I tried not to laugh. “What?” I asked as I crossed my arms over my chest and settled in to hear what she had to say.
Dropping her phone back into her bag, she said, “He’s arranged tickets for them all to go to some motor racing thing on Saturday night. It starts in the afternoon, and he wants them from lunchtime.”
“Is this a bad thing?”
Her eyes widened some more. “Yes! Well, I mean, it’s awesome he wants to spend time with them. I’m all on board with that. But, Robbie has karate on Saturday. He’ll have to miss it now, and that is bad. Linc shouldn’t have organised stuff without asking me first.”
“Why is it bad for Robbie to miss karate?”
She exhaled loudly as if I’d asked the dumbest question. Or maybe it was just complete frustration; I couldn’t be sure because I didn’t know her tells. “My son’s coordination isn’t the best, and he doesn’t really love sport. However, he likes karate, and it’s been so good for him. Plus, he’s come out of his shell there and made friends, which is something he struggles with at school. He’ll be disappointed to miss karate, but I know he won’t say anything to his father because he doesn’t like to rock the boat where Linc is concerned. On top of that, his instructor told me they’ll be going over some important stuff this week, and I don’t want Robbie to miss out on it.”
“Can you take Robbie to karate and then drop him off to Linc afterwards?”
She pulled a face. “No.”
“Why not?”
“Because my car isn’t working at the moment, so I can’t get him there.”
“But you can get him to karate?” She wasn’t making a lot of sense.
“Well, I can get him to karate in my sister’s car, but she needs her car straight after that so I wouldn’t be able to then get him to Linc.”
“Is that your sister’s car you’re driving today?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s wrong with yours?”
“It needs new brakes. My mechanic can’t fix them until next Monday, and I don’t know of any other good mechanics.”
I mentally ran through everything I had on tomorrow and worked out I could spare one of the boys for a while. “I’ll send someone over to your place tomorrow to fix them. Just leave your keys somewhere outside and text me where they are.”
Staring at me like I’d just offered her the world, she said, “Oh wow… are you sure?” I didn’t miss the way her body visibly relaxed, some of the tension she’d been carrying now gone.
I uncrossed my arms and stood. Moving around the desk, I said, “Yes.” Grabbing the bottle of whisky from the drawer, and two glasses from the cabinet behind me, I poured two drinks. Passing her one, I said, “Here, you look like you could do with this.”
I’d half expected her to argue with me, but she didn’t. Instead, she took the glass and downed half of it in one go. Wiping her mouth, she nodded. “I most definitely did need that.” She then threw the rest back before placing the empty glass on the table. Meeting my gaze, she said, “If I didn’t have to drive home, I’d beg you for more.”
The thought of Lily begging me for shit wasn’t a thought I needed in my head, so I changed the subject. “Did you pull your ex’s name off your gym membership?”
A smile spread across her face. “I did. He mustn’t have been to the gym since I did it, though, because he hasn’t called me about that yet.” She paused for a moment before adding softly, “Thank you for that tip. I need to stop letting him walk all over me with some stuff.”
I drank some of my whisky. “Yeah, you do.”
She picked up her bag. “Thanks for the drink and everything. Are you sure you don’t need some more peppermint oil before I go see Skylar?”
The last thing I needed was her hands on me. “I’m good.” Jerking my head towards the door, I said, “Go.”
Blasting me with one last smile, she nodded. “I’ll text you about my keys tomorrow.”
I scrubbed a hand over my face after she left. Christ, I really fucking needed to get laid now.
29
Lily
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