Page 27 of Best Summer Ever

‘So,’ said Mum, peeping around my bedroom door at some ungodly hour the next morning, ‘how did it go?’

It had taken me ages to get to sleep. Not because I was mulling over my first few hours as a bartender, but because I couldn’t stop thinking about Josh. Both his comfortable familiarity and his potential as summer fling material was appealing: he was only going to be in the area for the season, which suited me just fine, he was very lovely to look at, which was also fine, and he clearly didn’t think I was hideous, which was a bonus, and…

‘Daisy?’

‘Sorry,’ I said, sitting up and rubbing my eyes.

I remembered too late that I hadn’t bothered to wash my mascara off.

‘How did you get on?’

‘Good,’ I said. ‘Really good. I’d even got the hang of pulling pints by the end of the shift, so Sam was well pleased. It’s not as easy as it looks, you know.’

‘I can’t say I’ve ever given the technique much thought.’ Mum frowned. ‘But that’s lovely news. I’m so pleased it went well.’

‘Me too.’

‘Are you going to get up? Your dad was hoping to see you before he goes to work.’

‘I’ll be down in a sec,’ I told her.

I was surprised to find Dad looking, well, shifty was the only way I could describe his expression when I joined him and Mum in the kitchen after washing my face and pulling on my summer PJs. I felt rather unnerved to find him sporting such an uncharacteristic countenance.

‘Mum said your shift went well,’ he said, when Mum poked him in the back.

‘It did.’ I frowned. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Nothing.’ He shrugged.

‘Your dad’s done something foolish,’ Mum blurted out at exactly the same time.

Dad closed his eyes and sucked in his bottom lip.

‘We’re sure it won’t come to anything,’ Mum carried on, ‘but we thought we should, I meanheshould, tell you, anyway.’

‘What have you done, Dad?’ I asked apprehensively.

He wrung his hands on the table in front of him while Mum busied herself at the sink.

‘Well, over the course of yesterday evening,’ he began, sounding as though he was relaying details to the police, ‘we had three missed calls to the cottage phone. I picked up twice and itsounded like someone was trying to speak before they hung up and the third time, they just hung up straightaway. There was no way of tracing the number because it hadn’t been registered.’

‘Right,’ I said, drawing the word out.

Mum shook her head and gave Dad a look.

‘He assumed—’ she started to say but Dad put a hand up to stop her.

‘I got it in my head that it was Laurence,’ Dad confessed and I let out a groan. ‘I thought he was trying to get hold of you, Daisy, and was hanging up when he realised it was me who had answered, not you.’

‘It wouldn’t have been Laurence, Dad.’

‘He knows that now,’ Mum did manage to say, ‘because Daniel sent a message via WhatsApp a short while after, saying he’d been trying to ring for his usual monthly catch-up, but for some reason he couldn’t get the call to connect.’

‘So, what’s the problem?’ I frowned. ‘It was Daniel. Mystery solved.’

‘The thing is,’ Dad swallowed, ‘that in the meantime… before Daniel’s message arrived, I rang Laurence at the flat.’

‘You did what?’ I burst out.

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