She handed me another coffee. ‘Here, why don’t you take this up? I think he’s seen enough of us for one evening. You could suggest a last-minute study session together?’
‘You took your time,’ Jonah said, raising one eyebrow after opening his door to find me standing there with two mugs.
‘Mum made these literally one minute ago.’
‘I made the invitation six weeks ago.’ I caught the flash of a smile, and my breath froze in my chest.
‘Oh.’
He stood back, inviting me in. I glanced down the stairs, but my parents had taken a bottle of wine into the garden. We were safe, for now.
‘I wasn’t sure that offer was still open.’
He took his preferred navy-blue mug, correctly assuming that was the one with four sugars in, and we took up our previous position of me sitting awkwardly on the bed, him leaning up against the desk, as poised as a panther.
‘Why not?’
‘I thought you might be avoiding me.’
My inability to lie to this boy made being in his room potentially disastrous. I equally couldn’t resist taking the risk.
He took a slow sip of coffee. ‘I am.’
‘Well, I’m hardly going to come knocking on the door of someone who’d rather go hungry than be in the kitchen at the same time as me.’
‘I know. That’s why I’m avoiding you.’
‘You’re not making any sense.’
‘None of this makes any sense!’ He shook his head. ‘I finally get the chance to have a safe place to live. A proper home, with a good family. Who want to adopt me.Me!’ He did that thing where he looked over at me up through his fringe, despite his eyes being a good couple of feet above mine. ‘And all I can think about is how badly I want to screw it up.’
‘Is that why you’ve not said yes? Because you think you might screw it up?’
‘Libby…’
Oh boy. He could have made a whole extended CD of his voice repeating that one word and I’d have listened to it on a loop until the disc melted.
He came to sit next to me on the bed. I hoped he didn’t notice the tiny ripples across my coffee due to trembling hands.
‘Me wanting to screw it up is enough of a problem.’
‘Because you don’t think you deserve it?’ I asked, desperately hoping that wasn’t what he meant. ‘We’ve had plenty of kids who’ve tried to sabotage their place here because they couldn’t cope with a safe home.’
‘Oh, I know I don’t deserve it. But Ellis and Billy do, so I’d say yes and make it work just for them. I’m talking about you.’
‘Don’t say it,’ I whispered.
Say it, my heart begged.
‘Doesn’t change it.’ He turned his gaze back out towards the room, drank more coffee.
‘But it changes what we have to do about it.’
‘So, your plan is to ignore how we feel, keep living as brother and sister?’
‘You don’t know how I feel.’
My heart, pummelling against my T-shirt, was probably a clue.
