“Let’s not get carried away, now.”
I smile, taking another sip of my coffee.
“Come on, get up and come downstairs. They’re waiting for us.”
“Who?”
“My family. They’re all in your living room.”
I almost spit my mouthful of coffee into his face.
“Get used to it. The O’Connors never give in.”
* * *
When I get downstairs,I find that my living room has been literally taken over by O’Connors.
Mrs O’Connor is sitting on my sofa, bent over the coffee table. She has her glasses on, and is surrounded by documents and pieces of paper – I have no idea where she’s found them. Mr O’Connor and Nick are deep in conversation in the doorway. Riley is chatting to Ryan, sitting on my armchair with him perched on the arm. The smell of coffee still wafts around the room, mixed with something else that instantly makes my stomach growl.
“Good morning, dear,” Mrs O’Connor is the first to notice me. She gets up and comes over to me, taking me affectionately into her arms. “I’m so happy to see you’re okay.”
“Th-thank you,” I babble, confused.
“I hope we’re not intruding.”
“What are you doing?”
“We’re looking through the insurance documents, doing some research. We’ll find a solution,” Nick says, determinedly. “Evan gave us a pile of papers to look through – I’m sorry, we didn’t mean to go rummaging through your stuff, but we have to act pretty fast.”
Mrs O’Connor takes my hand and sits me down on the sofa. “There are some muffins and an apple pie in the kitchen – or we can get you something else, if you fancy?”
“A muffin would be perfect.”
“I’ll go and get one for you.”
As she heads into the kitchen, Ryan comes and sits down next to me.
“Are you angry?” he asks, worried.
“I don’t know – should I be?” I look at him.
“I didn’t want them all to just turn up here like this, but Nick told them all everything. You have no idea what he’s like, he can’t keep a fucking thing to…”
“Hey! I can hear you, you know!” Nick interjects, pretending to be pissed off.
“Mum made a few calls then decided to come here to see what she could do.”
“Your insurance only covers you for theft and fire damage, dear, but the rest…” Mrs O’Connor comes back into the room.
I chew my lip, nervously.
I already knew that. I was the one who signed that damn insurance form, cutting back the café’s budget so that I could start to save up for Evan to go to university.
“You can get back the money for everything that was stolen, and hopefully that won’t take too long…”
“I’m screwed, right?”
Mrs O’Connor smiles kindly at me.
