I smiled in response, appreciating the reassurance.
“Here you are,” Dad said, he and Mum giving us their full attention.
“Cup of tea?” I asked. I headed for the kettle to set about making it, while Fin took the seat opposite Dad.
Glancing over at the three of them, Fin winked at me. He seemed surprisingly comfortable considering my parents had just surged in when he was about to have sex with their daughter. I busied myself, placing mugs, the milk jug, and a sugar bowl onto a tray, knowing if Mum had her way, this was the calm before the interrogation storm.
“Do I know you?” Mum asked Fin. “Have we met before?”
I’d expected her first round of questions to focus on why I wasn’t in the Caribbean. Or why I was having sexual relations with a man who was, to them at least, a complete stranger. I looked over at the table, to see Mum scrutinising Fin’s face and as I’d done with my sister when she had burst forth into my house, I prayed Mum wouldn’t recognise him.
Fin smiled her way, but as much as he tried to hide it, her enquiry clearly unsettled him. “I don’t think so,” he replied, before looking at me as if to check I wasn’t listening.
I diverted my gaze and pretending I wasn’t, got back to making the tea.
“You look familiar,” Mum continued. The woman clearly wasn’t letting the matter drop.
“I think I’d remember,” Fin said.
“It’ll come to me,” Mum said, pensive. “I never truly forget a face.”
Leaving the tea to brew for a while, I decided it only fair I rescued Fin. There’d been enough excitement that evening already without adding his celebrity status into the mix. I carried my wares over to the table and began passing around cups. “Well,” I said to my parents, moving the conversation on. “I didn’t expect to be entertaining you two this evening.”
“Evidently,” Dad said, with a smirk.
Fin suddenly coughed, Dad’s humour clearly coming as a surprise.
“Joe,” Mum said, nudging my Dad. “Be kind.”
“What are you both doing here anyway?” I said, wondering why they had just burst in like that.
Mum scoffed. “We could ask you the same thing.”
“Well I asked first,” I said, blunt.
“We thought you’d been burgled,” Dad replied. “We came to find out what else, if anything, had been taken.”
“What are you talking about? Burgled?” Having been in all day, I was sure I’d have noticed.
“Then when we saw the lights on,” Mum said. “We thought whoever it was had obviously come back, so why not catch them in the act.”
Dad chuckled. “Oh, we did that, all right.”
Mum gave Dad a dirty look, while Fin tried to hide his amusement.
“But what made you think someone had broken in in the first place?” I asked, wanting to get to the bottom of things.
“Because of your car,” Mum replied.
I recalled the fact that Fin had borrowed it.
“Some bloke drove passed the house in it this afternoon. And with you being away…”
Fin froze. Like me, he’d obviously realised they were talking about him. I looked at the wall clock, telling myself it was a good job I hadn’t, in fact, been burgled. That vehicle had been back for hours and a robber could have been off with the house’s entire contents in that time.
“A dodgy-looking fella,” Dad continued. He turned his attention to Fin. “I got a good look, on account of him slowing down as he passed.”
Fin tried not to smile.
