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“Clearly not,” Paige said, without taking her eyes off Sam. “You must have had more important things on your mind. And I still own the house.”
Lauren jogged back and pulled her bedroom door shut before returning to the kitchen. Berkeley had stopped at the sight of her, instead taking up a surveillance position next to the back door. He hadn’t taken his eyes off Paige.
“It’s half past seven,” Lauren said.
“I’m aware of the time. I’ve been aware of every single minute of it since three o’clock this morning.” Paige shifted Sam, who had latched on and gone abruptly, blissfully silent. “He wouldn’t settle. Becky’s been up with him every night this week, and she looked like death warmed up, so I took him out to let her sleep. The only thing that works is the car, so I’ve been driving round the ring road in my pyjamas for two hours, and the second I came past the end of your street, he woke up and screamed like I’d stood on him. I needed somewhere to feed him that wasn’t a lay-by.” She finally looked up. “I didn’t think you’d be awake. I tried to be quiet.”
“You slammed the door.”
“The door slammed itself. It’s always done that. You know it’s always done that.” Paige narrowed her eyes. “Why are you wearing your hoodie inside out?”
Lauren looked down. The seams were on the outside. The label was sticking up under her chin like a flag.
“Fashion,” she said.
“At half seven in the morning.”
“It’s a look.”
“It’s a look,” Paige agreed slowly, and Lauren watched her gaze begin, very deliberately, to travel around the kitchen.
This was the problem with Paige. She’d known Lauren for half her life. She could read a room the way Lauren read a striker’s hips, and the room, right now, was not on Lauren’s side.
There was a football-shaped fridge magnet lying on the tiles by the fridge where it had fallen last night. There were two mugs on the side, both clean, neither used, because the kettle had been forgotten. There was a black kit bag on the hall floor that was definitely not Lauren’s, and on the hook by the door, above Berkeley’s lead, hung a navy jacket that was much too neat to be hers.
Two months ago, Lauren had stood in this kitchen wishing Paige would walk back through that door, make a mess, eat toast and narrate every thought in Lauren’s head before she’d finished having it.
Now she wanted her gone.
Not because she was ashamed. Last night, at the kitchen table, they’d agreed to keep it quiet until after Christmas, and Lauren had waited for the old sting of being kept at arm’s length.
This was the opposite. Carly had just sat across a table and asked for exclusive, and honest, and no pretending on Monday. She wasn’t keeping it quiet because she wasn’t sure. She was keeping it quiet because she was.
“Right,” Lauren said, clapping her hands together. “So. Do you need anything? Water? A biscuit? A lift home? I can give you a lift home. I can give you a lift home right now.”
“I’m feeding a baby.”
“Feed faster.”
“That’s not how it works.”
“How long does it take?”
“As long as it takes.”
“Can’t you do it in the car?”
“Lauren.” Paige’s voice had gone dangerously calm. “Why do you want me out of this house so badly?”
“I don’t.”
“You’ve offered me a lift home three times in thirty seconds when my own car is sat outside.”
“Mine’s got a better heater.”
“Whose jacket is that?”
Lauren didn’t look at the hook. Looking at the hook would be fatal. “Mine.”
