Page 37 of From Now On

‘Nina!’ Maeve says in a bright voice. ‘Miss Rudd won’t expect you to have done your homework from last termunder the circumstances, when none of the other teachers have, will you, miss?’ Maeve stares at their teacher, unflinching.

‘No.’ Miss Rudd offers a tight smile. ‘Of course not.’ She stalks away.

‘What a cow,’ Maeve says. ‘Ignore her. Want to hang out with Lenny and Ryan later?’

‘Nah. Boys of our own age are so immature.’

‘What do you want to do then?’

‘Avoid Vile Violet. Is there anyone at yours?’

‘No. Empty house until Dad gets home.’

Nina feels a fluttering deep inside, the corners of her mouth lifting into a smile.

‘Cool. I need to walk Duke home but then let’s go to yours and maybe Sean…your dad, I mean, can drive me home after?’

Nina mentally runs through her wardrobe. When she drops Duke at home she can get changed. Her black top perhaps. Something lower cut anyway. Something sexy.

Something to prove she is no longer a child.

Chapter Seventeen

Charlie

Charlie stifles another yawn. There’s nothing to see out of the window but darkness. He checks his watch again, nearly there.

There’s a slowing as the train slides into the station. Charlie gathers up his rucksack and steps out into the night. It’s still, peaceful, quiet. Nothing like the hustle and bustle that would have greeted him at JFK Airport if he’d caught his flight. Guilt warms his cheeks at the thought of Sasha flying alone, struggling with her own suitcase along with his, navigating her way without him to the vacant apartment owned by a friend of her father’s that they’d only ever seen online.

He had seen myriad emotions cross her face at the airport as he’d told her he was staying: disappointment; anger; frustration; worry, but the one she’d settled on was resignation as though she’d never really expected him to leave.

‘Yet, I’m not comingyet.’ Charlie had tried to show her his phone, the photo from Pippa, to explain but she’d waved him away.

‘I’ve got to go.’

‘Ring me when you’re settled. We’ll talk everything through properly,’ he had said but she’d been looking over his shoulder, not really listening and,instead of one of the big emotional movie goodbyes with fierce hugs and endless tears, she’d given him a hurried kiss almost as an afterthought as she’d rushed towards the plane.

There’s a single taxi at the rank, not a sunny bright yellow one, but one as black as his mood.

‘You up from London?’ asks the driver.

Instead of answering him, Charlie gives him the address. He’s not in the mood for talking. He’s not in the mood for listening either. He wants to shout and rage and… oddly, cry.

The journey is short but long enough for Charlie to have dozed. He starts awake when the driver loudly clears his throat, jerking his head upright, cricking his neck.

The sight before him is a deft blow to the stomach. After Pippa’s picture he’d been expecting it, but it is still a shock.

He trudges down the path to his family home glaring at the ‘For Sale’ sign that spears the February frost on the lawn.

Inside, he heads straight for the kitchen, dialling Aunt Violet as he walks.

‘You’ve put the house up for sale,’ he says as the call connects, kicking himself for starting this way instead of asking about the children.

‘Yes. I was going to tell you when you’d settled in New York. Legally we can’t sell it yet but it could take months to find a buyer in this market. We’ll need to sort through everything in it at some stage but I can—’

‘I’m not in New York. This is rather sudden, isn’t it?’

‘We talked about finances, about me taking over everything when I filed the “Missing Presumed Dead” order.’

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