My breath caught. I care about you, Tabitha.
His brown eyes lit like whisky next to a blazing fire, burning me up with his heat. It was like he was thinking differently about me. Not like I was the annoying client he’d spent the last three months arguing with at my parents’ house. He cared about the woman standing in front of him now, in her new red dress. My cheeks blushed hot.
His face was so close to mine we were breathing the same air, so close our lips were almost touching, causing butterflies to take flight in my stomach. All the feelings I’d had for him when I was twenty-five rushed back. What was happening here? Was he going to kiss me? Did I want him to?
Surely I didn’t…
“I’d do the same for my sister,” he said, breaking off the stare.
Ouch.Why did that make me feel so…disappointed?
I wiggled my shoulders and gathered my wits, annoyed at his reaction—and annoyed at myself for thinking of him as anything but bloody annoying.
“But I’m not your sister. And I know your sister, remember? Amy would tell you to take a running jump too. I make my own decisions, and tonight, I decided to get off with someone.” Perched on the top of the steps outside the nightclub, I flung my arms around like I was making a great speech. “And it’s none of yourbeeswax!” Ugh, that last bit ruined the whole dramatic rhetoric. I had a bad habit of blurting out dorky things.
His lips twitched slightly. “I’d forgotten about that.”
I rolled my eyes. That was the worst thing about this human thorn in my side—he’d known me since I was five years old.
He sighed wearily. “Please, Tabs, just let me take you home.”
Suddenly, I was very, very tired too. I glanced up. Across the road, Westy was already chatting up a group of twentysomething women in slash dresses and clutching tiny, fruit-shaped purses, which made me feel every one of my thirty-two years. I trudged wearily down the stairs.
“You ruined my night, you overbearing lump of an oaf,” I grumbled, softly slapping at his arm with every word. At least he hadn’t brought up the show and fought me on it, which was a huge relief.
“Happy to help.” He elbowed me gently in the ribs. “Here, let me take that.” He motioned to my overnight bag.
I handed my bag over, and he gave me one of his grins, back to his old self for the first time tonight, making my lips curve up in a smile. Until a passing thought nudged me.
Did I want the possessive version of Tim back?
In the car park, he slung my overnight bag in the back of his truck and helped me up into the front seat. His hand on the small of my back felt warm and comforting and sent tingles up my spine.
I paused, surprised by the feeling.
“C’mon on, old girl,” he said, clicking, as if I were Bessie or Bonnie, the two gassy, lumbering old ponies we’d ridden to the swimming hole when we were young.
“Hey, you.” I pursed my lips. “Enough of the old.”
7
Tim
In the car,Tabitha crossed her arms, alternating between being tired and tipsily annoyed at me. I was just about to bring up the show—ask her not to do it—when a shiver shook her body.
“Are you cold?” I turned up the heating. “I have a jersey in the back. Can’t promise it hasn’t got dust and dog hair on it.”
“Oh? You haven’t still got Olly, have you?” Her face softened and she blinked, as if remembering him. “He was a good boy.”
My heart seemed to double in size. She remembered Olly. The three of us had spent two weeks together that summer when we were twenty-five, but I wasn’t sure if she recalled much of it, if at all. “He was a really good boy. No, he died five years ago. This one’s name is Sandy.”
She smiled. “You should bring him over when you’re working. You know Mum and Dad love nothing more than another animal in the house.”
I laughed. Then felt sad. Sandy was being looked after until I got things settled, and I missed him so much.
“Do I have it right?” I asked. “Two dogs, the littlest who greets you in the morning like he’s going to assassinate you but is trying to climb into your lap by the end of the day, a bigger dog with two left legs and wheels on the right, who is the happiest creature I’ve ever met, four mean-girl cats who are like, ‘We’ve got our eyeliner on and are headed to the clubs, so don’t bother us, loser,’ a goat that climbs every tree in the yard, a spitting llama, emotionally very needy chickens, and two pigs that seem both incredibly sensibleandpopular with the rest of the crew.” I breathed in after recounting them. “All of whom seem to be allowed into the kitchen.”
She threw back her head, exposing the lovely column of her neck, and a laugh burst from deep inside her. The sound wasn’t musical or tinkling, nothing delicate like that. It was guffawing and abandoned and unselfconscious, the real Tabs, and it shot right down inside me. And unfortunately—inconveniently—somewhere else.
