So Now You're Back (36 page)

‘Yuck.' He backhanded his face, wiping away her kiss as if he'd just been slimed by a ten-foot slug. Then rolled his eyes dramatically, a picture of ten-year-old mortification.

‘Duh, Mum. Of course I know
that.'

‘A
ny luck contacting Trey?' Halle asked as she closed Lizzie's bedroom door behind her.

Her daughter shook her head, her expression hopeless, as she threw her phone down on the bed. ‘No, his mobile keeps going to voicemail.'

Halle sat down on the bed beside her daughter and patted her knee. ‘How about you, Aldo and I go round to see him?'

Lizzie's eyes lit with gratitude and she hugged Halle round the waist. ‘Can we? Really?' She paused, then peered up at Halle. ‘So you're not mad at us?'

‘Why would I be mad?'

‘Because we were snogging on the couch.'

Hmm, well, there is that.

‘I'm not mad, but …' She pushed Lizzie's hair behind her ear, waited for her daughter to sit up. ‘I'd like to know exactly what is going on between you two. Have you been sleeping together?'

The blush fired up Lizzie's neck and she scowled. ‘God, Mum!' she whined, sounding more like the teenager Halle remembered.

‘Honey, I'm entitled to ask. I just wanted to know if we
have to take another trip down to the family planning clinic.' And if she had to have some serious words with them both.

Lizzie jumped off the bed, looking horrified now. ‘Mum, stop it. You're embarrassing me.'

‘Then you really shouldn't neck on the kitchen couch.' She smiled at her daughter's mortification, deciding to take the blazing red cheeks as a no. ‘First thing on a Thursday morning. Where your father and I can find you. Frankly, I was a little embarrassed, too. What you were doing looked rather—' she hesitated, deciding to spare Lizzie's blushes, despite her amusement ‘—involved.'

‘It
was
involved. But that's as far as we've gone.' Lizzie flopped back down on the bed, sounding distinctly disappointed. So clearly the not-sleeping-together hadn't been Lizzie's idea. ‘I think I probably just caught Trey at a really weak moment, though. His mother just died yesterday and he was cut up about it. Plus, he was still half asleep and I practically jumped him.'

‘He didn't look like he was objecting much to me.'

Lizzie's blush flared anew, but she looked more pleased than mortified at the observation.

‘But more to the point,' Halle said, ‘when did all this happen? Because, as I recall, you were rather antagonistic towards Trey before I left.'

‘That's only because I had a massive crush on him.'

‘I see.'

‘He's such a wonderful guy, Mum. He's so much more mature and responsible than any of the other guys I know. He really cares about people, and he doesn't try to be cool, he just is cool. And …' She grinned at Halle, her flushed cheeks warming to the subject. ‘He
is
super hot.'

The dreamy tone reminded Halle of her own infatuation with Luke at Lizzie's age. She pushed aside yet more
thoughts of Luke. At least Trey was older and clearly not as screwed up as Luke had been. But even so …

‘I thought he told me his mother was dead,' she said, still struggling to get the events of the past twelve days straight in her head.

Lizzie looked at her feet. ‘He was worried you wouldn't hire him if you knew. She's been in a hospice for months, and she's been sick for years.'

‘I see.'

‘You're not mad at him, are you, Mum?'

Well, he had lied, but she'd done a few of those white lies herself and she could see now he'd been very vulnerable. And she'd put him on the spot by asking him to move in without even realising it. Plus, it sounded as if he'd been super honourable with Lizzie, despite their couch clinch. ‘No, I'm not mad at him. But I do think I need to have a little talk with him.'

‘You're not going to fire him, are you?'

‘That would be up to all three of us, and him. I think Aldo would be devastated if he leaves. But I'm not going to pretend that it wouldn't be uncomfortable to have him here looking after Aldo and knowing that the two of you are an item.'

‘But we're not really an item.'

‘Are you sure?'

‘I'd like us to be an item. I'm not going to lie, but I care about him, Mum. Much more than I ever did for Liam and I guess it would be better for him if we cooled it for a bit. You know, he's dealing with all this stuff with his mum dying, and I think Dad punching him in the face probably didn't help much. Trey takes stuff really seriously. He'll probably think it's all his fault that Dad punched him. I don't want him to feel bad.'

‘It sounds like you've given this a lot of thought.'
And been super mature about it, too,
Halle thought, her admiration for her daughter increasing. Lizzie was putting Trey's needs first, and while this might just be puppy love, it still showed a level of maturity that she had never managed with Luke at Lizzie's age.

There's that bitch hindsight again, come back to bite me.

Lizzie nodded, her face sober. ‘I have. I've had a lot of time to think over the past week or so. Getting to know Trey, making things up a bit with Aldo, and I've realised I've been a total bitch for a while now. I don't want to be that person any more.'

‘Lizzie, you're not a bitch.'

‘If you say so, Mum.' Lizzie sent her a look that said,
Yes, I am, but it's nice of you not to rub it in.
‘Can I ask you a question?'

Halle nodded. ‘Of course.'

‘What
was
Dad doing here?'

‘Ahhh.'

‘Don't lie. Please.'

‘I won't,' she said, but she didn't defend herself against the accusation. Clearly, Lizzie had known as well as Aldo that she had not been entirely truthful in her dealings with them. How humiliating to get caught out by your kids. ‘I may have been a bit, shall we say, economical with the truth about where I've been the past twelve days.'

‘You mean you lied.'

You are so busted, lady.
‘Yes, I lied.'

‘So where were you?'

‘Would you believe with your father in a log cabin in Tennessee at an extreme couples' retreat?'

‘No way.' Lizzie couldn't have looked more shocked if
Halle had just announced she'd flown to Jupiter to marry an alien.

‘There was hiking and kayaking involved.' Halle shuddered. ‘So yes, way.'

‘Why?'

Because he blackmailed me into it.
The easy answer very nearly came out of her mouth. But she knew that wasn't the whole truth any more. Not even half of the truth really. And after sixteen years, Lizzie deserved to finally hear the whole truth.

Luke had been right about that, too.

‘Because we had a lot of stuff to sort out between us. Stuff that I've allowed to fester for sixteen years. He wants to be a much bigger part of your life.' Why hadn't she realised that was what this had really been all about all along? The hot-tub sex, the soul-searching, probably even the Monroe article had all been a by-product. ‘And he couldn't see a way to do that when I wouldn't talk to him about you.'

She had thought of contacting Jamie to see if what Luke had said was true, that he'd tried to change the terms of the custody agreement in recent years and Jamie hadn't informed her. But, on careful consideration, she knew it was true. She'd been very clear with Jamie that she wanted to have no contact with Luke. That Jamie was supposed to handle everything without involving her, so that was just what he'd done. He was a solicitor, not a marriage guidance counsellor. And, anyway, he'd tried to tell her Luke wasn't such a bad guy in his office, as soon as she found out about the memoirs, and she'd refused to listen.

‘But why didn't Dad just ask me?' Lizzie said. ‘I've been able to see him whenever I want since I was sixteen.'

‘I know, but I think he was worried he'd be putting you in the middle if he asked you without getting me onside first.'
And how could she not have realised that, either. That while she'd been shutting him out, Luke had been putting their daughter's welfare first.

‘But, Mum, how could you spend all that time in Tennessee with him when you hate him?'

The matter-of-fact statement had the last of Halle's hope dying, that maybe Lizzie had never been aware of her anger towards Luke.

‘I don't hate him.'
And I probably never did.
‘And I'm sorry that I made you think that.' Did she love him? She pushed the thought back.

Not about you. This is about your daughter, and all the lies and half-truths you've told, the secrets you've kept, to protect yourself from hurt while refusing to admit that you were hurting her.

‘We actually had a good time while we were in Tennessee. We cleared the air and … There was a lot of stuff that happened years ago, before you were born and when you were little, that we needed to deal with. And we did.' And they had done a lot of other stuff besides, which their eighteen-year-old daughter would never know about.

‘What stuff?' Lizzie asked.

Halle felt her cheeks getting warm. ‘It's a long story.'

‘I'm not going anywhere,' Lizzie prompted. ‘Please tell me, Mum.' She played with the quilt cover, clearly torn about asking. ‘I've always wanted to know what happened between you and Dad, but neither of you ever wanted to speak about it.'

Because we've been cowards, both of us.

Luke had admitted as much back at the resort. Now it was her turn to do the same.

Slinging her arm round Lizzie's shoulders, she hugged her tight. ‘OK, well, I guess I should start at the beginning.
The first time I spoke to your father, he was sixteen, I was fifteen and we were in a drama class together. He told me I caught like a girl and I believe I called him a sexist snot-bag.'

Lizzie choked out a laugh. ‘Go on, this sounds like it might be pretty funny.'

‘You have no idea,' Halle said wryly.

It took almost an hour, during which Aldo came in twice scavenging for food, and Trey finally sent Lizzie a two-line text, which simply read:

I'm at home, I'm fine & I'm really sorry. Pls tell yr Mum I'm sorry 2.

Even so, Lizzie stayed riveted to the story, at turns inquisitive, sad, surprised and delighted. Some of it she had known, but most of it she hadn't. Halle didn't tell her everything, skating over the truth about how Lizzie had been conceived—she doubted her daughter had ever been an Oasis fan—and the more traumatic details of Luke's childhood or the full scope of his breakdown in the Gare du Nord. That would be Luke's story to tell. But it did occur to her as she was tiptoeing through the details that if Luke had been there as they had originally arranged, those bits would have been much easier.

She'd also avoided any mention of all the make-up sex … Because it wasn't relevant any more. And no eighteen-year-old, no matter how mature, wanted to hear intimate details about her parents' sex life.

By the end of the story, Halle was exhausted. Reliving her history with Luke, with his perspective now added into the mix, had been like going on a roller-coaster ride, those huge peaks and devastating dips both shockingly dramatic
and also painfully inevitable. She'd never been a big fan of roller coasters; they'd always made her nauseous even as a teenager. And, in many ways, this metaphorical one was no different. But as she finished off the story and saw Lizzie's rapt expression, the bone-deep relief she felt went some way to calm the huge swell of emotion rising up in her stomach.

At least she could finally step off the roller coaster and step away from the emotional burdens of her past. Unfortunately, that didn't help much with handling the emotional burdens of her present.

‘So you did love him once?' Lizzie said, sounding awestruck.

‘Yes, I did. I loved him very much.' She'd questioned that so many times in the years since, even in the past twelve days. Maybe it hadn't been the forever type of love. Neither of them had been ready for that then; they'd been far too young. But still it felt good not to have to hate her romantic, optimistic sixteen-year-old self any more for falling so fast and so thoroughly for that troubled, traumatised seventeen-year-old boy. What disturbed her now, though, was the realization that mature, sensible, pragmatic Halle may well have done the same damn thing all over again.

‘So what happens now?' Lizzie asked.

‘Well …' Halle brushed her hands down her jeans. ‘I'd like to have a shower and change my clothes, and then I think we should head over to Trey's place and make sure he's really OK.' It was something they'd already agreed to do when his text had come through.

Lizzie sent her a sideways look. ‘I meant what happens to you and Dad.'

‘Nothing happens to me and your dad,' she said nonchalantly, determined to ignore the great gaping hole opening
up in her chest. ‘Except that we get to start over as your parents and get on your case as a united front.'

One thing they must not do, she decided, was let their latest bust-up close the lines of communication again. But somehow she didn't think that would be a problem. Luke had seemed resigned, not bitter, when he'd left. Unfortunately, that observation only made the hollow ache more painful.

‘Really, Mum? Is that all you want? Because when you were talking about Dad just now, it sounded like there might be more.'

Halle shook her head, determined not to put any of this stuff on her daughter. Lizzie was their child, she was still a teenager, she wasn't Halle's confidante. She couldn't put her in the middle of all this and expect her to understand. But as she opened her mouth to deny it, to stick to her conviction that whatever had been developing with Luke, it would never have worked, the breaker rose up and crashed over inside her.

‘Bloody hell.' Her shoulders began to shake, her vision blurred, the swell breaking like a tsunami and sweeping away everything in its path.