EAT THE CAKE
WODGER FULL BACK?
CHECK SIDE FOR PENNY POO
As soon as I’d brought everything inside, I called Isaac.
‘Is Arthur even stranger than I remembered?’ I asked, after a quick hello.
‘Dad’s sorted the leak. Once we’ve finished clearing up I’ll be straight home. Can we discuss your prejudice against undertakers then?’
‘I’m talking about the sticky notes,’ I replied, stress vibrating in my voice.
‘Oh! No, they’re Elliot’s,’ he answered, clearly distracted.
‘What?’ My uneasy thoughts tumbled into freefall. ‘Who’s Elliot?’
I didn’t need to ask. Which other Elliot would it be than my brother’s best friend from sixth form? But I had to ask. How could it be him? And why was Isaac’s kitchen covered in his random notes?
Before Isaac could answer, the door leading from the kitchen into the back garden opened and a huge dog with a curly golden coat trotted in, panting.
‘I’ll speak to you later.’ I hung up the phone.
Right behind him, his messy hair the exact same colour as the dog, chest heaving and dripping with perspiration, was Elliot Ollerton.
For a lurching second, I could have sworn planet Earth stopped spinning.
‘Wait,’ Elliot said, holding up one hand to the dog in a stop gesture. He carefully took off his trainers and placed them on the door mat, stuck a key in the back door and locked it. He then took a tatty towel from a hook beside the door and wiped each of the dog’s paws. Finally, he took a glass out of a cupboard, filled it at the sink and drained every last drop before placing the glass in the dishwasher and turning around to look at me.
We stood there, staring at each other, my heart hanging precariously between beats, until the dog ambled over and pushed its nose into the pocket of my denim shorts, tail wagging like a helicopter blade.
‘Hey, hi,’ I managed to mumble, stroking the dog’s floppy ear. Seeing him there, almost filling up the kitchen with his broad shoulders and dark eyes, running shorts showing far too much of his athlete’s legs, was like being thrown back to that night. I could almost hear the sound of sirens wailing as I blinked to clear the image of his unconscious body being wheeled into the back of an ambulance. It was only the dog sniffing at my belt loop that stopped me from tumbling back in time completely.
‘Penny,’ Elliot said, with a note of warning. ‘Say hello nicely.’
She instantly backed off, sitting down on the dark red tiles and offering me a giant paw, her tongue dangling out from one side of her mouth.
Penny.
So that explained the note about the poo.
Although not why anyone would put a reminder about that in their friend’s kitchen. Unless she was Isaac’s dog, something else I would know if I wasn’t a pathetic excuse for a sister.
I shook Penny’s paw before braving a glance back at Elliot as I straightened up. He hadn’t moved. His eyes were darting around the kitchen, a furrow between his eyebrows.
Come on, Jess. Get it together.
‘It’s Jess. Isaac’s sister? I’m moving in with him but he’s got an emergency at the Barn, so said to let myself in.’
‘Yes, of course.’ He nodded stiffly. ‘I knew you were coming. I just forgot it was today.’
‘Oh. Right. Well it is!’ I offered a shaky smile, instructed my lungs to keep breathing and willed my legs not to turn and run. ‘I… um, did you want Isaac? I can tell him you called round.’
Please go away now, because it feels as though my internal organs are seizing up.
Elliot gave a slight shake of his head, the furrow deepening. His face was leaner than it had been ten years ago, more serious, but those dark eyes, that wide mouth, were exactly the same.
‘I live here.’
