Page 23 of Ms Perfectly Fine
“I haven’t met anyone. Can I call you back later?”
“Are you safe? Do you need help?” Mum said. Autumn heard the instant panic in her voice.
She sighed. “I’m safe,” she admitted, looking at Elijah, who raised his eyebrows.
“Then who is in the house?” Mum yelled down the phone.
Elijah snatched the phone away when Autumn hesitated.
“Hi, Mrs Adler. I’m Autumn’s friend.”
She shook her head frantically, begging him silently not to reveal their living situation.
“Please don’t worry. I’m only here to paint; your daughter is perfectly safe with me,” Elijah lied, pretending to zip his lips shut.
Autumn felt her shoulders relax.If Mum found out we’re living together, she’d be on the doorstep tomorrow with more questions than I’ve answered.She didn’t need to give her parents another reason for them to want her to return home. They hadn’t been all that happy when Tim had offered her the house in the first place, even though Tim and her father were childhood friends and had been business partners in the past. Her dad thought it was too much of an imposition.
Elijah put her mum on speaker, but he didn’t give Autumn back the phone.
“Isn’t it a bit late to be painting? You shouldn’t be sleeping with the windows open, not with your back,” Mum started.
Autumn caught Elijah’s frown and grabbed the phone. She turned off the speaker before Mum said too much.
“I’m fine,” she ground out. “We were just finishing up here. He’s packing up. Can I call you later?”
“I’m going out with your father later. It’s quiz night in the pub, and the prize is a two-day stay at Richmond’s spa!”
Autumn felt a little hurt. She had bought them a stay at a hotel in the city for Christmas last year so they could come and visit, but they still hadn’t come. Every time she had a show, they were busy, or a pipe had burst, or the chickens had escaped. She didn’t press the issue, but she wanted to see them, and between rehearsals and recovery time, she didn’t have time to get the four-hour train ride home. She moved into the kitchen and away from Elijah, but to her irritation, he followed.
“Good luck. Can I speak to Dad? I want to invite you both to my next show.”
The line went quiet.
“He’s out in the garden. I’ll get him to call you later,” Mum said.
Autumn knew that was code for him not wanting to talk. They usually ended up arguing, which usually resulted in Autumn feeling guilty, followed by an apologetic text from her dad with a vague promise to talk soon.
“Sure. I’ll text you the details. I wanted to give you both plenty of notice for the last Friday in May.” Autumn forced a smile. She didn’t want Elijah to hear her own parents making excuses not to see her.
“We’ll try to make it,” Mum said. Though Autumn hoped she meant it, she knew better than to get her hopes up.
“Your mum sounds nice,” Elijah said from across the kitchen island when she hung up after a quickLove you.
“She is,” Autumn said, taking a seat at the counter.
“What does she do?” he asked, making a cup of coffee.
Autumn considered not answering, but she thought of Nina’s advice in the park.If wearegoing to be sharing the house for the next few weeks, sharing a little won’t do any harm.
“Mum’s the head librarian in our town. There are probably more books than people in Islacore; it’s a small village on the coastline,” she said, wondering why she’d given him so many details.
He looked impressed. “Clever woman. She must be why you have so many books.”
Had he been going through her things?
“I wasn’t snooping around,” he said before she could ask. “There was a whole shelf I had the movers put into storage.” He removed a mug from the cupboard.
“Most of those were gifts from her. If you speak to her again, make sure not to mention you put them in storage—she wouldn’t be so nice then,” she warned him, glad he hadn’t seen the ones in her room. Most of the books above her bed were chronic pain and stress management guides, which she swore she was going to get around to reading one day. The romances alongside them were far more weathered. “The only thing she loves more than me and my dad is books. She was head of historical archives at Wickford University, but that was before my dad retired and we had to move.” She didn’t mention that her accident was the reason they’d decided to leave the city. She’d never asked her mom how she felt about the move. It had been her dad’s idea to sell his shares in the investment company to Tim, or that’s what she had been told. At the time, she’d still been in rehab learning to walk, and it seemed redundant to ask now.
