Page 8

W e fell into a little routine, where every night around six, he would appear on his patio, rain or shine. He’d stand there, looking a little lost, pretending he wasn’t looking over towards my doors, where I’d be standing myself, hoping to see him.

I’d gone from a nosy neighbour to some kind of parody of a besotted teenager, hiding behind the curtain, hoping to see his crush. I had the teacups ready on the side, having picked out a different packet of biscuits each night .

I was going to fatten him up. Get some bulk back on those skinny bones.

Which was why I snuck out to Tesco each morning, to stock up, and one particular morning happened to run into a woman carrying coffee and a bag of treats. An elegant older lady with a scowl that made me step back and make a little bow.

“Stewart,” she said curtly.

“Yes.” I held out my hand in greeting and realised she had no hands free to receive mine. I smiled apologetically, relaxing when she did. A new neighbour perhaps?

“You’re Dylan’s friend. I’m Jean. If you’re free, I’d like your advice on something.”

“I’m free,” I admitted. I was always free. Well, usually. And not a new neighbour then.

“Come,” she demanded, making me close the gate behind her and follow her like a sheep. Accepting the key she had dangling off her little finger, I opened Dylan’s front door.

I was pleased to see the house in good order, the kitchen wiped down and Dylan himself standing there, dressed in a shirt and tie.

He looked good, in a shirt and tie.

“Matching,” he said, wafting his hand down over his body as I grinned. Matching indeed. We were both in white shirts with blue ties. Tidy. Professional.

“Working tonight,” I explained. “So I’ll change the tie to black later.”

“Who are you driving today?” he asked. I liked that he took an interest.

“Still the gentleman who identifies as a unicorn?” Jean asked, placing the cups of coffee into the microwave. I was about to tell her off but politely restrained myself. If she wanted to set the house on fire and destroy perfectly good coffee, that was her loss.

“Yes.” I smiled politely. “He’s a very nice man, perfectly agreeable. I just worry about the large horn he dons on his head. It keeps getting stuck in the car’s ceiling. If he scratches the interior, I’ll have to raise it with Michelle, and she won’t be happy.”

“I don’t understand why someone wants to spend his whole life in fancy dress.” Jean smirked. “But to each their own. If it makes him happy?”

“He’s very popular in Korea.” I sighed. “But as I said, very nice man. I’d rather drive a man in fancy dress around than that young girl I drove a few weeks back.

Stained the whole back seat with make-up and food, left trash strewn in her wake like it was confetti and didn’t say a word for four days. It was rather painful.”

I didn’t often complain about clients, but Dylan seemed to enjoy my stories and Jean chuckled over by the sink, so I assumed it gave him something to talk about, which was good. Anything that filled his day with things other than grief and sadness.

“So you drive celebrities around for appointments?” Jean asked, handing me a perfect cup of tea. The right strength and everything. “Dylan said you only drink tea.”

“Thank you. I never say no to a cuppa.”

“Neither do I,” she admitted with a wink. “But my boss here is a coffee snob, so I keep him happy at work. I’m very specific about my coffee, though.”

“Jean is a classy lady.” Dylan smiled. “She knows all the best coffee shops.”

Jean smiled cheerily at the compliment. “I asked Stewart to pop in this morning because I have some good news.”

Dylan stared at her blankly. Odd. I didn’t quite understand the dynamic they had going on, but the man was still too pale and withdrawn. I wasn’t sure he should be working, or even standing upright, but at least he was working from home.

“We’re going to go hijack a site inspection.

Small build in Barnes, just ten plots, but the builders are a new set-up, and they have absolutely no idea how to submit paperwork.

I very much doubt they’ve had anyone look over their plans.

Got a tip-off from a friend and we’re going to act on it.

Turn up and sort them out before the inspection turns nasty.

This is their third one. They’re desperate. ”

“We are too.” Dylan sighed. “Jean, no.”

“Yes, Dylan.” She nodded vigorously. “We have no choice. We’re not who we used to be, and we need to start somewhere.

Which is why I’ve told the people at Contempo that we will meet them on site at eleven.

I was hoping that Stewart here would take pity on us and drive us there.

In style. I’ve seen your car, and we need to impress.

Won’t give the same impact if we turn up in an Uber. ”

“I see,” I said, taking a sip of tea and watching Dylan, who looked a little panicky, to be honest.

“I haven’t even seen the plans.” His voice sounded strained .

“Neither have I, but this is child’s play. We have a couple of hours to get this sorted, and then we ride in and blind them with the perfect bundle of paperwork and get paid by the end of the week. Easy.”

Dylan sighed again. I did too because I was completely out of my depth here, and Jean was rattling off terminology I couldn’t even start to grasp as I looked around the kitchen.

The bag of treats on the side. A dirty plate in the sink.

“Would you like me to leave you to it?” I asked, hoping to make a swift escape.

“Actually, if you wouldn’t mind, we could do with some breakfast and a steady supply of hot drinks because we need to knuckle down now, and I need to make a few phone calls to see if I can rush through a few amendments before the inspectors pull their paperwork. Time is of the essence.”

“I see.” I did. So I rolled up my sleeves, grinning in delight at the fridge having been stocked since the last time I was here. Jean, I assumed. “I’ll make myself useful then. You need to be there at eleven?”

After that, I busied myself poaching eggs and looking for a safe place to park at this building site on Google Maps .

I felt oddly at home. I liked being useful, and Jean turned out to be good company, upbeat and delightful, even when she was trying to wrangle some poor council worker into doing her bidding over the phone.

Things I had so often done myself. A little bit of stern cheer and persuasion went a long way getting other people to do what you wanted, and persuasion was evidently Jean’s forte.

I washed up, made cups of tea, drove around London with Dylan looking like he was ready to cry and Jean holding a steady silence.

I got the impression her nerves weren’t as solid as they seemed, and I was honestly grateful as I dropped her home and got Dylan safely through his front door, where he immediately ripped off his tie and slumped onto a chair.

“I need to go change and get this unicorn collected. I should be back by midnight.”

“I’ll hopefully be in bed,” he muttered.

“I’ll be going then.”

He was exhausted. So was I.

“Can you…” he started, then hauled himself to his feet, took a step towards me and wiped his hands on the front of his slacks. “Could you… I know it’s a lot to ask, but… Can yo u pop in when you get back? Just check in. I… I don’t know.”

“Of course I will. Today was a big day, I understand. Leave the back door open.”

This was weird. But not. We were…friends. Weren’t we?

“Thank you,” he said, his relief visible in the way his shoulders dropped. He looked like he was about to cry.

Please don’t cry.

I think it was half panic, half some strange need for human contact for myself. I hadn’t been this close to anyone in a long time, him standing right there, me gently grabbing his upper arms, giving him a little shake.

I was aiming for a friendly arm slap as a goodbye, but instead, he pressed himself against me in some kind of awkward hug. I embraced it…and him because I hadn’t realised I needed exactly what he was offering me.

A simple hug.

“I needed that,” I admitted, patting him on the back.

“I feel absolutely wrecked.” He spoke into my shoulder, turning his head so he was leaning his face against my chest, a smaller man to my ridiculous height .

“I’ll see you later. Shall I bring some tea?”

“Decaf?”

“Always. Sleep is the aim here, remember?”

“Okay.” He let me go.

I wondered why I didn’t want him to.

I got back a few minutes before midnight, fully expecting his room downstairs to be dark and quiet, but he’d left his patio door wide open, the soft light from inside welcoming me as I stumbled, almost feeling delirious with tiredness, towards that open door.

I’d forgotten what it felt like to come home to someone. To walk through the door and be greeted and offered the chance to unwind. Talk about the day. All that I’d taken for granted for so long.

He was sitting at the table, papers strewn over the surface, still in his shirt, but at least he’d got rid of the fancy trousers and replaced them with a pair of soft shorts. Socks.

Ridiculous.

“I love the outfit,” I teased, putting two cups of tea on the table.

I didn’t even wait for him to offer me a seat and instead pulled up a chair next to his.

“Want to show me what you’re working on?

I assume this is the planning permission for the houses and the one underneath is the block of flats along the river? ”

“Correct.” He tapped his pen against the paper.

“They hadn’t even done the basics. The utilities overlap with the council land next door, and the boundaries are all in the wrong places.

I’ve had words with their dumbwit of an architect this evening, and he’s promised to have new plans couriered over for ten tomorrow.

We have two days to fix this and resubmit before we run out of time. ”

“Brutal.” I sighed. “I have no understanding of most of this, but even I can see that the house here would overlap onto the riverbank.”

“You’d fall straight into the water if you stepped out the front door.”

“Crazy. ”

“Not really. The company is new, and the people running it are green as anything. They just need some guidance and their paperwork in order, and they should be up and running in a few weeks.”

“How does it feel?” I asked, hoping he understood what I was asking.

“Draining. But at the same time, Jean was right. I know this, and I can do this. But it’s…hard. I feel like I’ve lost all my confidence. That I’ve forgotten how to talk to people, and I left most of it to Jean today. I should have been the one talking. I just couldn’t.”

“You did good.” I meant that. “You got out of the house, and you snagged yourself a contract.”

“A small contract. A basic fee that will barely cover Jean’s coffee purchases.”

“It’s a start.”

He snickered.

“Hey,” I said, pushing the paperwork away from him. “Go lie down. Sleep.”

“I can’t.” There was that panic again. I recognised it well. The fear of having to go lie in the dark and stew over irrational fears and terrifying thoughts. I knew him well enough to read him now.

“Want me to stay for a bit? You look exhausted.”

“I don’t…you know…mean it like that.”

“I know you don’t.” I laughed. “We’re friends, right?

This is what friends do. We hang out. We sit on the sofa and doom-scroll on our phones so we feel less alone.

We talk. And most of all, we let the guy who can barely keep his eyes open…

” I paused as he fought to prop up his eyelids.

“We let him go and lie down, and then we sit here until he’s asleep. Deal?”

“I have nothing for you to sit on. That chair isn’t very comfortable.”

“I’ll manage,” I said, watching as he carefully stood up, his eyes darting all over the room.

“Go,” I said. “Brush your teeth, get into bed.”

“Can you come over in the morning again? It’s easier to deal with Jean when you’re there as a buffer. This morning was good that way.”

“You’re going to have to deal with Jean,” I said sternly. “You’re her boss. ”

“And if I could, I would tell her to go home and enjoy her retirement. Jean is refusing to accept that she no longer works for me and is instead trying to rebuild my reputation.”

“She’s doing a good job of it.”

“I can’t do this.”

“Dylan. You can.” I used my stern voice, the same one I’d used with Reuben when he’d been young and immature and made stupid life choices. “I sound like I’m telling my son off,” I admitted.

“You’re terrifying.” There was a small smile there. And I returned it.

He was handsome when he smiled.

“You’re perfectly safe with me,” I assured him. “Let me lock the back door, and I’ll sit here for a bit. Need to catch up with the news and finish my tea.”

“You sure you don’t mind?” He sounded calmer now.

“Not at all.”

That feeling was back, and I wasn’t sure if it was because my own home had the same layout, the same patio doors and the same whitewashed walls, but I settled back and sipped my tea, smiling as he got into bed and tried to get comfortable.

“Night,” I said gently.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

And maybe that was it. The moment when I steered off track. I had no idea what I was doing and probably never would, but there was something there. Something new and strange, like I’d adopted this friendship and finally made it past the first hurdle.

Trust. I think that was it. He trusted me, and that was huge. Massive.

It made me happy, and that, in itself, made me feel calmer than I had in ages.

Like I was finally rediscovering where I belonged. How weird was that?