“What the fuck?” He seized the papers from me and flicked through them. “Who the hell did you marry? And when?”
I backed away from the counter, leaving Gus clutching the envelope. “It was four years ago.”
“Four years?”
“That’s what I said, isn’t it?” I found a stool by the display window and fell onto it.
“But who? And why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because it was a mistake,” I whispered. “A big one, and I didn’t want you to know.”
Gus was silent a moment, still leafing through the paperwork and muttering in French.
I tuned him out and wondered if a day would ever pass without me scrambling to catch the loose threads of my life. Divorce. Fuck. I’d waited so long for this day, for this freedom, but I hadn’t accounted for the renewed sense of failure it would bring. A decade-old ache throbbed in my chest. I rubbed at it, as though I could push my entire existence back inside and hide it away from the world.
Nothing happened.
Gus appeared in front of me, apparently moving his broad frame like a ninja. “What happened, ma lutine? No judgement, I swear. I’m just trying to keep up after five years of silence.”
I felt bad then, even if he had punctuated his plea by calling me a goddamn pixie. A shuddery sigh escaped me. “I can’t go into it all now, okay? But I meant what I said—it was a mistake, and I paid for it big time.”
“Did he hurt you?” Gus suddenly seemed impossibly bigger.
I curled my hand around his biceps. “Not how you’re thinking.”
“You don’t know what I’m thinking.”
“No?”
“No. And you don’t have to batter someone to hurt them, Mia.”
How did he know? The little brother I’d left behind had known only the pain of grief. Of losing our only living relative aside from each other. How could he possibly understand the torment of knowing someone you loved was deliberately tearing you apart, but being seemingly powerless to stop it?
Seemingly. Fuck that word.
I slid off my stool. “I will tell you about it one day...soon, I promise, but not now, okay? Please, Gus. I’ve got so much to do.”
Gus opened his mouth, but whatever reply he may have made was cut off by a godawful crash.
I pushed past him and dashed into the back room. A large chunk of the ceiling—the ceiling that should’ve been fixed—was on the floor by my newly installed fridge. Fresh water trickled through the hole it had left behind and the sight of it felt oddly symbolic, the worst kind of metaphor. Was this what my future held? A constant battle to patch up wounds, only for the crap to filter through anyway?
“It’s the roof,” Gus said.
I rolled my eyes. “Seriously. You think?”
“I do. That’s why I told you to get it sorted before you got the decorators in.”
Dim memories of him advising exactly that hovered at the edge of my despair, but I couldn’t remember why I’d opted to ignore him until I ran through the list of local reputable roofing specialists—the list that comprised one company. “Can you look at it?”
“I did look at it.” Gus stared at me like I was a mutant. “And I told you there was water gathering at the weakened part and it would cave in if you didn’t shore it up. I didn’t offer to fix it because you’d already told me to piss off three times that day, but I kind of assumed you’d take me seriously before you stuck plasterboard over a fucking crater.”
“I hate you right now.”
“So?”
“So...” I elbowed him in the ribs. “Can you fix it or not?”
“Not on my own.”
“What’s that supposed to mean? You need me to climb up there with you?”
“No... I need someone who actually knows what they’re doing to help me.”
I took it all back. I was the slow one. The seconds ticked by as Gus eyed me like an unexploded bomb and I shook my head. “You’re not asking him.”
“Mia, I need his ladders, his tools, his van. I can’t—”
I shook my head. Stuff it. I’d leave the hole there. Customers wouldn’t come in the back, and even if they did, I could pretend it had just happened.
Gus caught my arm as I began to back out of the room. “Come on,” he said. “Don’t be ridiculous. If Luke helps, I can get most of it done tonight. Get that soggy board down. Fresh plaster, some paint, and you’ll never know it was there.”
Easy for him to say, but I knew without doubt that if Luke Daley set foot in my shop, it would all be over. The cracked resolve I was clinging to would fall away, and I’d be the mess someone else had always prophesied I would be. “No.”
“Why not?”
Because this is supposed to be my safe space, away from arsehole men who’ve hurt me. But Gus didn’t know about any of that, not yet, and my precious safe space was about to be flooded with gallons of grotty water if we didn’t act fast. If I didn’t cave and let him bring the only man who could match the damage someone else had done to me ten times over.
Growling, I wrenched myself from his grasp and turned on my heel to walk away. “Fine. But don’t expect me to talk to him.”
Luke
The hole wasn’t that big, but it had a ton of water collected beside it. One wrong move, and the whole thing would cave in.
Brilliant.
I set to work draining the water and shoring up the roof so it was strong enough to support the filled hole, all the while questioning my sanity for letting Gus talk me into helping him out, even though I knew it wouldn’t have mattered if he’d asked me to help him patch up the moon. He was the closest I had to a best friend.
Still, I felt Mia’s presence every moment I was up on her fucking roof. Gus said she’d gone out, but I didn’t believe him. How could I, when I could smell her, goddamn it?
Right. Because you know how she smells these days—
I cut the thought dead before my mind could treat me to flashbacks of Mia’s soft scent. Laced with the rose shampoo her mother bought in Calais every couple of months, she’d always smelled like spring to me—bright and hopeful. Even in that last winter, when despair had gripped me so strongly I could see nothing else, Mia had always been there, leaving the bullshit platitudes to other people so she could simply hold my fucking hand.
She had slim, delicate fingers, but her grip had been so strong, so tight. She’d never have let me go.