you?” I handed him the pizza and wine and pushed the front door wide open. “Coming in?”
He grunted and followed me upstairs. “Just dump them in the kitchen,” I said. “What can I get you to drink?”
“A large Scotch.” He’d been saying that same old joke since I first met him.
I winked at him. “You’re not eighteen yet. Fancy a Coke?”
“Yeah, great, thanks. I couldn’t have a drink anyway,” he added casually. “I’m driving now.”
I stopped in my tracks. “Driving? When did you take your test?”
“Just last week. Tuesday. There was a cancellation.” He looked at me then and grinned. “Someone had crashed their car so they couldn’t take their test.”
I laughed.
“Dad bought me a car to celebrate.”
“Oh, I wish I’d been there.” I was upset at the thought of missing this stage in his life. He’d been working toward his driving test for months; I used to test him on road signs and the rules of the road when he came to our house. “What kind of car have you got?”
“A silver one.” He grinned again. He knew I knew nothing about cars.
“Nice,” I said, as though he’d told me the make, model, and year. “How was the test?”
“Three minor errors.” I could see pride and relief on his face. “And I managed to reverse around the corner without killing someone.”
“That’s great. I knew you’d crack it.”
I passed him a Coke and lit the candles I’d arranged in little colored-glass holders on top of the mantelpiece.
“What are these?” He picked up one of the photos of him that I’d had printed and put into frames. “Did you bring them from home?”
“No, I took a photo of them and had them printed.”
He flushed and rearranged them on the mantelpiece.
“And I light candles and put them next to your photos every night,” I said. “It’s my shrine.”
He turned to look at me and saw I was laughing. “Just as it should be,” he said.
I opened the pizza box and offered it to him. “Help yourself, honey.” It was so good to have him there. “I’ve really missed you.”
He mumbled something or other and took a slice of pizza.
I went to the kitchen to pour some wine, then realized I didn’t want it while Josh was here. I put the bottle into the fridge.
“Josh,” I said, coming back into the living room with a glass of water. “I’m really sorry I didn’t tell you I was going. Your dad told me not to say anything to you until he’d spoken to you. He insisted on that and I couldn’t do anything about it.”
He helped himself to another slice and took a huge bite. I knew he was buying time. “It’s okay.” He shrugged as though it was nothing, but we both knew it wasn’t. “No big deal.”
“Of course it is. It’s a massive deal.”
He shook his head and carried on eating. “So,” he said in the end, when he’d finished. “You’re living here?” He flushed. “Stupid question.”
“For a few months,” I said. “Not long. When the house has sold I’ll get something else.”
He looked away. “Around here?”
“I don’t know. I think I might go traveling.”
He laughed. “What, like a gap year?”
I bristled. “There’s no reason why only young people should go traveling.” At the same time, I was thinking, This is what it would be like on the beach in Thailand. Full of young people eating my food and laughing at me.
“Yeah, well, I didn’t have you down as someone who’d go roughing it.”
I started to say that I didn’t mind where I lived but realized that just wasn’t true. I laughed. “You’re right. I’d hate it. This is bad enough. A backpackers’ hostel would be a nightmare.”
He talked for a while then about school and football and his friends. For the first time in ages he didn’t mention his ex-girlfriend and I guessed he’d moved on from her now.