Chapter 31

You can fix anything but a blank page.

Nora Roberts

Steve is staying with me until his parents return. I can't turn him out of the house when he needs help to do even the simplest of tasks, and although I'm out at work during the day, at least I'm there at night to look after him. Also, I asked Trisha Castle next door if she'd mind popping in from time to time, and she was delighted to help out.

Charles asks if Steve couldn't book himself into a nursing home for a few days.

‘Even if we could find one at short notice, I doubt very much he could afford it,' I say when he calls me to say this. I'm doing some form-filling so welcome the distraction, even though I don't really want to talk about Steve again.

‘Doesn't he have health insurance?' Charles asks.

‘I don't know.'

‘You were going to marry him and you don't even know if he has health insurance?'

‘I don't know if you have it either,' I point out.

‘I do.'

‘Oh good. Because it's a deal-breaker, you know.' I make a face at the phone. It's a voice call, so he doesn't see it.

‘I'm sorry,' says Charles. ‘I'm pissed off because our night was ruined, and you're saying that freeloader will be with you for a while, and I'm betting you won't be able to come over to me because you'll be looking after him.'

‘It's only a few days,' I say. ‘Then I'm all yours again.'

‘It's as well that I love you.'

‘What's not to love?'

I hear the sound of a buzzer and he tells me he has a visitor. I feel my heart sink as I jump to the conclusion that it's Ariel, but he tells me that it's his sister, Ellis. I'm meeting her and Charles's mum on Saturday night. He's organised dinner at his house. I'm looking forward to it in an anxious sort of way.

He's getting a chef – an actual chef, for heaven's sake – to cook the meal for us. I've heard of dinner parties where people hire chefs, but it doesn't usually happen with the people I know. When he told me about it, I suggested Celeste could do it for him instead. He looked as though he was thinking seriously about it for a moment, then said it was better to stick with the chef he knows. ‘We could ask Celeste another time,' he told me. ‘Try her out.'

I was a little offended on Celeste's behalf, because she most certainly doesn't need to be tried out, but as Charles seemed anxious about the dinner, I said nothing.

I leave him to his sister and complete my form filling. Then Natasha tells me that the latest ship has arrived, and we drive down to it together. My mind switches to work mode and I stop thinking about Charles and his family and his catering arrangements.

Today's drama is an overloaded white van that tries to evade the barriers and ends up stuck outside the foot passenger building. Ken and Mateusz detain the driver, who has a large supply of power tools and four black sacks full of cash in his van. Not surprisingly, he hadn't made a declaration that he was travelling with a substantial amount of cash, as he was supposed to do, and given that he seemed to be trying to make a getaway, Ken seizes the cash and calls the Gardaí.

These are the kind of dramas I like in my life. Not ex-boyfriends nearly getting killed in motorcycle accidents and taking up residence in my house, or having dinner with my new boyfriend's mother and sister for the first time.

Steve is in a cranky mood when I get home, and I put it down to boredom and pain. I don't have the mental energy for him on my own, so I call Celeste.

‘You're kidding me,' she says when I tell her about Steve. ‘He's actually in your house right now?'

‘Yes.'

‘Do you want me to come around?'

‘Could you? I'd be really grateful.'

‘I'll be finished here in an hour,' she says. ‘Then I'll be with you. I might reek of fish and chips, they were very popular tonight.'

‘Ooh, could you do a takeaway for us?' I ask.

‘I could.'

‘You're an angel.'

Steve thinks so too when she turns up with foil containers of food. She's added in some mushy peas, lemon and tartar sauce too, and quite honestly, it's one of the best meals I've had in ages. Celeste is always self-deprecating about being a chef in a pub rather than a restaurant, but their standards are very high. I definitely should have insisted Charles use her instead of his own chef.

‘Bloody brilliant,' says Steve, who has washed his meal down with a tin from the slab of beer that Celeste very thoughtfully brought with her too. She and I are drinking the bottle of Sauvignon Blanc I had chilling in the fridge.

‘Izzy runs the best care home in the country,' Celeste tells him. ‘You're lucky she was able to bring you here.'

‘She's a jewel,' says Steve. ‘And I'm an idiot for letting her slip through my fingers.'

There's a rather uncomfortable silence.

‘You did me a favour,' I tell him. ‘We wouldn't have worked out.'

‘Why?' he demands. ‘We're compatible, you and me.'

‘When I'm doing what you want,' I tell him. ‘When I'm looking after you.'

Both he and Celeste give me startled glances. I'm not surprised. I've startled myself. But it's true. Steve and I were a great couple, but only because I always fell in with his plans. We went to the places he wanted to go, we watched the TV he wanted to watch, we did the things he wanted to do. And I thought that was fine, because I thought I wanted to do those things too. In the time after Steve, I made my own choices. And I liked it.

I don't say all this, though. Instead I go into the kitchen and return with another beer for him.

Celeste is the one who changes the subject and asks Steve about his injuries. It's a good topic. He can talk about his shoulder, his wrist and his leg for hours.

He hasn't improved that much by Saturday, not that I was really expecting him to. The doctor said it would take about eight weeks for his collarbone and wrist to heal but that the leg could take longer. Not being mobile is really getting him down, and although I'm doing my best to stay cheerful, he's worried about his job as well as his broken bones. I reassure him as much as I can as once again I help him wash.

‘This is so bloody undignified,' he complains. ‘As for my face . . .'

His designer stubble is growing into a beard, and he doesn't like it.

‘I'm sure your dad will be able to help with the male grooming,' I say. ‘Sorry, it's not my forte.'

‘And I'm sorry for grumbling,' says Steve. ‘It's just . . .'

‘What?'

‘I keep thinking that if I hadn't broken the engagement, you'd be doing all this stuff for me because you were my wife and not as a massive favour.'

‘You mean I'd be obliged to because I was married to you instead of from the goodness of my heart.' I burst out laughing. ‘I'm not sure that's the flex you think it is, Steve.'

‘I didn't mean . . . Oh, hell, I'm useless. Absolutely useless.' He buries his head in his hands, and I realise he's crying.

I slowly fold away the towel and tidy up the bathroom, but I don't say anything. After a while, he sniffs and sits up straight.

‘Sorry,' he says. ‘And sorry for keeping on saying I'm sorry.'

I shrug.

‘And sorry for being the biggest idiot known to man.'

‘You're not an idiot,' I tell him.

‘I am,' he says. ‘I'm in love with you, Izzy.'

‘No you're not.'

‘I am. And every time I see that ring on your finger, I want to choke the guy who put it there.'

‘You'd struggle in your current condition,' I point out.

He makes a face at me.

‘Seriously, though,' he says. ‘Do you really love him?'

‘Of course I really love him.'

‘But he's ancient.'

‘He's only forty-nine.'

‘Listen, old people can say fifty is the new thirty all they like,' says Steve. ‘But it isn't. It's fifty. And that's nearly twenty whole years older than me.'

‘Twenty more years of learning how not to be the biggest idiot in the world.'

‘Touché,' he says. ‘Izzy?'

‘What?'

‘Kiss me?'

‘No.'

I pat his face dry and help him downstairs, leaving the remote control beside him.

Fortunately he says nothing more about being sorry he dumped me or wanting to kiss me. I know that both these things are only because he's here in my house, forced to be close to me. If he hadn't had his accident, he'd be happily going about his life not thinking about me at all. Except . . . and the thought makes me uncomfortable, he was kind of shadow-stalking me already. He was texting me. He was keeping the connection there. So perhaps he really does feel that he made a terrible mistake. I feel good about that, to be honest. Like the nerd in school who turns up to the class reunion as the most successful and beautiful person there. I know that doesn't ever happen in real life. But Steve is making me feel like it does.

When I come downstairs later in the evening, dressed for my dinner at Charles's, he looks at me with real desire in his eyes. I'm wearing the butterfly Ted Baker again, but this time with my high heels and the cute pink cardigan that Celeste bought me for Christmas. I'm also wearing more eye make-up than usual and am rocking a Selena Gomez look, if Selena had short spiky hair.

‘I won't be too late back,' I tell him as I slide on my coat. ‘I'll help you up to bed later.'

‘I'd like to go to bed right now,' he says.

‘I could get you there if that's what you want.'

‘That's not what I mean.'

‘I know it's not. And you've got to stop talking to me like this. I'm going to dinner with my fiancé.' Even if I've been anxious about it all day. I pick up my keys and tell him to enjoy the movie he's about to watch. Then I let myself out of the house.

The cab is waiting.

#NotLookingForwardToThis