Free The Game Changer by Louise Phillips

she’d had the courage to go for it. What was he like? What was he trying to prove? Lying on a comfortable bed in a warm house, his mother hovering, making sure he didn’t do anything stupid … It wasn’t exactly living life on the edge.
    He thought about Carl and his other friends. None of them had done any real living. Most were still at home, their parents doing everything for them. What was the harm in going to the island? Aoife had said he could help out around the place. He would be fed, have a place to stay … The prospect seemed more appealing when his mum knocked on the door again.
    ‘Addy, are you sure you’re okay?’
    ‘I’m fine, honest.’ This time his tone sounded less hostile. It wasn’t her fault. Unlike Adam, she had always been there for him. It had been a long time since he’d thought about the summer he’d spent with Carl’s parents at their house in Cork. He couldn’t have been any more than nine years old at the time. Carl’s father was putting up a wooden fence around the site. Addy had watched him as he worked, Carl’s mother, every now and then, bringing her husband cold drinks. Addy remembered staring at Carl’s father’s Adam’s apple, as he swallowed the liquid fast. There had been a kind of primitive power about the man, the kind he wished he had in his life. He didn’t dwell on not having a father, but whenhe and Carl were given the job of carrying the wooden stakes over one by one, and Carl’s father patted Carl on the head, he wished he’d had a dad.
    Now, with Aoife going away, he felt left behind. He’d have to start taking risks, and if that meant going to the island, then that was what he was going to do.

Kate
     
    IT WAS LATE BY THE TIME KATE PUT CHARLIE TO BED. She regretted having to cancel her dinner with Malcolm, especially as it had been less than an hour before they were due to meet, but with Adam working, getting in a babysitter at such short notice felt like too much hassle. And the note wasn’t far from her mind. It seemed sinister, imposing on her, calling out to her from behind the locked study door, pulling her thoughts like a magnet. Adam had promised he would have it checked for prints and DNA, but part of her already knew he wouldn’t find anything.
    Malcolm, it turned out, had already heard about Mason’s death. Such a dreadful tragedy, he had said. They weren’t close, and she wasn’t sure, but something about the way he had described Mason’s relationship with her father as professional, rather than social, irked her. Was he alluding to something? Her father had been a lecturer: what could he possibly have had professionally in common with a politician? And, for some reason, she felt Malcolm wanted her to ask more, which was partly why she hadn’t. She was being childish, she knew, but she couldn’t help herself.
    ‘Mum.’ Charlie rubbed his eyes as she closed
The Chamber of Secrets
, his second Harry Potter book.
    ‘Yes, honey.’
    ‘Why don’t Adam and Addy like each other?’
    ‘It’s not that, Charlie. It’s just that sometimes when people care about each other deep down, they need to work stuff out.’
    ‘I like Addy.’
    ‘I know you do, and he likes you.’ She pulled the duvet up before leaning down to kiss him on the forehead.
    ‘Mum, what’s your favourite insect?’
    ‘I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it.’
    ‘Think, then.’
    ‘Okay, let’s see … It would have to be a butterfly.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Because they’re beautiful, and they have lots of different colours and patterns, and they’re gentle, and they remind me of summer.’
    ‘That’s a lot of reasons. Do you have any more?’
    She knew he was buying time. ‘Just one.’
    ‘Tell me.’
    ‘Because they start life one way, and then they become beautiful.’
    ‘A caterpillar, you mean?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Mum, they have to eat themselves first. They make this cocoon, and then they eat all the bits. At first it turns into soup, but the