Page 42 of Maybe
“That’s because you don’t need to. A, because your main source of nutrition doesn’t come from a hospital vending machine and B, you weren’t graced with our father’s short man genes.”
I pounced. “Precisely! We don’t share the same genes! So kissing you is fine!”
“Oh no.” Isaac waggled a finger at me. “No, no, no. Don’t bring that up. That’s a whole bloody conversation I absolutely do not have the spoons to get into right now. Don’t even think it.”
Determined to keep my cool, I counted to ten. We were still hovering around him kicking me out. “At least promise me you’ll stop beating yourself up about not being perfect in everything you do, Isaac. You’re a great doctor and a great human being. So what if you can’t find the time to go to the bloody gym? You can’t be everything to everybody. And get rid of bloody Hinge. You’re better than that, Isaac.”
“Easy for you to say. You haven’t ever needed to go on it to find a?—”
“To be fair, Isaac, you don’t know what I’ve needed. I’m sorted now. Doesn’t mean I’ve always been that way.”
Isaac glared at me unhappily “Whatever.”
I sighed. This was so not what I came for. As he reached out to switch on the hob, I caught his wrist. “Just… sit down for a minute. Please, Isaac. I came over to talk, not fall out with you.”
He flung me off. “I don’t want to sit down. I’m tired, and I’m hungry. I haven’t had a chance to eat anything except chocolate all day. I’ve had no fucking time.” He slammed the pan down on the gas ring, water slopping over the sides. “So I certainly didn’t bloody need this crap when I got home.”
My instinct to snap out a cutting rejoinder flared hot, like the flame of the stove. To beat him back with something clever, then, having had the last catty word, flounce off. But the person currently scattering dried pasta over the worktop, because his eyes were too blurry with angry and upset tears to see properly, was my precious Isaac. And if the last few months had taught me anything, my heart was so much happier with this guy occupying a large corner of it than beating against a blank space.
“Listen. I’m sorry. And I’m sorry about springing that kiss on you.” I scanned the ingredients he’d pulled from the fridge. “If it’s any consolation, it took me by surprise, too. Let me sort your dinner. How about I make a carbonara with that bacon? And we’ll use that lettuce for a salad.”
“I didn’t know you could cook.” As the fight left him and his shoulders sagged, he wiped his eyes with the heel of his hand.
“I’ve got a bloody kid, babe. Of course I can.” Gently, I steered him to a chair. “Although chopping and frying bacon, then adding eggs and cheese, is hardly cordon bleu cookery. Do you want a beer, or something?”
“No.” He sounded utterly spent. “Water’s fine.”
It was a nice kitchen, bigger than mine and Carly’s combined. Soulless, mind: none of Jonty’s and Freya’s artistic efforts pinned to the fridge, no lunchboxes and letters from school cluttering up the pristine work surfaces. It could have belonged to anyone, because nothing of Isaac lived in it either, except for a pile of medical books on the refectory table.
As I pottered about, Isaac’s weary eyes followed me. “You lied to Gerald. To get rid of him. He’s a nice guy. I hope you weren’t too rude.”
“I did.” I poked the simmering pasta with a wooden spoon. “And I wasn’t. And I’m sure he’s delightful, but I’m not one of life’s sharers.”
Isaac sipped his water. He could make of that what he wanted; if he hadn’t cottoned on by now to how strong-minded I was to make him mine, he was a lost cause.
“I can’t lie about anything,” he observed. “My face goes red as a tomato. I look as guilty as if I’ve swindled a pensioner out of their life savings.”
“I know.” I smiled at him, and he smiled back, for the first time. “I remember when you broke the downstairs toilet window, swinging a golf club, and tried to tell Janice it must have been the cat.”
“Yeah.” He almost smiled again. “She made me pay for it out of my birthday money. And yet you totally got away with nicking that bottle of sherry from the cellar and blaming it on the poor builders next door.”
I chuckled. I’d forgotten that one. “Yes, well, my moral crumple zones are a little more…laxthan yours.”
We ate in silence, mostly, though he told me about a couple of interesting patients he’d seen that day, and I informed him about the dress rehearsal for Jonty’s school play. The highlight had been a kid whose Viking leggings were too baggy and fell down halfway through his sword fight. He laughed at that.
When we finished, I stacked the dishwasher whilst Isaac took a quick shower. It felt natural, wiping down the worktops and hanging up the tea towel, like we’d slipped into these roles before. And I suppose we had, once, after a fashion, though I don’t recall being so useful growing up. More likely, I would havesent him downstairs to sneak us both a snack whilst I stayed out of the way up in my bedroom.
When the kitchen was tidy, I took my guitar to the sitting room and picked out a few of the chords of the new song.
“That’s nice,” Isaac said. “I like the refrain.”
“Cheers.”
Lost in my head, I hadn’t heard him come in. His hair was damp, parted neat enough to ride a bike along, as usual. He’d changed into loose jeans and a plain polo. Dull, generic clothes, attached to an ordinary, solid body, but a little spill of pleasure worked its way down my spine, nonetheless. Though pale and tense, he was perfect. Because under everything still lived the little boy who’d comforted me when my world fell apart, by saying nothing and handing me a crumpled hanky from the jacket pocket of his hideous school uniform. He’d held my hand and, despite the agony of my grief, shown me sparks of something good to be found, even in the depths of my worst nightmare. A boy who could turn my soul to catch the right light.
Nobody had come close to ever doing anything that special, or given me that much security, since.
“Is this the one about us?”
