Chapter 43

43

L uke knew Sol couldn't see him early that night because she was meeting her friend Laia. So he suggested dropping by her place after that instead. He needed to talk to her about the onslaught of noon text messages.

He buzzed the door at her place and waited for her to open it, only it wasn't her who did. At the door was a woman who looked to be around Sol's age. She was shorter than Sol and sported her chestnut dark locks in a similar cut-above-the-shoulder style. The woman, who Luke knew was Laia even if they had never been officially introduced, carried an adorable little girl in her arms who looked just like her and was probably around three.

"Hola," the woman said, kissing him on both cheeks and letting him inside the small vestibule. "I'm Laia and this is Paula. Sol is upstairs, on the phone with her mom."

"I see," Luke said and then put on his best smile. "I'm Luke, by the way. Nice meeting you and Paula."

Laia and Paula went to the living room area and Luke followed them after taking his shoes off.

"So you're the Italian?" Laia asked. She inspected him from top to bottom with an expression that suggested cautious unfriendliness. She was seated on Sol's boxy anthracite-colored sofa that looked out of a Herman Miller catalog—because it probably was.

"Well, technically I'm British. I'm from London," he mumbled. He was terrible at this kind of casual conversation.

"What, so Sol has lied to me then?" Laia asked, arching her eyebrows. "I thought the one with a lying background here was you."

"It was a misunderstanding. And no, Sol hasn't lied." How did they get there so quickly?

"I thought so." Winning her confidence wouldn't be easy.

"We don't like misunderstandings!" yelled Paula.

Luke managed to laugh, although he wasn't sure how to react to the child. Her mother seemed to be trying to soothe her.

"We don't like you!" added Paula, pointing her chubby finger at him. She didn't seem so cute anymore. Whatever Laia had told her didn't appear to have worked on the girl. Or perhaps Paula was simply voicing Laia's feelings toward him.

"Sorry about that." Sol reentered the room then, descending from the upstairs floor and seemingly unaware of Paula's dislike of him or the strained conversation between him and Laia. "My mom just had an epiphany and wanted to share it with me. We're going to Greece this summer, apparently. Something about consulting the Oracle of Delphi on investments because the market is way too volatile anyway and we could use all the help we can get." She shrugged. "I assume you folks have introduced yourselves?"

"We have," said Laia with a radiant smile. She hadn't directed a smile like that in Luke's direction at any point that evening. Paula shared the same angelical expression.

"Can I offer anything to anyone?" asked Sol.

She was dressed in a pair of impossibly wide-legged black trousers and a cross-back sleeveless silk top that put the accent on her olive-skinned arms and shoulders.

"We should have left ages ago," said Laia, standing from her comfortable position on the sofa.

"No!" protested Paula.

"We can put her to sleep in my bedroom if you want to stay a bit longer," offered Sol.

"No!" Paula repeated.

"I think we are both going to have to go to sleep now," explained Laia, ignoring her daughter. "It's been a long week and I'm tired."

Luke managed to say goodbye to both of them without being yelled at or reprimanded. Sol saw her friends to the door while he made himself comfortable on the now empty sofa.

"Don't think they liked me much," he said when Sol reentered the room. He was afraid they may have mentioned something on their way out.

"What makes you say that?" Sol seemed genuinely unaware of what had happened, and he preferred to leave that question unanswered.

"Right, this may get a little awkward," he said. He realized they hadn't kissed or otherwise properly greeted each other when he arrived. But he needed to get something off his chest first.

"Awkward?" Sol asked, confused. "Please don't tell me you lied to me again and are about to confess something that completely changes my opinion of you."

"I haven't lied," he said. "I won't lie, and please stop because every word you say makes the thing even more awkward."

"Are you ending this?" She pointed to him and then to herself, repeating the movement rapidly several times as if to imply their relationship.

"No, of course I'm not! Why would I? Are you?"

"Am I what?" she asked.

"Ending this?" He imitated her gesture.

"I don't think so," she said. "But you're freaking me out with the whole awkward thing."

"Forget about it. It's silly. I came here ready to scold you," he tried explaining. "But I've already forgotten about it. Can we kiss now?"

"Scold me?" she exclaimed. She clearly wasn't happy—and there would certainly be no kissing.

"Wrong choice of word," he said.

"I would think so," she said, still at yelling-adjacent volume. "I haven't been scolded since I was eight years old and not even then. My parents were into self-directed childhood education and a lack of intervention."

"Of course, they were." That explained a lot about her fierce independence. "Right, how do I put this?"

"You're on thin ice right now." She crossed her arms in front of her chest, standing very straight in front of him.

"I'm aware. Sorry again for an unfortunate way of phrasing things. But you shouldn't have followed Oliver," he finally told her. "It could have been dangerous. I have no idea who he is or how he's involved in all of this. What if he saw you?"

"I would have pretended I was waiting for someone," she said. "I have a completely innocent face. People always believe me."

"But you can't go around putting yourself at risk, banking on the fact that nobody would ever mistrust you." He stood up. The whole conversation with him sitting on the low-profile sofa and her towering over him had made him uncomfortable. He was used to being the tall one. "I only gave you so much information about the case because I don't want to hide anything from you anymore and because you've been helping me a lot."

"I was just trying to help you a bit more," she said.

"Yes, but I don't like the idea of you being in a potentially dangerous situation." He was about to touch her arm but stopped himself at the sight of her enraged face.

"As touching as that sounds," she said, "and I'm really not sure if it is touching, who do you think I am? I'm a forty-two-year-old woman. I have decades of experience in the art of not putting myself in potentially dangerous situations. Every time I get out of this house, I'm maneuvering how to stay safe! Hell, even being in this house I have to deal with that because I live alone and need to make sure to set the alarm every night before going to bed. I wouldn't follow Oliver in the middle of the night or to a remote place. I know I'm not a trained MI5 agent or anything like that. I just trailed him for two minutes in plain daylight in one of London's busiest areas. I took a picture and then came home." When she put it like that, it all sounded ridiculously innocent.

"Are you seriously getting angry at me because I was worried about you?" he asked.

"I'm seriously telling you there's no reason to be worried," she countered. He was about to admit that he'd been wrong in his reading of the situation. Perhaps he had infantilized her, and he shouldn't have. "And stop acting like a total ass!"

But she wasn't exactly acting like an adult by calling him names.

"Look, I'm tired," she said then in a less belligerent tone. "It's been a long day made even longer by an untalented editor, and I think I need to go to sleep. Jet lag is killing me. Can we talk tomorrow? Hopefully, I'll be less short-tempered."

"Let's talk tomorrow," he agreed.

She followed him to the entryway. He was quick to put his boots on this time. He was about to ask her if he could kiss her—something on her face had changed as if she was no longer mad at him. But then her mobile phone rang upstairs and the moment evaporated.

"It's probably my mom again," Sol said apologetically. "She gets carried away when she's planning a trip."

"Go ahead, I'm leaving," he said. "Let's talk tomorrow?"

She assented one last time before closing the door to her Georgian terraced house. He remained on the street, in front of that door, for a few seconds and realized that she actually owned that house. She had supervised an extensive renovation of it. She was the kind of person who hired an interior decorator and bought a ￡5,000 sofa, among many other tasteful pieces. There were three types of gourmet salt in her kitchen and quite as many olive oils. She had a mother who was zealously planning a trip to Greece. She had already been on two international trips since he'd known her, and he'd known her for only a handful of weeks.

He was renting a minuscule studio flat where the most luxurious item was the Wayfair Murphy bed generously donated by his older sister Gaia so that there would be some room left in the living/kitchen/dining/sleeping area. The olive oil in his tiny kitchen was whatever had been on sale at his local Tesco. His parents traveled only once every other year and it was always to see their family in Calabria. And, of course, he pretty much had an allergy to going anywhere outside a five-mile radius from Islington.

I don't think so, she'd told him when he'd asked if she wanted to end the relationship. That didn't sound very reassuring.

His phone buzzed and he saw Sol's message.

Sol Novo: Sorry for being so temperamental (and calling you ass)

Sol Novo: It's been a bad day

Sol Novo: I promise never to follow anyone again

Sol Novo: But don't you get all protective on me!

I won't, he texted her back and continued walking to the Southwark Station. The sooner he got home, the better.