Runaway Bride: A laugh out loud funny and feel good rom com. Mary Baker Jayne

Чтение книги онлайн.

       Chapter 7

      I stayed with Jack for two weeks after I was better. Not because I really had any excuse to, but because the little van, with its friendly human and canine occupants, had started to feel like home. I was stagnant, but I was safe.

      Rule One was turning out to be a bit of a bugger though. There was clearly some mystery about Jack, something he didn’t want to share, and my curiosity was piqued. Because it wasn’t just the pyjamas he’d lent me. He had a whole stash of women’s clothes in the van.

      ‘Help yourself,’ he’d said when he’d given me a cardboard box filled with assorted tops, jeans, dresses and scarves. ‘Been meaning to drop them off at the charity shop for ages. You might as well get some use out of them, since they’re your size.’

      I extracted a flowing top and a scarf and held them up in front of me. ‘Bit floatier than my usual style. Whose are they?’

      He shrugged. ‘Yours, now.’

      ‘But who did they belong to before?’

      ‘Someone who’s got no use for them. Just take what you want and I’ll drop the rest off at Oxfam.’ He gazed absently out of the window at the shimmering mass of Derwentwater in the distance. ‘Should’ve done it years ago really.’

      All signs seemed to point to some ex who was out of his life, and who he was perhaps still pining for. Still, he respected my wish not to talk about my personal stuff, so the least I could do was mind my own business too.

      Living without TV was an experience. I read a lot of books in those few weeks. I learned a lot about my temporary roommate too – about his fatalism, his humour, his commitment to living one day at a time. And about how to care for a heavily pregnant dog.

      I think board game night was my favourite new telly substitute. Jack liked Scrabble best, mainly because he always won. Embarrassing, given I was a professional editor. He was a terrible loser as well, and if you didn’t watch him, an opportunistic cheat. I’d never expected to find such a strong competitive streak in someone as laid-back as he was.

      ‘Come on, you, get on with it,’ I said during our second game. Jack had been staring at his letters for nearly five minutes.

      ‘Hmm.’ He frowned at the tile rack. ‘All right. Here then.’

      I squinted at the random jumble of letters he’d assembled on the board.

      ‘That’s not a word. That’s not even a sound.’

      ‘It’s a Gaelic word.’

      ‘Yeah? What’s it mean?’

      ‘Old Irish blessing. I swear. Ask anyone from the old country.’

      ‘Meaning?’

      ‘Er… may the Force be with you?’

      I pointed wordlessly at the tiles. He sighed and picked them up again.

      ‘Anti-Irish prejudice, that’s what it is.’

      But he managed to find a second wind from somewhere. Four goes and a triple word score later, he’d only managed to bloody win. Again.

      I folded my arms. ‘Not fair. You should get points knocked off for attempted cheating. And I’m still not convinced the Irish spelling of liquorice has got an S in it.’

      He tilted his nose up and sniffed the air. ‘Mmm. What is that intoxicating aroma?’

      ‘Stinky dog?’ I said, glancing at Sandy. After a week absorbing the dirt and smells of the muddy campsite, she was badly in need of a bath.

      ‘No, there’s something else. I think it’s—’ He sniffed again. ‘Yes, yes it is. The sweet smell of victory.’

      ‘You’re a funny man.’

      ‘Mmmmm,’ he said, sniffing again. ‘Go on, grab yourself a lungful. Such stuff as winners are made of. Not that you’d know.’

      ‘Sorry, all I can smell is testosterone.’

      ‘What does testosterone smell like?’

      ‘Almonds,’ I said with a smile. ‘Come on, you daft sod, deal the tiles. Best of three.’

      It felt like I got to know him better during those few weeks than I’d known Ethan in the ten years we’d been a couple.

      Eventually though, I felt like I’d trespassed on his Irish hospitality long enough. I knew I was hiding, and the time had come to work out what my next step needed to be.

      ‘Okay, so I can’t go home, that’s a given,’ I said to Jack as we sat round the camping table out in the awning one warm evening, making a plan.

      ‘Couldn’t you though? What about your nan?’

      Rule One had gone out of the window to some extent since I’d opened up to him about my mum, and he was pretty knowledgeable about the people in my life now.

      ‘She’s in sheltered housing. I wouldn’t be allowed to stay there. Anyway, I wouldn’t want her worrying about me.’

      ‘Laurel?’

      ‘No. I don’t want to be anywhere near Ethan. I want a completely new start.’

      ‘So you need to rent somewhere.’

      ‘And there we hit on problem one.’ I scribbled СКАЧАТЬ