Page 10 of Forever, Maybe
Liza and Joe stared after him. “What was that about?” Joe asked, not letting the brief diversion distract him from finishing off his wrap.
Daniel shrugged. “No idea. Maybe he wants a job in one o’ the shops but bottled it before he could ask?”
Joe wrinkled his nose. “Or mebbe he’s one o’ the Kelly boys, and the next time you see him, he’ll be back with three big brothers and a baseball bat, demanding you hand ower protection money, or he’ll torch the shop.”
“Don’t,” Daniel muttered, shuddering despite himself. The Kelly family were long gone, their empire dismantled. Those who weren’t dead were serving lengthy sentences in Barlinnie. Not that the Kellys would have dared touchStuffed!back in the dayanyway—not with Shane O’Malley’s money behind it.
Liza, too, had shivered at the mention of the Kellys, doubtless recalling their entanglement with the stepfather she no longer spoke to.
By the time they left the shop, it was nearing three o’clock. Remembering Joe’s comment about Nicky accusing him of being a workaholic, Daniel clapped him on the shoulder. “Take the rest of the day off, mate. Go home.”
Joe hesitated, then nodded, a flicker of gratitude passing across his face before he headed off. Daniel made his way back to the office, Joe’s news weighing heavily on his mind. Six months. Half a year without Joe.
Liza was competent, no question, but she lacked the instinctive understanding Joe had cultivated during more than two decades working alongside him. Every deal, every challenge, every mad rush—they’d faced them together.
The thought of stepping into the gap himself, shouldering even more responsibility, made Daniel’s stomach sink. He’d end up working longer hours than ever.
And Nell wasn’t going to like that. Not one teeny-tiny bit.
Chapter three
May1994
Nell, shivering and miserable, stood in the shelter of the grand Victoria red-stone entrance to the Kelvingrove Museum, waiting for Daniel and wondering how much longer she gave him before giving up.
He had arranged the outing without taking Glasgow’s unpredictable weather into account. The sun could shine in the morning. By the afternoon, the rain might bounce off the pavements as it was doing today. Her fellow students, holed up in the warm, cosy halls, told her she was mad to venture out in it.
“Just don’t turn up,” one said. “If you feel that bad about it, you can apologise next week when he’s back here in his sandwich van.”
Nell’s scrupulously polite upbringing forbade her from brushing him off. After all, the guy had given her a free sandwich, and the kiss they’d shared when he caught up with her outside her halls had been incredible. In the short time it had taken him to chase after her, something had shifted, and her veins fizzed with an energy she hadn’t felt in years. Not since… well, best not to go there.
What appealed most, though, was Daniel himself. His stumbling yet refreshingly straightforward approach was a stark contrast to the pretentious students she was used to, like her on-off boyfriend Colm, who loved to act like he was oh-so-sophisticated and wildly sexually experienced.
As her thoughts spiralled, a massive red-and-black golf umbrella appeared in the distance, its canopy angled against the breeze. Beneath it, a pair of jean-clad legs propelled it forward. She didn’t need a second glance to recognise the branding. It was unmistakably Daniel’sStuffed!sandwich van and shop colours.
He closed the umbrella and bolted up the stairs, two at a time, to join her. Did he look anything like the guy that she remembered from Thursday night? Yes and no. Same height, more than a foot taller than her, same dark hair. He wore a black denim jacket slung over the same colour T-shirt and straight jeans, the hem of them skimming his ankle bones.
A bit spottier, though. And those shaggy eyebrows nearly met in the middle, the narrow space between his eyes adding to his brooding intensity. But his mouth—that mouth—was all she’d been thinking about since Thursday. She’d imagined it on her lips, her neck, trailing down her collarbone, teasing over her nipples, inching lower along her stomach—a slow, torturous build-up of pleasure.
Now it moved, shaping a tentativehello, followed by an apology for being late. He’d ended up having to work that morning after all.
Ha! The sun came out, metaphorically rather than literally. The gamble had paid off.
“Hello, Daniel, Dan, Danny.”
She was going to call him Danny from now on.
“I… I didnae think you would turn up.”
They both gazed upwards. Unrelenting rain, sheets of it slicing diagonally into the few pedestrians brave enough to venture out.
“Guess that’s the picnic out the window,” she replied, noticing he hadn’t bought any food with him, and unsure whether that was a relief or a disappointment. The male of the species loved c-word foods. Crisps, chips, cheese, chocolate—all packed with calories. Nell preferred herself with as little flesh on her bones as she could get away with.
“No. Um, what about the café in there?” He pointed behind her to the museum, which served teas, coffees, soup and baked potatoes to people once they’d had their fill of culture. They’d be the youngest people in there by at least thirty years.
Nell shook her head. An open-topped double decker red bus pulled into the bus stop in front of the museum.
“Shall we do that? If we sit downstairs, it’ll be dry.”
