“Let’s go on a really long walk,” I say to my black and white sibling with a tail. “I need lots and lots of air.”
*
Two hours later and I finally decide I’m hungry. Doris and I make our way back to Mum’s, my stomach a ball of knots. I haven’t dared to turn my phone back on yet. My nerves haven’t settled since I saw his name flash up on my screen, although I have been walking at quite a pace. I made it pretty far down the coast. I just had to keep walking. It was like the further I went, the more I asserted myself, the more likely I was to answer the massive question mark in my head.
I’m not even sure what the question is, but the knowledge that he’s trying to reach me to either have a go at me or… I don’t really know… has butterflies lapping circles in my stomach. It doesn’t matter anyway. He doesn’t deserve my time, the lying— I need to relax. Why am I so hyped up about this? I would have never reacted this way to Gloatman calling me a few weeks ago.
Or would I?
Maybe I would’ve in a different way. Instantly on the defence, prepared for a fight. Have I always been chemically reactive towards him? There I was taking the mickey out of him back in Scotland for maybe being in love with me the whole time, when it might’ve been me instead.
Oh god.No. That can’t be right,can it?
I put the key in the door. As I hang the coat on the hooks and unclip Doris, a deep voice has my entire body going rigid. Mum is talking to someone in the kitchen.How odd.
Then it hits me. I recognise that voice. I know it so well that it reverberates in my brain. I put my hand on the wall to steady myself.
No, it can’t be.
I’m imagining things.
I take my shoes off quietly, creeping through the hall with a frown on my face. As I reach the kitchen door I slowly peer around the frame. His black hair is flat again, flopping down over his forehead as if he’s been running. He’s drinking tea out of one of Mum’s mugs. I blink at the scene before me.
“Oh, there you are! You’ve been gone ages. I nearly sent a search party out for you. I called your dad and everything, just to check you hadn’t gone there,” Mum says, clearly annoyed. She folds her arms like I’m being rude. Maybe I am. I’m so confused. “Anyway, you didn’t tell me your friend was coming over, Flissity, I would’ve made some lunch had you said.”
“I didn’t know,” I say, perplexed.
James looks at me now. His eyes connect with mine, blue fire sending a shot of energy straight to my core. It’s as if he’s both sorry and completely not sorry all in one breath.
“Hi,” he says.
Chapter Twenty-Six
I laugh but it sounds bitter.
“What are you doing here?”
Mum pauses rummaging through the freezer, probably looking for something to feed us. She gives me a wide-eyed look. “Fliss, don’t be so rude.”
“Mum.” I give her a stern glance, hoping she’ll get the hint.
Thankfully, she does. “Right. I’ll leave you two to it…” she says, practically skipping towards the kitchen door, then pauses in her step to click the kettle on. “There, you’ll probably want a tea after that walk.”
And with that, she closes the door behind her, trapping me with James. Oh hell. My heart is somehow leaping up to my throat.
“How do you know where my mum lives?”
James gives me a look. “We work,worked, for The Starr Agency. They save all our personal details in the shared file.”
“Do they?”
He nods. “Yeah. We could sue them for that too.”
“So, you are suing, are you?” I say sarcastically, then shake my head. I don’t actually care about that. Before he can answer, I ask, “Why are you here?”
“We need to talk. Please.”
“You can’t just come round uninvited.”
