Page 23 of Forever, Maybe
“Nell? Nell, are you okay?” Stephanie leant in, voice tight with worry.
Nell gripped the wooden table, fingers splayed as if it could anchor her to the spinning ground beneath her. Words tangled in her head, fragments slipping out in a garbled mess.
“Any food… but how old… can’t be. No, too young… not his… not.”
Stephanie shot Grant a meaningful look, and he was on his feet in an instant. “I’ll see where that grub is,” he muttered, hurrying off.
A waiter swept past, plates balanced expertly in both hands, trailing a wave of garlic so intense it could have cleared out a vampire convention.
Saliva flooded Nell’s mouth in an ominous rush. If she didn’t move right now, the worst thing in the world was about to happen.
“’Scuse me.”
She shoved past Grant and the waiter, barely registering the clatter of a plate smashing to the floor or the waiter’s indignant “Hey!” as she barrelled through the crush of bodies.
Perfume and sweat thickened the air, the press of people suffocating. Women drenched in floral clouds. Men using the crowd as an excuse to linger too close to breasts and backsides. The walls felt like they were closing in, the ceiling pressing lower.
The stink of the toilets hit before she even reached them—damp, chemical citrus barely masking the underlying sewage stench. She swallowed furiously, bargaining with the universe.
Be kind, cruel world. Let me at least get through the door before I throw up.
The universe obliged. She pushed open the door marked with the circle and the cross chromosome sign and barged into one of the cubicles, as a woman dipping her hands in and out of the Dyson hand-drier asked her something she couldn’t hear over the noise.
She sank to her knees, the cold stone tiles pressing against her skin. Sticky patches clung to her dress, anchoring her in place as she clutched the toilet bowl for support. Her stomach twisted in warning, saliva pooling in her mouth before she lurched forward, retching violently.
“Nell!”
A cool hand pressed against the back of her neck. “Are you okay?”
Stephanie’s voice cut through the fog in her head. She pushed herself back onto her knees, blinking up at Stephanie, who had somehow conjured a glass of cold water out of nowhere. Nell took it gratefully, the chill soothing her parched throat and washing away the revolting taste clinging to her tongue.
Stephanie extended a hand, and Nell grasped it, letting herself be pulled to her feet. Together, they tiptoed out of the cubicle and into the now-silent, deserted bathroom.
At the sink, Nell pumped liquid soap into her hands, scrubbing with hot water as though it might cleanse more than just her skin. In the mirror, Stephanie’s gaze caught hers. Compassion and concern radiated from her expression, but there was something else, too. Something unreadable, lingering beneath the surface, quietly searching Nell’s face.
“Spit it out,” Nell said.
Stephanie pursed her lips. Something she did when she was wondering how to convey news. She settled for simplicity. “Och, it’s nothing! The picture on Tadgh’s phone. The boy looks so like… forget it. It’s just a co-incidence.”
“What, you thought he wasDanny’s?” Nell asked, incredulous. Why she sounded so surprised was anyone’s guess, considering that had been her first assumption too.
Stephanie handed her a wad of paper towels. “No, of course not!” The words came out too quickly, but Nell let her continue. “Tadgh doesn’t know who his nephew’s father is. His older sister got pregnant when she was twenty. The boy turned sixteen back in January. Their parents wanted to march her and the father down the aisle, but she stayed tight-lipped. Never told anyone who he was. Not a soul.”
Nell paused, counting backwards in her head. If the boy was sixteen, that meant he’d been conceived in 1999—just before the millennium, when everything had been… fine.
Well,fine-ish.
She focused on drying her hands, the paper towels crinkling loudly in the hush of the bathroom. “C’mon. Danny spent all of 1999 setting up the St Vincent Street shop, running outside catering, and touring festivals. I was with him most of that time.”
Besides, Danny’s mind didn’t work that way. The only mistress he ever wanted—ever worshipped—was work.
A new thought struck her. Earlier, she’d wondered if Grant and Tadgh’s sharp suits meant they’d been in court that day. But what if they weren’t fraudsters or petty thieves? What if they were the kind with violent streaks, quick tempers and no hesitation in settling scores with their fists?
Her heart, already fluttering, lurched into a frantic rhythm.
“Stephs… you didn’t show Tadgh any pictures of Danny, did you? There’s no way Ryan’s his, but Tadgh and his mate strike me as the type who’d track someone down, demanding paternity tests and they might not be gentle about it.”
Stephanie, a fixture at every Murray family party, celebration, and impromptu gathering, had a phone full of Danny photos. She shook her head.
