Page 10 of Kiss Me Ever After
“You don’t have to do that, Justin.” Mum bustled into the kitchen and attempted to move me out of the way so she could continue the cooking.
“It’s fine, I don’t mind.” Even though Alex was the chef amongst us, I still made a mean stir-fry. “You don’t have to do everything for both of us,” I added, my tone loaded with meaning.
“Don’t have a go at him, Justin.” Mum sighed and stole a sliver of pepper I’d chopped.
“What were you arguing about this time? I could hear you halfway down the street.” It wasn’t a far stretch of the truth.
She shrugged. “Nothing new. He was late home from work, but Barb texted me to say she’d seen him in the pub with some woman.”
Mum’s friends weren’t great about protecting her from the shit Ted did. On more than one occasion Barb or one of the others had apparently seen something which turned out to be totally innocent. Or at least he always said it was innocent.
As if on cue, he barged into the tiny kitchen, his big frame taking up most of the space. “What are you whingeing about now?”
Mum scurried out of the room without answering, and I wondered exactly how their argument would have panned out if I hadn’t come home when I did.
“I don’t know why you don’t move out.” Ted approached me, his voice dropping low. “Your mum doesn’t need the extra stress you bring.”
My hand tightened on the knife as I chopped the veg. “I could say the same about you.”
Immediately, he was up in my face, prodding my shoulder as he spoke. “You know nothing. You’ve seen nothing.”
“I hear things, Ted. Not everyone can be lying.” I turned to face him, the knife in my hand a silent warning for him to keep his distance. “She’s my mother and I’ll look out for her, no matter what.”
He snorted. “Or what? Are you threatening me?”
I shook my head. “Just know that if you do anything to hurt heragain, I’ll be there for her.”
Ted flipped his arm, pushing away my hand. “Such a big man. You’re nothing, Justin. Nothing.” He grabbed another beer from the fridge and stalked out of the kitchen.
I watched him go, anger bubbling up in my chest. All I had to do was get through the summer unscathed.
4
Lennon
Justin Navarro.
Justin. Fucking. Navarro.
Of all the people to come into the cafe on my first day.
Who treated me like an over-privileged princess who hadn’t a care in the world.
Which, until a few months ago, would have been the truth.
I’d spoken to Mum the previous evening to find out how things were with Dad. Even now, I still didn’t fully understand what they had accused him of. Bad investment decisions for his clients, and for his own ‘investments’, had resulted in us losing pretty much everything. What we hadn’t lost was frozen or being investigated. Mum and Dad were staying with her parents in Cornwall, while I’d been banished to Ealynn Sands for the summer.
At least that’s how it felt to begin with.
Amber had already pulled me into her friendship circle and tonight we were going on a girls’ night out. While it was good to get to know more people outside of Amber, Alex and Curtis, a small part of me wished I could bump into Justin again.
He’d occupied a lot of my thought space the past couple of days, ever since he’d rocked up at the cafe. He hadn’t exactly said much to me beyond ordering, but the intense stare that followed me around while I worked had got to me. And when he thought I wasn’t looking; I’d checked him out. His hair was styled differently now, still curly on top but cropped close to his head at the sides, rather than the shaggy indie look he’d always sported. It suited him better; he looked more grown up, even though he was only two years older than me.
Still, I wasn’t here to get a boyfriend, I told myself as I knocked on Amber’s front door.
“There you are!” Amber bounced down the stairs once Alex let me in. She wore a pair of skin-tight black leather trousers and a burgundy shirt with a deep V, which showed off her cleavage. Her glossy chestnut hair fell over her shoulders in waves, and her make-up was dark and smoky.
“You’re looking pretty hot,” I commented. “Curtis doesn’t know how lucky he is.”
