Total pages in book: 166
Estimated words: 160356 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 802(@200wpm)___ 641(@250wpm)___ 535(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 160356 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 802(@200wpm)___ 641(@250wpm)___ 535(@300wpm)
I jump out of bed and snatch my robe off the chair, pulling it on as I run to the door, throwing it open. I hurry down the corridor and burst out of the building, my bare feet sinking into the slushy snow. “Fuck,” I hiss, quickly stepping back inside. I see Dec up the road getting into the driver’s side of a Defender, this one black. “Dec!”
He looks up, the door open, and frowns. “What are you doing?” He slams the door and paces back to the building. “Camryn?”
“Can I come?” I ask, awkward, treading from foot to foot.
A smile slowly stretches across his face. It’s fucking stunning, and I made it happen. “Hurry up,” he orders softly, coming to me. “I’ve got a prawn to appease.”
“Huh?”
“Just go get dressed.” He takes my shoulders and pushes me into the building. “I’ll wait in the car.”
I rush back to my flat, dry my feet, and throw on my leggings, cropped quarter-zip and trainers, and swing my wool trench coat on as I jog back out, pulling a hairband off my wrist and tying my hair up. Dec’s on the phone again when I get in the car, his head in his hands as April talks over the car speakers. “It’s fine, I’ve pushed back my nine thirty,” she says.
“I’m sorry.” Dec starts the car. “I don’t know what’s got into him.”
“Maybe you,” she says gently. Her tone isn’t accusing. It’s just . . . worried. “He knows you’re not right.”
I freeze in my seat, mortified. Dec’s not right because of me. I’m distracting Albi’s dad from being his dad. Kids are like sponges, I know that. Have experienced that. They soak it all up without you even noticing. Until you do. And then, dumb parent, you ask yourself what’s wrong with them. Dominic and I always hid our disagreements from Noah, but we couldn’t hide our energy. If I wasn’t right, he wasn’t right.
Dec’s gaze is on me, I just know it, and I peek out the corner of my eye confirms it.
“I’m sorry,” I mouth, taking the handle of the door I’ve just closed and opening it. “I should stay here.”
Dec reaches across and pulls it closed again. “I’m on my way.” He cuts the call and pulls out. “Put your seatbelt on,” he orders, focused on the road. I reach back and grab it, seeing a kid’s car seat in the back. As I clip my seatbelt in, I look down in the footwell, finding an empty snack bag that once packaged apples. And when I crane my neck around, I see the telltale signs of sticky fingerprints on the leather seats and the windows. “What?” Dec asks.
“Nothing.” I return my body forward and rest my eyes on his profile as he drives, my stomach swirling madly. Nerves. I’d never have pinned the title dad on Dec, but now it seems to be slapped all over him. “I didn’t get to see Noah in the nativity play,” I say out of the blue, transported back to that week in the run up to Christmas when my life fell apart. “He was the innkeeper. Or supposed to be.”
His hand comes across and lays palm up on my thigh. I put mine in his and watch as his fingers wrap around. “Tell me more,” he says, keeping his eyes on the road.
I laugh a little under my breath, closing my eyes and resting my head back. “I tore up a stripy bedsheet and made a cloak out of it. A pillowcase for a floppy hat.” I smile, seeing my boy in my mind’s eye as I wrapped rope around his head to keep the flimsy scrap of material in place. “My mum sawed over a foot off the bottom of my granddad’s old walking stick for him, and we made some sandals out of an old pair of flip-flops and a crappy, old, fake leather belt.” I close my eyes and watch Noah stomp across the kitchen, the flip-flops flipping and flopping hard. “Poor kid couldn’t walk in them. We glossed over that. He was of an age where they’re immune to feeling silly. I was well aware that wouldn’t last for much longer.” I open my eyes and see Dec nodding mildly. Agreeing. “He had six words to say. There’s no room at the inn. And four actions. Open the door, step out, say his lines, step back in, close the door. It took six weeks practicing every night.”
“That’s some dedication,” Dec muses quietly.
“It wasn’t the lines that were the problem.” I let my head drop to the side. “It was stepping out and in again in the homemade sandals.” He smiles at the road, pulling a small one from me. “You’re not just a mum or a dad when you have a child,” I go on. “You’re a chef, a therapist, a counsellor, a party entertainer, a teacher, a personal assistant, a taxi driver, a costume designer, a . . . protector.”