“I did.” He puffs up a little. “Found my thing. Something I was actually good at. I know care isn’t for everybody. That the pay is shite and that the only way to make more than a basic living is to be the owner of a care home. People look down on it, especially if men do the caring.”
I repeat what he told Blake. “But it still matters.”
Dair leans against a barrier between us and a great view across the river. He only has eyes for me, and that combined with everything he’s shared is…
A lot.
He’s well and truly unbuttoned his lip about issues other people gave him a hard time for.
I can almost hear my cousin telling me to shut my yap, and I got no intention of breaking that promise—I like the way Dair sees me.
You’re so smart, Vincent.
But what he’s told me today means I can’t keep this in. “What you said about going into care. About how it felt. That could have been me, if my fam hadn’t stepped in. Sorry it happened to you.”
He looks about to ask more questions.
I head off before he can, already regretting opening my big mouth.
Don’t let anyone see where you’re weakest.
Dair follows me again, his lips pressed together when I hold open the door into a tower block where, thankfully, the lift works. It grinds its slow way up, and Dair finally breaks his silence, thankfully not to ask about one of the worst times in my own life. He studies the lift button I pressed. “Fifteen floors up? Bet the view is epic.” He keeps seeing positives where other people might see downsides to living in a shit neighbourhood. “Does your cousin’s place overlook the river?”
“Yeah, it does. The best view is from the spare room.”
Dair’s laugh creaks like the workings of this postwar elevator. “Trust me, you don’t need to add incentives to get me into your bedroom.”
That’s bare.
And honest.
He meets my eyes, and I can see it. Can feel it too when his hand brushes mine. For a second, our fingers tangle, then thelift opens, and I don’t run exactly. I do take off in a hurry, which is stupid—I’m the one who invited him back here—yet now that I’m in a hallway where the front door of each flat faces a storage cupboard, regrets chase me.
Behind one of those padlocked doors are a whole lot of answers to the questions I know he wanted to ask me.
I fish out the set of keys Kev and Marilyn have so far insisted I keep. “Wait here. I need to grab a different key.” I open the front door to the flat and call out, “Maz?” to no answer, apart from a yowl. My aunt’s cat shoots out before I can stop her from escaping, and Dair crouches to greet a perpetually furious street fighter.
“Careful. She’s?—”
I don’t get time to warn Dair that the cat is almost feral. He most likely wouldn’t hear me over her purring. That’s surprising. And a real blast from the past. Whatisnew is hearing him call a thug of a feline a bonny wee something or other. I grab the key I need from the hook just inside the front door and ask him, “What did you just call her?”
“A piseag. It’s Gaelic for kitten.” He strokes ears shredded by run-ins with rivals who limped home the loser. Then he runs a hand along the back she arches for more pets, and she purrs even louder, the bell on her collar tinkling. I can’t say I blame her. I did more than purr the last time Dair paid my own back the same kind of stroking attention.
He looks up from his crouch, and that’s so close to another bathroom flashback I almost stoop to kiss him.
Thank fuck, a door slams further along the hallway, or I’d break a promise I made to myself this morning to stop take, take, taking.
“What’s she called?” Dair asks, like he hasn’t noticed my inner battle.
“Kitty.” I get a grip on myself and cross to the opposite side of the hallway to unlock a padlock. “Not very imaginative, I know. I didn’t name her.”
“Ha! My cat’s called Mog. Nothing wrong with keeping it simple.” He pets Kitty some more. “Who named this one? Your cousin?” Dair gets to his feet.
“My aunt Stacey. It’s her cat. And this is her storage unit.” I swing open the door to a deep, dark cupboard. “I mean, itwashers. It’s Kev and Marilyn’s since they took over her tenancy.”
“Stacey lived here first?”
“She did.” Thank fuck Kev’s succession application was successful or strangers would now live here. I busy myself by digging through containers that hold almost everything left of a life, apart from an angry cat and the spiky plants Stacey tended.
