‘Ouch! Thatstings.’
‘Don’t be such a baby,’ I said, pressing a cotton pad drenched in TCP on to his scratches. ‘This is what happens when you try to pretend you’re Superman.’
Josh grinned at that.
‘I was trying to impress you with my superhero skills. Did it work?’
‘No,’ I said. But it had, and I had a strong feeling he knew that.
Chapter Twenty One
‘That was really delicious.’
‘Should I be offended that you sound surprised?’ Josh asked, swiping the plate from my hand when he saw I was about to get to my feet.
‘I’m not an invalid,’ I protested, wobbling alarmingly as I struggled to position the crutch beneath my arm.
‘It’s not you I’m worried about,’ Josh threw over his shoulder as he walked towards the dishwasher. ‘I just don’t have enough crockery for you to keep smashing it all to smithereens.’
‘One plate. One tiny plate,’ I muttered under my breath, knowing without even looking up that he would be grinning.
‘So why did you think I’d be inept in the kitchen?’ he asked, upending a can of creamed rice and shaking it into two waiting bowls.
‘Well, a) you have an awful lot of tinned goods for a man who can actually make a very decent casserole,’ I said, still satisfyingly full following the meal he’d made from scratch. ‘And b) because when we were kids the only thing you ever made were peanut butter sandwiches.’
Josh gave a shrug that seemed to hold more secrets than it should. ‘I think we’ve both changed many times over since we were next-door neighbours, Lily.’
That was definitely true, but it was a hornets’ nest of a comment that I had no intention of poking.
He set the dessert bowls on the table and then brought over two mugs of steaming black coffee.
‘Was Adam a good cook?’
The question shattered the mood like a stone through a window. Josh saw me flinch and his face immediately twisted into an expression of remorse.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, his head bowed as though spooning sugar into his mug suddenly needed all his concentration. Perhaps it did, because he appeared to have forgotten he never took any in his coffee. ‘I don’t know what made me ask that. It was thoughtless of me.’
I shook my head, watching as he sipped the brew without apparently noticing how sweet it was. ‘Do you want to know one of the worst things about losing your husband?’ I asked, my voice small but steady.
Josh looked up and his eyes met mine across the width of the kitchen table. He nodded.
‘Nobody wants to hear about him. They don’t ask you what he was like, or what were the things he loved. No one wants to know what made him laugh or drove him crazy. They edit him out of every conversation because they believe it’ll be too painful for you to talk about him. But really, the most painful thing of all isnevergetting to talk about him.’
‘You can talk to me.’
That had been true once, long ago. There had been a time when I’d happily have shared my every thought with him. But now?
Josh nodded, encouraging me.
I felt a door slowly swing open in my head, as a very different smile found its way to my lips. It was my Adam smile.
‘Those questions are almost too easy,’ I said, as I checked the responses off on the fingers of one hand. ‘Adam was kind and considerate. He was the sort of person who everyone wanted as their friend.’
Josh’s expression didn’t change, although I saw the twitch of a muscle at the corner of his eye.
‘And the thing he loved most ... that was me. And he told me so, every single day. I always knew how he felt about me, because he was incapable of lying.’
The muscle twitched even more as I continued.
