, they all felt like strangers, struggling to find conversation.
A place for everything and everything in its placecomes into her mind.
Then Finn wandered in, the old friends left and, well … they drank way too much. Talked about old times. Reminisced about Reading Festival.
Still, she is not sure who was more surprised when they woke up next to each other the following morning.
‘Unfinished business,’ he says, winking at her.
Rebound, Jo thinks, she had been missing James and had just found out about him seeing Nickeeey. But she doesn’t disagree with Finn that it was also unfinished business. ‘But no more sleeping with your mum’s friend?’ she teases.
He looks slightly startled, and she takes pity on him. ‘No, we’re good as we are,’ she reassures him. And they are. She hadn’t wanted more, but had been worried he might have done. (Another reason to leave.) It also did not sit easily with her and all her thoughts of Lucy. Lucy, who was like a mum to Finn. And a fiercely protective ‘mum’ at that.
‘So Lucy doesn’t know?’ Jo persists.
