The Loving Husband by Christobel Kent

Author:Christobel Kent [Christobel Kent]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group UK
Published: 2016-02-25T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nineteen

They’d been together not more than a month when Nathan had introduced her to Rob, leading her through the etched glass door of a Victorian pub buried away out to the east. They’d passed windswept plazas of new-build apartment housing on the way, the glass and steel towers of the city visible over the river, but the pub had been passed over for development and forgotten, sitting humbly on a corner between thirties tenements.

And then there was Rob, squeezed into a velveteen corner with a pint in front of him, looking up, apologetic. Fran could remember the warmth she’d felt when Nathan said that, his hand in hers. It all felt so safe: the dusty down-at-heel gloom of the pub, the skinny best friend, not much more than a boy himself in his football shirt and anorak and oversized trainers. Poor Rob.

‘Here she is,’ Nathan said, and Rob hovered between standing and sitting, offering a hand. Nathan turned to the bar.

‘I’ve heard all about you,’ he said and she grimaced.

‘Do I pass?’ she whispered, apologetically. ‘Sounds like you’re the man I have to impress.’ And Rob had blushed and bobbed his head and smiled, quick, shy, unexpected, a wide child’s smile.

Nathan came back, his hands full of drinks, and setting them down said, ‘What do you think of her then,’ he said, ‘my fiancée?’ And she’d just grabbed the glass and taken a drink, because she didn’t know if it had been a joke. Barely a month and he was calling her that.

She couldn’t remember what they’d talked about: a build; some walking holiday Rob had been on. She remembered the look Nathan gave her though, a quick apologetic glance across Rob’s shoulders, then another one, exhilarated, when he saw she was up for it, yes.

Rob had just made to stand up and buy a round when Nathan’s phone had gone off and looking at it he had said to Fran, ‘Got to take this, sorry, work.’ Then to Rob, ‘It’s Julian.’ Rob nodding, barely breaking his stride towards the bar.

Whatever the call had been about it hadn’t taken long, because Rob hadn’t even set his round back down on the table when Nathan reappeared.

‘Everything all right?’ Rob had said, leaning down to the table with his hands on the glasses, looking up. And Nathan had nodded just once, brisk, then turned to her. She’d seen it then, a filament glinting in the dusty air between them, friends, brothers. It had shown her a Nathan she could trust.

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