Free The Reunion by Amy Silver Page B

realising what it was. We’d both been on the beers that afternoon, and you dropped it on Conor’s foot. God, he was in a rage.’ Everyone was laughing now. ‘He was hopping around out back there, cursing us, calling us eejits, stupid articles…’
    ‘He always did go very Irish when he was pissed off,’ Jen said, smiling. ‘But it was like a tropical storm, wasn’t it, that temper. Blew up, blew out, all in about five minutes flat.’
    ‘Mmm. Unlike some people.’ Andrew was giving Nat the side eye, a wry little smile on his face.
    ‘Oh God, yes, the rows you and Conor used to get into…’ Jen started laughing.
    ‘Well, he was always so bossy,’ Natalie protested.
    ‘
He
was bossy?’ Now Andrew and Dan were laughing, too, even Lilah’s lips twitched.
    ‘And then afterwards you’d be in a sulk for
hours
. . .’ Andrew said, putting his arm around Nat’s shoulders.
    ‘I would not!’ she replied huffily, but she didn’t push him away, and just in that instant, Jen saw that it wasn’t a disaster, bringing them together.
    Jen poured more coffee, Lilah made some more Bloody Marys, singing softly to herself as she did, but by the time she sat back down at the table she was looking tearful.
    ‘What is it, sweetheart?’ Jen asked her, putting her hand up to touch Lilah’s cheek. Lilah took her hand and held it.
    ‘I was just reminiscing,’ she said, sitting back down at the table. ‘Oh, God. Do you remember how he used to do that thing, at college… This always kills me…’ she tailed off, but Nat knew where she was going. ‘With the books, you mean?’ She was welling up too. ‘The notes he used to leave for you, Jen?’ Lilah nodded, sniffing. ‘He used to come and get the reading list for the week off me, and then he’d go into the library and find the books he knew you’d have to read, and then he’d leave little notes for you in them, just hoping that you’d get the copy he’d chosen.’
    ‘And sometimes I did,’ Jen said, a smile on her lips. ‘It used to make going to the library so much more interesting.’
    When Zac finally came down for breakfast, he found them all dabbing at their eyes. Jen got to her feet quickly, fussing around him, getting him a plate of food. When he asked Lilah what was wrong she just purred, ‘Nothing, baby,’ and gave him a kiss and that seemed to satisfy him. Jen got the impression that he probably wasn’t the most challenging of partners, but she could see the attraction. When he yawned, stretching his arms up into the air, his sweatshirt rose up to reveal an impressive six-pack, and below it a starkly defined iliac crest. Lilah caught her looking, raised an eyebrow and grinned, Jen laughed and looked away.
    ‘You never finished your story,’ Lilah said to her, ‘the man you met. The one you fell in love with. Why isn’t he joining in our happy little reunion?’
    ‘Nicolas,’ Jen said, fanning her face with one hand, as though it were the heat of the stove giving her colour. ‘Well, he turned out to be, you know. French.’
    ‘Meaning?’
    ‘Incapable of fidelity. Not incapable so much, actually, just of the mind that fidelity was an unnecessary, undesirable state of affairs. If you’ll excuse the pun. I put up with it for a while, but in the end I decided I couldn’t. I left him, packed up my stuff, moved down here. I didn’t really know where else to go. That was a couple of months ago. It was only when I got here that I realised I really couldn’t stay. This can’t be the place I start over, this could only ever be temporary.’
    ‘Why?’ Andrew asked her. ‘What’s wrong with this place? You could work here, freelance I mean… I know it’s selfish of me, but selling this place? It doesn’t seem right.’
    ‘I know how you feel about it, Andrew. I do. But I can’t stay here. It’s really no place to raise a child.’
    Everyone stopped what they were doing, stopped sipping and stirring and stared at her.
    ‘A child?’