Page 69 of Maybe
Isaac pulled up next to the school. “You can park in here.” I directed him to the furniture place next door. AFor Salehoarding had been slapped across the boarded up double doors, already graffitied. “It closed down last week; the boss did a runner.”
Entering the school hall was like stepping into the seventh circle of hell. An eardrum-shattering wall of noise greeted us, the squeals, shouts, and the inevitable tears of fifty kids runningaround or being wrestled into costumes. Frazzled teachers tried to herd them into groups, about as effectively as ordering fires not to burn, no doubt counting down the minutes until a well-deserved drink in the pub afterward. And then there was the smell: floor polish, stewed dinners, and sour socks, taking me right back to my own school days.
Carly, beaming at Jonty, but simultaneously looking as if she might give birth during the interval, had commandeered one of the front rows. A vicious pinch to my upper arm as I gave her a kiss and a hug taught me that women on the verge of going into labour don’t like being told they’re as enormous as the Viking longboat made from corrugated cardboard currently decorating the stage. As punishment, she informed me she wanteda private wordat half time.
Sandwiched between Carly and Dave, a wriggling Freya was dressed as a Viking princess in solidarity with her brother. Carly’s parents waved hello from the far end, leaving two spare seats for me and Isaac. All in all, Jonty’s family took up an entire row, and what a motley bunch we were. A gay goth of a dad and his brother-boyfriend, an unmarried, heavily tattooed couple with one kid and another about to appear, and a set of grandparents, one of whom I’d shagged and the other who was like some sort of walking, talking DIY manual. We were made up of more shapes and sizes (even hexagons) than the middle-class family values crowd would ever condone.
And yet whoever said pride was a sin needed strong words. We were there to cheer on my Jonty, in numbers I could have only ever dreamed of at his age. My one wish was to discover Henry Fitz-fucking-Henry peering up at us out of his hell hole with a periscope.
Especially when I took Isaac’s hand in mine and ghosted my lips over his knuckles.
“You didn’t tell me Jonty has one of the starring roles!” Isaac hissed in my ear during a scene change. Jonty, aka Erik the Red, had just delivered a rousing battle speech in front of a seething ocean comprised of six kids waving their arms and legs around under a blue sheet– an unrivalled level of artistic merit. We’d heard the speech so many times that me, Carly, Dave, and Freya mouthed every word along with him.
“He’s my boy. Of course he has one of the fucking main roles. He’s the star of the whole bloody show!”
“Biased, much?”
I grinned. “Nah, ask anyone along this row—they’ll all say the same. And check out his helmet. It knocks the others into a cocked hat.” Smirking, I added, “Or should I say cocked helmet?”
Isaac squeezed my hand. “Not sure you can put cock and helmet in the same sentence in a school assembly hall.”
“Well, I just did.” I squeezed his hand back. “Got any suggestions to where I should put them instead?”
At the interval, Carly made sure we had our little chat by foisting an overhyped Freya onto her parents. From the pointed glares she threw me every time I handed a bumper bag of fruit pastilles along the row, there was no avoiding it. Some sort of bollocking was on the horizon. When she cornered me against a line of coat pegs, I tried to diffuse it.
“You’re making this late pregnancy thing look like a piece of piss, babe,” I began, raking my gaze over her enormous belly and delivering my most charming smile. She’d always be the most beautiful woman alive to me, not that I’d ever bloody tell her. “Foxiest bird here tonight. I swear on it.”
She rolled her eyes. “Don’t bother Ez. Whipping me with those long eyelashes might work on your sweet baby bro, but it won’t wash with me. Jonty thinks he’s great, by the way.”
“He is.” An extra swell of pride on top of the ocean I was already drowning in washed through me. “They get on well.”
“He also said you’re only staying at Isaac’s place until the end of this week.”
“Correct.” I folded my arms. Yep, as I’d predicted, we were havingthischat. “It’s too far to travel twice a day, not to mention expensive on the train, and Isaac’s working for exams.”
“Jonty also said that you can’t find any decent flats. In your words,not unless we want a coke dealer using the outside window ledge to advertise his wares.”
Christ, that boy needed a refresher on the bro code rules. “Correct again.”
“Excellent. Perhaps he should come and live with me and Dave until you’re sorted.”
Good luck with that.“You’ve got too much on for that, Carly. Honestly, chill. I’ll find somewhere.” I hoped I sounded a hell of a lot more confident than I felt. “I’ve got a couple of places lined up to look at next week. A bit pricier than the current flat, but…” I shrugged.
She tapped her finger against her lower lip. “If only there was some way you had access to a ready pot of money…”
“Don’t say it.” I folded my arms. “We’ve been here before, and I’m not?—“
“Does Isaac know you’re struggling to find anywhere suitable?”
“Yes.” My temper flaring, I gave her a hard stare. “But it’s irrelevant. Jonty’ll be fine. I’ll find somewhere. And, so you know, I don’t appreciate this conversation.”
Carly didn’t give a flying fuck whether I appreciated it or not, which was usually one of the things I loved about her. Not tonight, however, not about this. She took a menacing step forward, and I took one back. “Listen to me, Ez.”
With a knobbly coat peg digging into my spine and Carly’s steely finger poking at my rib cage, I was skewered front to back. “I’m five days overdue. My blood pressure is through the roof, and my cankles are only one step away from turning into hooves. If one more bloody person saysrelax, the baby will come when it’s ready, I shall high five them around the head. With a chair.”
She pointed to her face. “And this isn’t a pregnancy glow, I’m bloody sweating to death. So I can say whatever I fucking like. And I’m saying this: for Christ’s sake, Ez. I never again want another phone call from the hospital telling me Jonty is struggling to breathe because his dad is too bloody stubborn to take a handout. Swallow your stupid masculine bullshit pride and take some of your bastard father’s bloody money. You’ve earned it.”
“No.” I’d always been able to go from pretty to petty in one letter. Her sweary lectures regularly had Dave cowering, but us Fitz-Henrys were made of sterner stuff. Though it might not have appeared that way, seeing as the coat peg was making its way through my thorax. “I’m not taking handouts from Isaac. Do you not think we’re on an unequal enough footing as it is?”
