You Me Everything by Catherine Isaac

Author:Catherine Isaac
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2018-04-30T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 41

The day after my trip to Pujols with Charlie, Adam turns up at the cottage.

“I believe your date went well?” He has an odd look on his face, and I can’t work out if he’s interested, amused or simply reluctant to miss the opportunity to wind me up. I try to look unfazed.

“It was nice. Yes. Thank you,” I say, giving the air of someone who went for afternoon tea with the Countess of Grantham rather than a boozy lunch that resulted in a smooch in the front seat of a Range Rover.

He stares at me. “Good. I’m glad.”

An unwelcome sensation starts to prickle under my skin; not disloyalty exactly—that would be ridiculous—but a whisper of something approaching it. Even if it hadn’t been ten years since we split up, I’d feel like slapping myself on both cheeks, reminding myself of exactly what he did to me and that it’s not long since I walked in on him and his girlfriend when she was in a state of semi-undress.

“What is it?” I ask, to fill the silence.

His lips twitch as if he’s trying to disguise a smile. “Nothing. Talking about first dates just reminded me of . . . the Pear Tree.”

The name of that pub makes a rush of memories fill my head, of a time at the very beginning of our relationship.

It was a balmy July night, and we whiled away an afternoon and most of the evening in an Edinburgh beer garden, under a canopy of gold light that warmed our shoulders.

We sat side by side on a bench, so close that our thighs brushed each time we moved. I watched the tilt of his head as he spoke and felt a dizzying warmth when he laughed.

I learned a lot about him that day: where he’d traveled, his passion for reading. I built up a picture of a man who was nice to bar staff, a generous tipper despite having little money himself. A man who went out of his way to befriend the guide dog whose owner sat at the next table and who didn’t make a fuss when someone splashed their drink on his jeans.

Despite wrestling with anxiety in the run-up to the date, I don’t recall a single gap in conversation. Talking to him felt oddly easy and natural. As the blanket of darkness fell upon us, I felt his hand reach out for mine. Then I looked up and felt myself drowning in those eyes, certain in the knowledge that I was losing myself completely to him.

“That was a good first date,” I agree in the most perfunctory fashion I can manage.

He smiles briefly. Then our son appears at the door and begins a monologue about how William the Conqueror’s stomach exploded at his own funeral.

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