Free The Gift by Cecelia Ahern

silence. “So why did you leave the Porsche guy so quickly?” the boy finally asked, curiosity getting the better of him. “Did you chicken out or something?”
    “Don’t be daft, son; I gave him a warning,” Raphie said, straightening up defensively in his chair, hoping his heart wouldn’t give him another scare again. At least not now, not until after he’d finished the story.
    “But that’s illegal; you should have given him a ticket. He could kill someone speeding around like that.”
    Raphie’s eyes darkened, and the Turkey Boy knew to stop his goading.
    “Are you going to listen to the rest of the story or what?”
    “How do you know all this, by the way?”
    “I’m the police. It’s my job.”
    “But the stuff with his wife and all, how do you know?”
    “It’s my job to find the story. To talk to everybody and piece it all together.” And what a task that had been. “Now, are you ready to hear more?”
    “Yeah, I am. Go on.” The boy leaned forward on the table and rested his hand under his chin. “I’ve got all day.” He smiled cheekily.

C HAPTER 10
The Morning After
    A T 5:59 A.M ., L OU AWOKE . The previous evening had gone exactly as predicted: by the time he had made it to bed, Ruth’s back had been firmly turned, with the blankets tightly tucked around her, leaving her as accessible as a fig in a roll. The message was loud and clear.
    Lou couldn’t find it within himself to comfort her, to cross over the line that separated them in bed, in life, to make things okay. They had definitely reached a low point. Even as students, completely broke and staying in subpar accommodations, with temperamental heating and bathrooms they’d had to share with dozens of others, things had never been like this. Now they had a giant bed, so big that even when they both lay on their backs their fingers barely brushed when they stretched out. A monstrosity of space and cold spots in the sheets that couldn’t be warmed.
    Lou lay in bed and thought back to the beginning, when he and Ruth had first met at university—two nineteen-year-olds, celebrating the winter finals. With a few weeks’ break ahead of them and test results far from their minds, they had met at open-mike night in the International Bar on Wicklow Street. After that night, Lou had thought about her every day while back home with his parents for the holidays. With every slice of turkey, every present he unwrapped, every family fight over Monopoly, she was on his mind. Because of her he’d even lost his title as the Count the Stuffing Champion with Marcia and Quentin. Lou stared up at the bedroom ceiling and smiled, remembering how each year he and his siblings—paper crowns on their heads and tongues dangling from their mouths—would get down to counting every crumb of stuffing on their plate, long after his parents had left the table. Every year, Marcia and Quentin would join together to beat him, but his dedication—some would say obsession—could never be matched. But that year he had been beaten by Quentin, because the phone had rung and it had been her, and the call had been it for Lou.
    The nineteen-year-old of that Christmas would have longed for this moment right now. He would have grabbed the opportunity with both hands, to be transported to the future just to have Ruth right beside him in bed, in a fine house, with two beautiful children sleeping in the next rooms. He looked over at Ruth now. She had rolled onto her back, her mouth slightly parted, her hair like a haystack on top of her head. He smiled.
    She’d done better than him in those winter exams,which was no hard task, but she did so the following three years, too. Studying had always come so easily to her, while he seemed to have to burn the candle at both ends in order just to scrape by. He didn’t know where she ever found the time to think, let alone study, she was so busy leading the way through their adventurous nights on the town. They’d crashed parties