Page 35 of Samuel

“They’re having a whale of a time,” she said, dragging my attention back to her.

“Yes, they are.” The lump in my throat was huge and I wasn’t sure that I wasn’t going to cry.

“Fathers and sons, eh.” She shook her head and then went back to her knitting.

My eyes moved back to the pool and I wished I’d not been so adamant about not joining them.

* * *

“Mum,” Frankie cried as he barrelled toward me, arms and legs flying around. “Sam says my front crawl is one of the best he’s seen. Did you see?”

His eyes were bright with excitement as he thrust a towel and wet swim shorts at me.

“I did, you were brilliant,” I replied, holding the shorts and towel out in front of me. “Where’s your bag?”

I started to fold the towel as Frankie smacked his forehead with the heel of his hand and raced off, passing Sam who was on his way out.

“Where’s he going?” Sam asked, looking behind him at Frankie’s retreating figure.

“He forgot his bag.”

I rolled the swim shorts up with the towel, not looking at Sam, afraid that if I did he’d realise I’d been lusting after him for the last hour and a half.

“Shit, I should have checked,” Sam groaned. “But I let him get changed on his own. I didn’t think I should go in with him, so I took the cubicle next to his.”

I looked up and could see Sam’s uncertainty and a little discomfort and yet again, I wanted to kick myself. This all seemed so natural and normal that I hadn’t considered it might be wrong to leave Frankie to get dressed with Sam in charge. I knew there was always a member of staff stationed inside the changing rooms, but was I being neglectful of Frankie? Sam was a member of staff too and Frankie’s dad, so maybe it was just me trusting my instincts – shit this was all too bloody complicated.

“It’s fine, Sam,” I found myself saying. “He dresses himself every day and he should know to bring his bag out, but so you know I wouldn’t have minded if you’d helped him.”

Sam didn’t reply, but simply gave me a single head nod. Before there was time for any awkwardness to grow, Frankie reappeared at my side, still minus his bag.

“Where is it?” I asked, looking down on him.

He looked at me with wary eyes and shrugged.

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know,” he replied. “It wasn’t there.”

“Did you ask Dave?” Sam asked, placing a hand on Frankie’s wet head. “He’s in the changing room office.”

“Yeah, but he just said he’d look for it.”

“Frankie,” I groaned. “It can’t have gone missing already. You’ve only been out of there for five minutes.”

The way he looked at me, I knew something was worrying him. His nose was wrinkled and his shoulders hunched, the usual tell when he had a problem.

“Frankie, what is it?”

He sighed and blurted out, “There was a big boy in there and he had my bag, but when I asked him for it back he said it was his and that he’d had it for ages, but I knew it was mine, it had the piece of blue string that you tied to the zip so I wouldn’t mix it up with Nathan’s at school.”

As Frankie took a breath, Sam made a growling noise and when I looked up at him, I could see his jaw was set tight.

“What does the boy look like?” he asked, stooping down to look Frankie in the eye. “And what’s the bag like?”

“He’s got black hair and looks mean and the bag is a Man City bag.”

Sam’s eyes glinted quickly with pride before morphing back into a scowl. “I’ll get it.”