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His lips quirked, just a little. I wondered for the hundredth time why he tried so hard to hide that smile.
"What about your father? What do you remember about him?"
My dad. My runaway father. I barely thought of him now. He was like an imaginary friend I’d grown out of.
"Barely anything and I don’t know much about him either. My gran always hated talking about him. I’ve tried looking for him a few times over the years but I don’t even know where to start. I don’t even know if he knows that mum died." I paused, trying to dredge up old memories, but they were covered in so much dust I could barely make them out. When I remembered my dad, I always imagined him as this great bear of a man, with shaggy hair and a thick Irish accent, but when I look at photosof him I can see he wasn't really that big at all, it's just that I was still small.
I think that was how most children see their parents—as big shields of protection. Then they grow up and see they're just normal people. Except my parents were gone before I could grow up, so my view of them will be eternally childlike, unable to mature.
A dense cloud of old pain had settled on me and I was grateful when we were interrupted again by the maître d'.
"An appetiser, compliments of the chef. Coquille Saint-Jaques." He placed a plate of four scallops between us before disappearing again. I looked at them dubiously, trying not to grimace.
"I don't really like seafood," I whispered, desperate not to insult Jean or Alfie. Alfie stuck one with his fork and raised it to my mouth. I looked at the grey-ish morsel on the end of his fork. I really didn’t want to eat that.
"Humour me."Humour me. I had a feeling those two words could get me into a lot of trouble if I let them. I scowled at him but I knew that that fork wasn't going anywhere.Screw it.I was starving. With a grimace, I took it in my mouth, chewed and swallowed quickly. It wasn't nearly as bad as it looked but I wouldn’t tell Alfie that. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of being right. Though, judging by the smug expression on his face, he didn’t need me to tell him.
"Good." He nodded with approval but didn't offer me another. "So, your sister moved in after your grandmother passed away?"
"Yeah, a while after. I'd known she existed but had never spoken to her. Then, one day, about six months after my gran died, she found me on Facebook. She talked about wanting a fresh start for her and Ryan and I didn't even think about it, I just told her to come.” It had felt like I was getting a second shotat having a family and now, as much as I dreamed of going to college, I couldn't imagine leaving them.
"Have you worked at Rosie's for long?"
"About three years or so. I worked a few different jobs before that. I worked at a pub for a while which I didn't mind, but I had to leave and that's when I ended up at Rosie's. I'd been there a lot with my mum when I was little, so working there just seemed right."
"Why did you have to leave your job at the pub?"
I realised that, without meaning to, I'd allowed us to wander into Adam territory.
“Oh, they just had to let me go. No big deal.”
Alfie narrowed his eyes on me. “You’re lying.” I flinched, caught entirely off guard. “I deal with liars in business everyday. I won’t accept it from you. Tell me why you had to leave.”
I sighed. I was just laying all my shit bare tonight.
"I had this boyfriend." I stopped short, wondering how to say the next part. Should I even say it at all? "It ended badly," I said finally, and watched as his hand tightened on the stem of his wine glass.
“It ended badly.” He repeated my words, stretching out the syllables, trying to find the hidden meaning inside them. "How exactly?"
"He became fixated."
"He was violent?" His eyes pierced me, daring me to lie to him.
"No. Adam was a creep, but he was never violent. He just didn’t take our break up well. He started following me, hanging around at the bar, acting like we were still a couple. Eventually he caused a scene with another customer I was serving and my boss ‘invited’ me to leave.” I shook my head. It still made me mad that I got blamed for his actions.
“After I got fired, he escalated. He’d send me gifts all the time, petals on my car, intense love letters, that kind of thing. Eventually, he tried to break into my house one night. He said he just wanted to surprise me with a romantic dinner.” I rolled my eyes. It sounded absolutely crazy because it was. “Anyway, he’d finally done enough for the police to do something about it. They just gave him a warning but it must have been enough because I haven’t seen him since. That was about a year ago."
I trailed off, shutting myself up. I needed to stop. I didn’t want Adam to have any place at this dinner table.
I took a large sip of my wine, eyeing the man in front of me. The rational side of me was loud again, a hand on her hip, making her opinion known.Manipulative, controlling, obsessive…Sound familiar?Yeah, it did, and not for the first time I wondered what the hell I was doing here. I didn’t trust Alfie, not even close, but some deep part of me knew that he and Adam weren’t cut from the same cloth.
But if they weren’t cut from the same cloth, then why was he, like Adam, looking at me like I'd done something wrong?
Before I could move to a safer subject, we were interrupted once more by the maitre d' carrying a platter of food and Jean, who was red in the face and looked pleased as punch as our edible art was laid out before us.
"For Mr Tell, Coq au Vin, and for you, belle demoiselle, confit de canard with dauphinoise potatoes and red bordeaux." Jean presented our meal with a flourish but Alfie just sat there, his face like stone.
"It looks wonderful, Jean. Thank you!" I smiled, trying to clear the tension. Jean’s gaze flicked from me to Alfie and back again.