“I’m fine thanks, Auntie S. Just a cup of tea and I’m grand.” Kellan kept his eyes on Ryan as he was forced to venture close enough to fill the kettle up.
As long as they stayed in here, there wasn’t much Kellan could do, but the kitchen was cosy at the best of times and with this many it was almost impossible to move without knocking into someone. Once Kellan got his tea, Mam would tell them to get out of her way.
Ryan didn’t want to know what came next.
LUCAS
Within minutes of entering the kitchen, Lucas was subject to the same interrogation as he’d had from Alex, this time fired from all possible angles: the table, where Xen was threading beads onto pieces of elastic; the worktop, where Auntie Helena was preparing a tray to take up to Vas after his nightshift; even Kat, lying on the sofa in a hungover smear of make-up and last night’s clothes, kept shouting questions through the door.
“I’m going to kill you.” Lucas jabbed Alex in the side with the spoon he’d snatched from the drawer.
“You’ve only yourself to blame,” Alex said with zero penitence. “Wet toilet paper holds up better than you.”
His cousin had a point. Before he next saw Kellan, Lucas would have to make sure he knew exactly what he wanted to say about last night. A way to explain that the group of people he’d left with included Ryan and the girl who’d stopped Kellan from decking him…
“Oi. Space cake.” Alex whipped him with the tea towel he’d been using to dry the pans and nodded to where Auntie Helena was holding out a plate of buttered toast.
“Take that through to Kat and then come back here and tell us all about this Sunny. I want to know everything – this one never breathes a word about his love life.”
Alex gave a smug smile, lips pressed together, and mimed zipping his mouth shut.
When Kat saw the toast, she groaned in delight and shuffled into something like a sitting position so she could eat it. One set of false eyelashes had fallen off, but the other remained, giving her a dishevelled Clockwork Orange vibe.
“So this Sunny,” she said, ignoring Lucas’s eye roll. “Just a wild guess, but is she a bit taller than Mum, skinny, Chinese” – Kat looked a little like she wasn’t sure that was what she should say, then moved swiftly on – “and with really long black hair?”
Lucas stared. He hadn’t remembered telling Alex any of that.
Kat swallowed the nibble of toast she’d taken.
“Pre-school but make it fashion?”
“What… How…”
Kat nodded over his shoulder and Lucas turned to see Sunny marching up the front path, ponytail swinging with every exuberant step.
“I think she’s here to see you,” Kat said with a grin.
WIN
“I still think she should have warned him we were coming,” Win said, leaning a little further forward to look across Sophie to where Sunny was standing in front of the third door along in a block of houses.
“Do you think she was worried he might have made an excuse?”
“What, like the fact it’s two days until the most important exams of his life and he can’t just go off on a jolly?”
“Ssh,” Sophie hissed. “Denial is my happy place. Don’t spoil it.”
They watched as the bright blue door swung open and Lucas peered out, like a confused bear stirred from hibernation by a particularly tasty snack. On the doorstep, Sunny was flapping her arms about, pointing at him, the sky, the car.
Sophie and Win waved in unison when Lucas looked their way.
“Why does your sister look like she’s desperate for a pee?”
“Nervous bladder,” Win said, her grin matching Sophie’s as she glanced back. This was nice. Much better than yesterday. If Win had been as bold as her sister, she might have suggested that she and Sophie drive off, leave the others to it…
But Sunny was already coming back to the car, grin as wide as the sky as she shouted, “He said yes!” with all the joy of someone who’d just had a marriage proposal accepted.
It didn’t take long for Lucas to re-emerge – and for every single member of his family to line up at the window to see him off. As ever, Sunny’s entire lack of shame had her waving back at them and, when she got out to let Lucas and Sunny in, so did Sophie.
“Don’t encourage them,” Lucas groaned as he folded himself into the car. Win watched him and her sister in the rear-view mirror – Lucas stealing glances at Sunny every other second, Sunny’s dimple deepening each time. Envy twanged Win’s heartstrings. To have someone want to look at her like that – to not feel like she should look away… After Riley, Win had found it easier than she’d thought: waiting. She’d been busy, and admiring girls from afar was about as much as she’d been able to manage.
Now one of them was sitting in her passenger seat – because Freya had engineered her to be there.
Win felt a stab of frustration. But then, this wasn’t part of Freya’s plan. They’d all heard Sophie’s letter. There hadn’t been anything in there about sharing herself with anyone, no veiled hints that Freya knew her better than she knew herself – only a trite little line that could have been cut and pasted from a Hallmark card.
Today, though, Sophie was here because she wanted to be.
“So.” Sophie twisted round in her seat, dislodging a curl of hair that twisted forwards and directed all Win’s attention to her lips. “Where are we going?”
Giddy at the freedom of a car, Win’s passengers suggested everything from a picnic on the moors to a day trip to Newcastle, until Lucas asked how near the sea was and everyone – even Win, who’d had reservations about how far everyone wanted her to drive – cheered their approval.
And then Sunny killed the mood dead.
“So … are we going to call for Ryan?”
SOPHIE
When she’d snuck out of her house, Sophie hadn’t thought further than getting to Win’s. When Win and Sunny had agreed to a day out, she’d not thought further than getting to Lucas. Yesterday had taken a lot out of her and she didn’t trust how much energy she had left – getting from one point to the next was about all Sophie could judge.
She’d not anticipated how her feelings would revolt at the thought of the next point being Ryan.
“Fine.” She scowled her way through her words. “I think I know where he lives.”
No one said anything, their silent concerns filling the car. But they didn’t know. They’d only seen the worst of her, not the worst of him. Not by a long shot.
“Why do you hate him so much?” The question came from the back, but not from Sunny. When Sophie turned to look, Lucas was looking at her in a way that didn’t make answering seem so hard.
“None of you know him at school. He’s always been a bit of a dick – he used to wind Freya up all the time, but then she got with Kellan and the wind-ups became worse. Anything she said, anything she did, he was on her for it.” She ground her teeth, remembering the worst: the blowjob joke in English; the day he kept playing a soundbite of a woman moaning on his phone any time Freya tried to talk; the way he’d see her talk to any of the lads in their year and make a joke that Kellan better not find out…