‘I’m all for shaking it off, what do you suggest?’ He looked at Drew, a suspicion of what the other man might say making him raise his eyebrows. ‘Although if you suggest another cold water swim it might be the end of our friendship and it’ll almost certainly be the end of any hope I’ve got of becoming a father one day. It’s still only March and I thought my testicles were never going to recover from the last one.’
‘Too much information, big bro, too much information.’ Eden shook her head, but she was laughing. ‘Now you can see why I keep refusing to go and I haven’t even got testicles.’
‘You don’t know what you’re missing out on. All those endorphins that come rushing to the surface, not to mention the improvements to your circulation and your mental resilience.’ Drew could spout all the science he wanted about his newfound passion for sea swimming all year round, but Felix’s toes weren’t the only things curling in on themselves at the thought of it. Even if he had wanted to make it a daily habit, he definitely wouldn’t have chosen March to start.
‘Eden might not have tried it, but I know exactly what I’m missing out on and I intend to keep it that way.’ Felix grinned again, already feeling much better just for spending time with people he loved and who he knew loved him in return. It was certainly far more appealing than plunging back into the Atlantic and trying not to release a string of expletives about just how cold it was. Otherwise, he’d have turned the air as blue as his testicles.
‘I don’t need to try it when there are plenty of other ways to get an endorphin rush.’ Eden said as she shook her head and Felix raised his eyebrows for a second time.
‘I think it might be my turn to caution you about too much information.’
‘Not that.’ She stuck out her tongue. ‘Boys are so basic. What I was going to suggest was that we all head for dinner at Penrose Plaice. When we went in there with Teddie last month, I told Brae, the guy who runs the place, that he’ll only eat chicken nuggets from McDonald’s or Birdseye, so there’d be no point ordering anything for him. You know what Teddie’s like, nuggets might be one of his safe foods, but if they deviate even slightly from what he’s expecting, we might as well be asking him to eat a whole trout with its head still on.’
‘He’s got a discerning palate.’ A wave of love for his gorgeous nephew, and all the little quirks that made Teddie who he was, washed over Felix as Eden nodded.
‘He has indeed and it turns out that Brae was more than willing to cater to it. The next time we went in, he said he had a stash of Birdseye nuggets ready and waiting for Teddie’s visit. So my vote for the endorphin rush we all need is a family dinner at Penrose Plaice and a wander around the harbour in Port Agnes to look at the winter lights before they take them down. Teddie loves them.’
Port Agnes was the neighbouring village to Port Kara and for the first time this year they were keeping some of the lights that had been put up at Christmas on display until the first official day of spring on the twentieth of March. It had been billed as ‘light in the dark’ and a way of encouraging visitors in the quietest months of the year. Teddie would have been happy to see the lights up all year round and anything that made his nephew happy was a good idea as far as Felix was concerned.
‘That sounds perfect. Thank you.’ Bending slightly, he dropped a kiss on his little sister’s head. This was why he’d come home. Family was everything and no medicine or therapy would ever be able to take its place.
3
Eve’s decision to go to Oakwood Park before work meant that there was a firm cut-off point for when she’d be able to leave. If she went after work, and Annie was there, no reason or excuse would feel good enough for why she couldn’t stay for longer. It didn’t matter that most of the time Max didn’t even seem to want her there, preferring instead to hang out with his new friends, gaming or watching TV. Annie would look at her in that way she did, her eyes slightly narrowed, saying something that sounded innocuous enough on the surface, but that was loaded with hidden meaning.
‘You’re always in such a rush. I do feel for you, having to spread your time so thinly, I don’t know how you and Max ever managed to spend any time together before the assault. Although, I suppose if something is enough of a priority then you can always find the time.’
Annie’s tone would always be light, there was no emphasis on the words that would make it obvious she was having a dig, but Eve felt the sharp stab of reproach all the same. Maybe it was because she was searching for excuses not to spend as muchtime with Max as she could have done and Annie could see right through the reasons she came up with.
When she arrived at Oakwood Park, there was no sign of Annie, but her heart lifted a little at the sight of Felix, the occupational therapist working with Max on both his physical and cognitive rehabilitation. Max had been having regular sessions with the occupational therapy team at the hospital, but just recently Felix had been assigned to work with him in preparation for the next phase of his rehabilitation and the proposed moved to semi-independent living in one of the shared bungalows. As a result, Felix was now coming out to see Max in his own environment for some of their scheduled sessions. Eve had been introduced to Felix before he’d even started working at the hospital, because his sister, Eden, was one of her colleagues and perhaps the closest thing to a new friend she’d made since moving to Cornwall.
Eve had liked him straightaway and she’d been delighted when she’d discovered that he was Max’s assigned occupational therapist. Sometimes conversations with the medical professionals supporting Max could be difficult and she’d broken down when she’d been asked by one of the doctors about how his behavioural changes were affecting her, wondering if the other woman was judging her as harshly as she was judging herself. Eve felt as if she could be honest with Felix and that he wouldn’t judge her. She knew about some of the difficulties he and Eden had experienced in their own family, and that he would be unlikely to see things in black and white the way she feared other people might. They probably didn’t, after all, the medical team supporting Max would have seen all of this before and the way injuries like his could change everything. But Eve felt judged, because she knew nothing about these people and they knew far more about her than she wanted them to. With Felix it felt like there was more of a balance.
‘Hi, Eve, how are you? We were just talking about you.’ Felix greeted her with the smile he always seemed to be wearing whenever she saw him and she found herself wondering if he was really as carefree as he seemed. She doubted it, in a job like his, but she found her mood lifting just from being around him. He had the same dark hair and bright blue eyes as his sister, but aside from their colouring, they didn’t really look alike, despite the fact that they were both very attractive. Felix was hanging onto the last vestiges of the tan he’d been sporting when they first met and he was like a much-needed dose of sunshine on a grey March day.
‘I’m good, thanks, but should I be worried when you say you’ve been talking about me.’
‘All good things.’ Felix was still smiling, but she saw a flicker of something in his eyes that gave away the lie even before Max interjected.
‘I told him that you couldn’t wait to get your knickers off when we met.’ Max gave a brittle laugh. It was completely different from the sound of his laughter that she remembered so vividly. Things like that were what made it all the harder to believeherMax was still in there. The feeling deepened as he turned towards Felix, with a smirk on his face. ‘Gagging for it she was, like a bitch on heat!’
Eve caught her breath, unable to speak. Max wouldneverhave said anything like that before the assault, not even to his friends in the sort of inanely laddish way some men did. It was so far removed from the sort of person he’d been that she couldn’t even bring herself to respond, but Felix could.
‘You need to stop talking like that, Max. This is exactly the kind of inappropriate comment we were speaking about just now.’ Felix’s voice was calm and measured, which would have made his words hard to argue with, even if Max had felt like it, but he just shrugged.
‘I don’t see why. It’s not an insult.’
‘There are parts of a relationship that are supposed to remain private and you need to make sure that Eve feels comfortable with the sort of things you’re sharing.’
‘You don’t care, do you?’ Max looked at Eve as if any protest she might make would have surprised the hell out of him; as if no one could possibly be offended by being described as a ‘bitch on heat’. ‘We used to have loads of sex; it’s nothing to be ashamed of.’
‘It’s like Felix said, I don’t think other people need to know about that and I very much doubt they want to hear about it either.’ Eve tried to keep the same note of calm in her voice as Felix had adopted, but she didn’t manage it. Instead her tone was tight and strained. Coupled with holding back the urge to cry, it left her throat feeling raw with suppressed emotion.
‘They bloody well do want to hear about it. Jamie said he could imagine what you liked doing and that he’d have given anything to see your?—’
‘Darling!’ Annie swept into the room, thankfully cutting off whatever it was that Max had been about to say.
‘Christ, not you again. Why don’t you just go into work if you’re that bored that you need to come here all the time.’ Max sounded like a huffy teenager, but if Annie was offended she wasn’t showing it and she just laughed. It was something she was far better at than Eve could ever imagine herself being, but deep down the changes in Max must be every bit as agonising for Annie as they were for Eve.
