Page 45 of Only Ever You

Saira placed two mugs of tea in front of them on the island with an exasperated flare of her dark eyes.

The bar stool Bash pulled out from under the counter scraped along the wooden floor, gesturing for Faye to sit. She slid up onto the seat without protest; the air fizzled with enough tension as it was.

“I thought I would swing by and see you all,” Mortimer said.

“Unannounced?” Bash grumbled so low only Faye might’ve heard him clearly.

She picked up her tea and sipped from it.

“That’s generally how surprises work, lad,” Mortimer retorted. “Are you still prancing around picking paint colours and hanging curtains for those poncy folk, Sébastien?”

The condescension bristled Faye’s stomach, churning the liquid that burned down her throat. She’d been open to giving Mortimer a chance, but ever since he’d first opened his mouth to her she didn’t want to anymore. He had a similar face to Arthur, though rounder with thin purple veins that hinted he liked to drink, and the look of a man who had gone through life with his chin up high and his eyes cast down.

With his feet squarely set apart, Bash stood tense – the teddy bear version of him disappearing.

“When you hit half a million pounds in revenue per quarter … Yes, I’d say so.”

Hidden behind her mug, Faye’s inhale sharpened, and she wasn’t the only one to gasp. Bash wasn’t one to throw around numbers like that – not in front of anyone. Much less to make a point.

Mortimer’s expression cooled. His gaze shifted an inch over Bash’s face. “And you’ve been fighting, I see.”

Pairs of eyes moved back and forth between them like a tennis match. Arthur, bless him, looked like he wanted to back away intoone of the cupboards and return next spring. Faye caught Saira’s unimpressed eye as she half watched the girls eating their yoghurts.

It wasn’t fair to wonder, but why did Matt say nothing? Faye thought he would jump to Bash’s defence given how close they were.

The air fizzled around Bash as he took a steadying breath. “It was a tennis accident.”

Mortimer gave a disbelieving - “Hm.”

“I’ll remind you whose house you are in, Mortimer.” Michèle took no prisoners today, but she did so with an easy flowing grace Faye could only ever hope to pull off.

Sneaking a smile behind her mug, she took another sip of her tea.

“I know where I am, Shelly. I’m with my family.”

“Yes.” Bash’s tone was like the edge of a knife. “And if you want to stay, then you can be a little more respectful.”

Faye cheered inside though it faded fast.

Maya coughed and Bash’s eyes dipped to her. Faye’s shifted to Imara too. The pair of them had shrunken in on themselves with this conversation, and Maya especially looked at Mortimer as if she didn’t know who he was while Saira smoothed her hand over her pigtails.

Bash’s warning silenced Mortimer, but not for long. “And what do you do, Faye?”

The question would’ve sounded normal from anybody else, but with Mortimer it made the temperature of Faye’s body dip a degree. If his reaction toBash’sjob was so poor, she kept her expectations low for her own.

“I own a bakery in Covent Garden,” she answered with her head high.

Mortimer’s grey eyes appraised her. “I see.”

A low throaty rumble left Bash that definitely only Faye heard.

“What are we going to do about bedrooms?” Matt cleared his throat and asked, scratching at the back of his neck.

Nowhe chose to speak?

Bedrooms …Faye hadn’t thought of that yet. The breakdown Bash had given her of their sleeping arrangements meant that every bedroom was already taken. Her brief experience of the sofas in the larger living room looked comfortable, but not fair for someone of Uncle Mortimer’s age to sleep upon.

“The girls could sleep in with us?” Saira uttered to her husband.

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