Page 71 of Darling

This place wasn’t safe for him, for us, not anymore.

“Yeah, I’m not sure he’s gonna be back around, Doreen.”

Twenty three

Christian

Iwatch, impressed, as Felix plates up steaming hot bowls of buttery prawn linguine. He grates parmesan over the top, sprinkles some parsley, and lifts both plates over to where I’m sat at the dining table.

I lower my head to sniff. “This looks and smells absolutely divine, sweetheart. Thank you.”

“I actually really like cooking, as it turns out.”

“You just needed the right teacher.”

I twist the lengths around my fork and manoeuvre it into my mouth. It tastes as good as it looks. Garlic, lemon, butter, and cheese are melting around the perfectly cooked pasta.

“Nico is a frighteningly good cook. I had to start making an effort.”

I grin. “That competitive streak is still alive and well, I see.”

“Now I’m better at cooking and dancing than he is,” he says with a playful smirk.

We eat in comfortable silence for a while before I take a break to drink my wine, white and chilled, while Felix has water.

“So, when are you coming home?” he asks as he tears a small, fingernail-sized piece of bread from the roll he’s been eyeing since he sat down.

“I don’t know.”

“Surely the heart attack helped shift things into perspective? You don’t want to die over there; they’d ship you back in the cargo hold with a Union Jack over the fucking coffin like some kind of morbid Spice Girl throwback.”

I laugh, coughing up the piece of bread I’d just swallowed. “Jesus fucking Christ.”

“Well, it’s true,” he points out. “No one deserves that.”

“I’d be dead; it would hardly matter.”

“It would matter to me!” He sounds personally offended by the mere concept.

“Felix, youcanjust say you miss me and that you want me to move home.”

“Well, that’s a given. My friendship circle is embarrassingly small these days—through no fault of my own.” He doesn’t quite manage to hide the look of hurt that flickers over his face. “And I’d very much like to cook for you more.”

“How have things been with Ava?”

He tenses a little. “They’re good. I mean, she’s still so careful with me, like she’s afraid of making the wrong joke or saying the wrong thing. It’s weird because it’s never been like that between us; we were always just on the same level, right away. It’s why we worked so well. But, yeah, it’s better. Better than when you left.”

“Good. I’m glad to hear it. And Charlie?”

“Who?” he says coldly. “When he left for Vienna, I ceased thinking about him; he doesn’t exist to me.”

“Sorry, sweetheart.”

“It’s fine. So, what about you? Do you have any friends over there? Leo’s still there, right?”

“I resent the assertion that my only friend is my son.”

“I never said that. Anyway, does he even like you?” He gives me an angelic smile before shovelling a forkful of pasta into hismouth.