Page 42 of Broken Heart Syndrome
I bugged my eyes out at her. What was she doing? She returned my eye-bugging with a smug smile.
‘I’m sure he’s got better things to do than help me. Anyway, if anyone should help it should be Dylan, he’s the one who ate the bloody thing.’
I looked over slightly desperately to where Dylan was sitting. He was hunched over his coffee and had pulled the blanket back up round his shoulders. He looked at me with bloodshot eyes and I knew there would be no help there. If anything his hangovers were worse than mine.
‘I want to help,’ Tom said, wearing an identical smug grin to Lou. For some reason this had all been planned and settled whilst I was in the shower. What had possessed him to help me decorate a cake I had no idea, probably a warped sense of guilt or something.
Before I could launch any more objections, Lou had whipped into action and was chivvying Dylan back to the sofa and into his discarded clothes.
Within ten minutes I was left alone with Tom. I decided that if I tried to ignore him, eventually he would give up and leave.
Chapter 16
Bugger the cake
My feet crunched through the empty crisp packets as I made my way into the passenger seat of the van. The interior was even messier than last time. I bit my lip and resolutely looked out of the passenger window, trying not to let my mind stray into any weird fantasy van-clearing-out scenarios. Tom chuckled beside me as he slammed his door and put the key in the ignition.
‘You still want to tidy the van?’
‘What?’ I squeaked, slightly freaked out that he seemed to be able to read my mind.
‘You might have mentioned something about it last night.’
Right, of course. As if last night wasn’t embarrassing enough. I wracked my brain but couldn’t remember anything I’d said. In order to bypass any humiliating explanations, I made a show of reaching back behind the seat to make sure the cake was secure.
Tom had stayed on to help me get the cake ready on time, despite my best efforts, but short of physically ejecting him from the flat (which I suspected would have been a futile exercise) there was nothing I could do. I really had to get the cake done, so I relented and showed him how to roll out the sugar icing as thinly as possible so that it was ready for me to fashion more roses. I’m no expert on men, but I doubt that many of them consider doing ultra-delicate sugar roses for a wedding cake the height of entertainment. But Tom focused on it like it was his new calling in life.
‘I’m sorry about your mum,’ he said quietly once I’d set him up with a rolling pin. I’d known this was coming; after all, probably the only reason he had stayed was so that he could have the opportunity to apologize. He was a good man. I’d seen that he was kind; it must have weighed heavily on him that he had misjudged me.
‘It was a long time ago now,’ I said. ‘Nearly two years.’
‘Still, it must have been hard, nursing her. What did she die of?’
‘She had … liver failure.’ I was really hoping he didn’t push for details. There was a reason that I rarely got drunk.
‘You were close?’
‘Yeah,’ my voice was hoarse, and I had that tight feeling in my throat that I always seemed to get when I talked about Mamma.
‘And I’m sorry I’ve been such a bastard the last three months,’ he continued.
I scoffed, ‘You were fine, honestly. Anyway I’m tougher than I look.’ I gave him a bright smile. ‘Loads of people have been way meaner to me.’ I had hoped that my words would be reassuring, but when I glanced over at him I saw his face was stony and he’d stopped attempting to roll out the icing.
‘Which people?’ he said in a scary voice.
‘Um …’ Crikey. All I’d wanted to do was reassure him that I wasn’t a delicate flower, and that he wasn’t the only one who’d felt the need to be unpleasant or dismissive of me.
‘I think this is the last rose. You can go. Thanks for all the help but you don’t have to hang around.’
Tom ignored my attempt at a subject change. He looked determined as he touched my elbow to get my attention.
‘Who hurt you, Frankie?’ he asked.
‘What … what do you mean?’
He took a deep breath and his jaw set at a determined angle. ‘I mean that I know you like me,’ he declared, ‘a lot.’
‘What! N-no I don’t.’ I leapt out of his reach.
