Down London Road - Young Samantha (читать бесплатно книги без сокращений txt) 📗

Cam had been different from the start, but I’d still launched myself into a relationship with him. I’d begun to rely on him. More than that, I’d begun to rely on his opinion of me as a person to make me feel better about who I was. I was more than a little cut up inside at the thought of losing that good opinion – or worse, that he’d never really had a good opinion in the first place.

I shook my head at that thought. Even though my mind was all over the place because of him, I couldn’t bring myself to believe that he’d never seen more in me. Everything he’d done for me, all the looks he’d given me, the affection, the tenderness, it couldn’t be fake. I knew it couldn’t be fake.

Maybe taking a day away from each other to calm down was best. We could talk it out tomorrow.

Chest aching, I nodded to myself. That sounded like a plan.

I got up out of bed to see Cole off to school. He took one look at me and he knew. ‘You and Cam have a fight?’

‘Bloody clairvoyant,’ I muttered irritably under my breath as I passed him to make some tea.

‘I’ll take that as an aye.’

I grunted.

‘Is it bad?’ He suddenly sounded worried and very much like a little boy.

I looked at him over my shoulder. Cole was trying to act cool, like a fight between Cam and me was no big deal, but I knew he would be anxious about what it meant for his friendship with Cam. I shook my head at him. ‘We’ll be fine. It’s nothing that can’t be fixed.’

Relief glinted in his eyes as he gave me a sympathetic smile. Sympathy from Cole. I must really look like crap.

I closed my eyes. God, I hoped Cam and I could fix this.

I loved him.

Heaving a heartfelt sigh, I opened my eyes and squealed.

Spider.

On my mug.

‘Cole!’ I yelled, frozen on the spot.

‘Spider?’ he asked casually, his footsteps coming closer.

He knew my squeal so well.

‘Mug.’

I never moved a muscle as Cole calmly tilted the mug out of our kitchen window, depositing the spider on the sill, much as Cam had done with the humungous spider that had been in his kitchen. I felt a wave of longing at the memory of that day and tried to squash it just as quickly as it had risen.

Cole gestured the mug at me and I made a face. ‘Bin it.’

He rolled his eyes. ‘Just wash it in hot water.’

‘If you think I can put that mug to my mouth without forever remembering that those spindly, hairy – eeeeeh’ – I shuddered – ‘legs were on it, you’re mental.’

With another eye roll, he threw the mug in the bin and I slumped with relief.

Damn all the spiders of the world. They were putting a serious dent in my road to independence. When Cole came over and kissed my hair before going to school, I knew I had progressed from looking like crap to just looking pathetic. Still, his affection gave me the warm fuzzies and for a moment I forgot my worries about Cam.

I hurried in the shower and got dressed in something comfortable for flat hunting with Uncle Mick. As I was passing Mum’s bedroom, I sighed in exasperation. Mum hadn’t popped her head out of her bedroom for days, and the only reason I knew she was alive was because I heard her snoring. It occurred to me as I stood in our quiet flat that I hadn’t said a word to her in a week. Not one word. Maybe that’s a good thing, I thought with a surprising amount of sadness. Maybe I would never learn to think more of myself if I continued to let Mum get close enough to poison my attempts. And maybe if I thought more of myself, I wouldn’t feel so irrational over Cam’s friendship with Blair.

Then again, maybe that was just wishful thinking.

Uncle Mick and I were lying on the hardwood floor of the two-bedroom flat on Heriot Row. A street that was mere minutes away from Dublin Street, it skirted the north side of Queen Street Gardens. More importantly, it was just around the corner from Jamaica Lane, where Olivia had just signed a lease on a one-bedroom flat above a coffee shop. It was all coming together for her. Proving it’s who you know once again, Clark managed to get Olivia an interview at the university library. They’d been impressed with her postgraduate degree in library science from the States as well as her six years of work experience. They had taken her on, on a temporary contract to be reviewed for permanency in six months’ time.

She seemed happy. Nervous but happy.

Mick was worried.

Since Olivia had started her new job today, I’d offered to accompany Mick to see the unfurnished flat that was so close to his daughter’s new home. Unfurnished wasn’t ideal, but the location was. The rental was under the Carmichael banner, so Ryan was the one viewing the flat with us. When we suddenly lay down on the floor, our eyes studying the level of craftsmanship in the decor, Ryan had stared at us wide-eyed and then said, ‘Uh, I’ll wait outside.’

Uncle Mick and I used to lie like this when he took me on jobs with him. During our lunch break we’d lie down on the dust sheets and talk nonsense to one another. Today, I wasn’t in the mood for nonsense. I was in the mood for answers.

‘Are you going to tell me why you keep hovering over your adult daughter like she might disappear or shatter into a million pieces at any second?’

Mick heaved a sigh, rolling his head to the side to look at me. His golden eyes were soft with affection for me, but I could still see that glimmer of sadness at the back of them.

‘I’m a father. I worry, baby girl.’

‘Is it because she’s carrying all this guilt about Yvonne?’

‘She told you that?’

‘Yeah.’

‘My girl is tough, just like you, and she’s going to be okay. I know that. But I’m her dad and she’s moved to a new country, left all her friends behind, and is starting over. I want to make sure she’s okay, and I’ll worry if I can’t be near her. So what if I have to put up with bad paintwork in order to do that?’ He gestured to the main wall, where the paint had dried in uneven brushstrokes. ‘Something happens, she needs me, she calls me, and I’m literally seconds away.’

‘So you’re taking this place, then?’

‘Aye.’ He sat up, pulling me with him. ‘Fancy a trip to Ikea?’

I grinned. ‘Lucky for me today was payday.’ Mick looked confused. ‘I can go a little accessory mad when I shop at Ikea.’

‘Ah.’ He chuckled and helped me to my feet.

As I dusted off my bum, I became aware of the heat of Mick’s sudden and intense scrutiny.

I looked up and raised an eyebrow at his grave expression. ‘What?’

‘I’m worried about you, too.’ He brushed my hair off my face, stroking my cheek with his callused thumb. ‘You look tired.’

Shaking my head, I gave Mick a glum smile. ‘I had a fight with Cam.’

He frowned. ‘About what?’

And so I laid it out for him, telling him about Blair and my insecurity over their friendship and my worry that Cameron would never really respect me the way he would respect someone like Blair.

‘All that’s going on in your head?’ Mick asked in disbelief.

Confused, I nodded slowly.

‘Jesus Christ, woman. I doubt very much Cam was thinking any of the shit you threw at him last night. It probably felt like it came out of nowhere. You know, men don’t think like women.’

‘Well …’ I pulled a face. ‘That’s because you have the emotional capacity of a shot cup.’

Mick huffed in amusement as we met Ryan outside. ‘I’ll take it, son.’ He nodded at him.

‘Great.’ Ryan beamed. ‘Let’s get you back to the office so we can sign all the forms.’

We followed Ryan down the street as he talked at someone on his phone. Everything about him was so polished, so rehearsed. I actually couldn’t believe that only four months ago I would have been attracted to the douche bag.

Douche bag?

Oh, Christ, I was spending too much time with Cole these days.

‘Back to my earlier point,’ Uncle Mick suddenly said, drawing my gaze away from Ryan’s well-tailored jacket. ‘I think you’re overthinking the whole thing. I think you’ll find that boy cares a great deal about you and would be willing to compromise. And I can tell you for a fact he didn’t mean what he said last night. You know we all say shit we don’t mean when we’re angry.’