Perfect Strangers: an unputdownable read full of gripping secrets and twists. Erin Knight
one does,’ huffed Will, ‘don’t worry about it.’
Max leaned over the table, cupping a hand to his mouth. ‘She makes me stay at the lunch table until I’ve eaten my crusts.’ Juliette was looking over again. Max was going to expose them both, whispering conspirators. ‘Sit down, Maxy, like a big boy. I’m sure Mrs Inman-Holt just wants to make sure you’re eating all the goodness you need. Don’t you want to grow big and strong like Will?’
Will was stealing glances across the room too. He was on edge. The air had changed. Sarah felt defensive, even though Will would now stand nose to nose with Karl. She tried to read Will’s expression. Max slumped back into his seat, catching one of the empty wine glasses with his elbow. Sarah watched it rattle from the table, exploding on the flagstones before she could stop it. Max’s eyes widened.
‘It’s okay, Max. It was just an accident.’ Sarah bent down out of Juliette’s sight, reaching for the shards nearest her feet first.
‘Mum, just leave it. The waiters will get it,’ instructed Will, his voice tight. They should’ve gone somewhere else tonight. Out of town, fly-tip their ‘wonderful news’ about the house, then drive home again in unburdened silence. She lifted another spike of glass.
‘I run ten minutes late and you start wrecking the joint!’
‘Jon, I just smashed a glass! And my teacher is over there, look.’
‘Stop pointing, Max,’ groaned Will.
Relief flooded through Sarah like a warm drug. Jon bent down and kissed her on the cheek. He took the glass from her fingers. ‘Let me get that, beautiful. You’ll cut yourself. How’s it going, fellas?’
Will nodded.
‘Chloe has a puppy called Fritz!’ said Max.
Jon held up a hand to the Inman-Holts. Elodie waved back without hesitation. Jon slipped his suit jacket on to the back of his chair. ‘I am bloomin’ Hank Marvin. What are we having, gang? Will? Are we thinking pizza, or that pasta you like? Come on, guys, let’s go to town. Whatever you like.’ Jon raised a hand into the air, as if about to burst into something operatic. ‘A-think am-a gonna-have-a tha spicy meat-a-boll-az!’
Something lifted inside Sarah. ‘Your Italian’s really coming on.’ Jon winked at her.
‘What are these comics about, Jon?’ asked Max.
Sarah scanned the covers of the magazines Jon had set down. Boys’ Toys, and something she couldn’t read upside down. Both featured pool tables on their covers.
‘Just a few ideas, young Maximus. Want to take a peek? I was thinking, if we stick together we might talk Mum into a home cinema. Or a man cave!’
‘Our house is too small for a cinema inside it,’ Max lisped.
‘I guess we could use a bigger house then, huh?’ Jon squeezed Sarah’s knee under the table. He’d brought a whole bunch of carrots. Home cinemas . . . games rooms . . . golden incentives to lure Will from the only home he’d ever known.
‘Will, reckon you could be talked into a home cinema? Little music studio, maybe? If you could choose anything, what would you go for?’
Will shrugged, but he’d only just prised his eyes from the magazine covers. For a second Sarah thought it might be easier than she’d thought. Will lobbed his menu on to the table and pulled his hood back up. ‘The pizza.’
Harry dumped his bike on the front drive and wandered breathless into the garage. ‘What are you up to, Ma?’
Cleo lumped another box of Sam’s wall tiles on to the trolley she’d brought home from Coast. ‘Hi, son. Just clearing a few things.’
Harry moved his sunglasses to his forehead. ‘Need a hand?’
‘Sure, could you load them into the back of my car? Your dad’s using this place as a dumping ground, I want it all cleared. I need a new splashback at Coast anyway.’
‘Y’know, a few egg boxes stapled to the walls in here could be a sweet place to, I dunno, keep a drum kit?’ Harry grinned.
‘Don’t get your hopes up, H. I’ve got enough grand designs to organise with those back store rooms.’
‘We’re converting the stores?’
She rooted around her feet for the next box. ‘Only if I can convince your father to do the work for me.’ Cleo straightened up and thumped her head on Sam’s punchbag again. It swung pointlessly from the garage ceiling. ‘That’s next to go, bloody thing. I told your father it would never get used.’
Harry tilted the trolley, pushing for the garage doors. ‘We used it, Mum. Dad was pretty good until he knocked it out of the ceiling. Reckons it’s like riding a bike.’
‘What is?’
‘Boxing.’
Ha! Sam hadn’t boxed for over twenty years. All that time ago, when Cleo would help her mother deliver hot sandwiches to the gym offices, just so she could watch Sam Roberts’ taught body twist and flex, lean and powerful. The only boxing Sam did these days was goggleboxing. ‘Yes, but how long did it take him to fix it back to the ceiling joist again, Harry? A bloody age. And even then he said not to touch it, just in case. He probably used Blu-tac . . . a temporary fix just to stop me moaning.’
‘Actually, I used a plate and bolt system, but those timbers are going to need replacing soon. Damp’s getting through somewhere, I’ll have to have a weekend at it.’ Sam stood in the doorway between the kitchen utility and the garage, hair wet from the shower, wearing one of last year’s best holiday shirts. Cleo gave him a point for getting out of his work clothes at least.
‘Whenever you next get one of those, Sam. So, damp rafters? Brilliant. Are they dangerous?’
He wiggled his eyebrows. ‘Not unless we start swinging from them, baby.’ Cleo scowled. Sam held out a cup of tea. She struggled to take it, Sam’s enormous industrial gloves like rubber buckets on her hands.
‘Why didn’t you say we had a leak?’
‘Because I didn’t need you adding anything else to that nagging – I mean, snagging – list you keep in your head for me, my love.’
She did not keep a snagging or a nagging list at all.‘I wouldn’t moan if you took a bit more interest in what I say. Tell me the last time I moaned about something new? Go on!’
Sam sighed. ‘Extending Coast . . . the school mothers . . . Pomme du Port’s hygiene rating . . . the Inman-Holts’ new Mercedes . . . Jonathan Hildred being a snappier dresser than me . . . No! Wait! That’s an old complaint, forget that one, darling.’
He pecked her on the head before she could speak. She felt an instant fury. A silly part of her wanted to cry again, like she had to that poor young girl in Coast this morning. She shrugged off Sam’s gloves, letting them fall to the floor the way Sam used to let his boxing gloves fall just before leaping over the ropes to kiss Cleo passionately before her mother saw.
‘I didn’t do anything to deserve what I got from Loopy Lorna Brooks, Sam. She was oversensitive and bloody horrible to me. But thanks.’
‘She’s not the only one who’s oversensitive, Cleo.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Heads-up, Mum’s hands are on her hips . . . again. You two argue more than me and Harry now.’ Evie stood in the doorway behind her father, clad head-to-toe in graphite grey gym gear that Cleo had never clapped eyes on before in her life.
‘What is that?’
Evie blanched. ‘They’re old, I haven’t worn them in ages.’
‘Don’t