Page 60 of Date Knight (Roll for Romance #2)

“Or you could start a formal apprenticeship programme,” I said, clicking to the next slide.

Covering the screen entirely was a photo of Jack using the circular saw, Dad watching over his shoulder.

I remembered that day perfectly; it was shortly after Jack had moved home, right after Dad had agreed to take him on.

Mum had been so proud that she’d snuck out to the workshop to watch them for a while through the window, snapping the photo when neither of them was looking.

“As you all know, trade careers have become less and less popular with young people over the years. As a result, finding junior workers and apprentices is harder than ever. And as a family business with a reputation for excellence, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be leading the charge with the next generation of tradespeople. ”

“Agreed,” Dad said. “But it’s a lot of work, otherwise we’d have done it already.”

“I can help,” I said, moving to a breakdown of my time. “If I come on full-time, I would be able to manage the new admin systems and help with the apprenticeship programme.”

Dad read over the slides as I spoke– I’d thought about the budget needed to promote the programme, the additional wages he would need to pay to be more attractive than office-based apprenticeships, and the extra workload of training and assessing them.

It was risky; I was showing my cards that there wasn’t actually a full-time role’s worth of work in managing the systems I was recommending.

But I hoped he saw the vision enough to bite.

There was a long moment of silence when I finished, ending on a slide summarising everything I was proposing.

Dad, Jerry, and Luke’s eyes all darted back and forth as they leaned forward, taking it all in.

But Jack just smiled dopily up at me, throwing me a double thumbs-up.

He was so unserious sometimes. I ignored him, knowing this was a time I couldn’t afford to be unserious with him.

“I’ll think about it,” Dad said. “But no matter what I decide, you’ve done good work, Amy. You should be really proud.”

He led the others back out towards the workshop, and Jack leapt up from the sofa to pull me into a hug. “You did so well,” he said, squeezing me tight. “Dad’s right. You should be proud.”

“I am,” I said, and I meant it. I’d worked really hard on the presentation, but I’d also bought into all of this myself.

I was actively excited about bringing it all to life– even the apprenticeship, where I knew I’d have to deal with annoying teenagers who thought they were far cooler than they were.

But as soon as I admitted how proud I was, that sense of accomplishment was quickly followed by the realisation that I couldn’t celebrate it with the one person I wanted to.

“Thanks,” I said, but as soon as the word was out of my mouth, I felt my lip begin to tremble. I bit down on it, willing it to stop, but my eyes began to sting.

“Hey, hey,” Jack said, pulling me in again. “It’s okay.”

“I just wish I could ring him, you know? See how he is.”

“Yeah, well, you and me both,” Jack muttered, and I pulled back.

“What do you mean?” I asked, then frowned. “You know I don’t need you to ignore him for me, right?”

“I know,” he said. “I’ve tried to reach out. We all have. But he’s not responding. Mum even tried the landline, but Ethel didn’t answer.”

“She’s probably in a wheelchair all the time now,” I said, remembering what I’d read about sacral fractures. The fact that she’d been walking at all was no small miracle.

I hated how quickly my heart ached for Phil.

How immediately my empathy kicked in, after he’d shown no hesitation to hit me where it hurt.

Had he done it to try to protect himself and Ethel?

Yeah, probably. But it didn’t make it okay that he’d treated me like I was disposable.

Like the nearly three months we’d shared had meant nothing to him.

Like the two decades before that had meant nothing, either.

Still, I knew exactly what he was doing, and if I could have teleported over to him before thinking through the consequences to my own well-being, I probably would have.

He was isolating himself, and it was only a matter of time before he buckled under the weight of everything he insisted on carrying.

Even he couldn’t compartmentalise himself out of that one; trying to do so would just make it happen faster.

It made me especially angry because he hadn’t just excised me from his own life.

He’d excised me from Ethel’s, too. And I missed her.

I missed the way she would pat my hand every time she saw me.

The way she always knew just that little bit more than she was letting on.

And I wasn’t the only one– I was sure Mum was foaming at the mouth wanting to help out.

It was who she was; I supposed I came by it honestly.

And how dare he not let us do that? How dare he be so selfish that he would keep people who loved Ethel away from her in the name of looking after her?

“Don’t do that,” Jack said, and I snapped back into the lounge. “Don’t spiral.”

“Easier said than done,” I muttered.

I was just opening my mouth to suggest maybe we could do a drive-by, force a little wellness check, when the front door opened again and Dad walked back in, alone this time.

“Jackie, give me a minute with your sister, will ya?”

* * *

I pulled up outside Fatima and Morgan’s house the following night, parking behind Jack’s new car on the street just as he left through the front door.

They looked so similar, except one looked a little worse for wear.

The same could be said for Jack and me, I supposed; I had the dark circles under my eyes that would let the girls know immediately just how badly I’d been Going Through It. But I didn’t have it in me to care.

Dad’s full buy-in for my plan couldn’t have come at a better time.

He’d signed off on everything I’d proposed, including the apprenticeship programme, and he’d officially invited me on board full-time.

It had given me the excuse to throw myself immediately into starting the ball rolling with the software solutions, which was good since I didn’t have D Fatima had taken the week off for her first non-teaching day of the term.

I’d thrown myself into work on Friday, too, only paying enough attention to know that Phil’s car never appeared in the driveway for film night at Jack’s.

But now I had girls’ night, which, true to their word, they’d invited me along to when they’d rescheduled after the rewilding expedition.

I could picture them whispering amongst themselves inside, speculating whether I’d be okay or not.

But being pitied by my friends was better than losing them in the breakup, so I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

And at least it would take my mind off what should have been the last date night before the ball.

The other three were already getting snuggled up on the big sofa when I walked in, and when I went to sit in the armchair off to the side, Chloe yelled at me to come join them, so I squished in between her and Fatima instead.

We watched a bunch of YouTube videos Chloe had queued up until dinner came, only one of which was about the queer inclusive sex scenes in Baldur’s Gate 3 , which I knew showed serious restraint on her part.

Apparently takeaway sushi and cheap wine was a sacred girls’ night tradition, so once Morgan had brought in far too many bags for the four of us– “It’s fine,” she said, “I’ll happily eat this for days”– we all sat on the floor around the coffee table to eat.

This included Pablo, who begged constantly but wasn’t quite brave enough to jump up and take any.

“It’s perfect heartbreak food,” Chloe said, before putting a gigantic piece of a tempura-fried salmon roll in her mouth. When she saw me staring in disgust, she shrugged.

“Uhh? Assowayooeeingahan,” she said around the food, which I was pretty sure was supposed to translate to “What? That’s how they do it in Japan.”

“I’m pretty sure that doesn’t apply when the piece of sushi has the same circumference as a tin of beans,” Fatima said, popping a tiny piece of cucumber maki into her own mouth. She was vegetarian, so she had her own mini platter. “You’ve got to be dainty.”

“Uckgheingainny,” Chloe said. “Fuck being dainty,” I was pretty sure. We all laughed.

“Anyway,” Fatima said, “I thought we weren’t acknowledging the heartbreak? Is that not the case? Because I’ve got something to say.”

I froze with a piece of nigiri halfway to my mouth. It fell out from between my chopsticks as I stared back at Fatima.

“I hate having elephants in the room,” she said, then turned to me. “We don’t have to tiptoe around it, right?”

“Uh, sure?” I said, bracing myself for the “something” Fatima clearly had prepared. Chloe cleared her throat, finally having swallowed.

“I mean, I was talking about my breakup,” she said. “But sure, let’s get into it.”

“Great,” Fatima said, sitting forward and setting her tray down, then rubbing her hands together as if brushing off crumbs, though there weren’t any, of course. If any of us could actually be described as dainty, it was probably her.

“Hit me,” I said, sitting up straighter, trying to sound as casual as I could.

“Right,” Fatima said, nodding. “Amy, I just have to say, I think you can do so much better than Phil. I love the guy, but you are a literal goddess. What the hell did you see in him?”

“Hey, that’s not fair,” Chloe said, jumping to Phil’s defence. “Not about you being a goddess, Amy. That’s absolutely valid. But Phil’s a good guy.”

“Right, but that’s exactly what I’m saying,” Fatima said, speaking more to Chloe now than to me. “He’s a good guy. And listen, god knows I’d take a bullet for him. But I’ve known Amy for all of five seconds, and she’s so far out of his league it’s not even funny.”