I pretend to be fiddling with my cardigan as he comes back to the car. He puts some bags in the back and slips back in without a word. I don’t try to make conversation. I don’t try to justify my stupid birthday decision-making processes.
We head out of Brighton. The roads turn to streets, and streets turn to lanes, and we’re at big wooden gates at the foot of an incline. They open as the car pulls up to them, slide right to the side to let us pass. Neat. The driveway is gravelled and opens up into a parking area, one of those nice ones where the gravel crunches under your feet. I bet it’s that fancy pink stuff in the light.
His house is big. Really big.
Nicholas Lynch must be rich. I mean it’s obvious he’s rich. The car. But I wasn’t thinking straight. I wasn’t thinking straight enough to think about it.
He turns off the ignition and gets out. Opens my door for me.
“Home sweet home,” he says. “I’ll take you to Newhaven in the morning, we’ll sort things out, Laine, don’t worry.”
I nod, and climb out. The gravel is the crunchy type, just like I thought. He grabs the bags from the back, and I look at the house. It’s a barn conversion. Big windows line the lower floor. He locks the car and leads me to the front entrance. It’s big and heavy with a wrought iron knocker. It creaks as he swings it open. I always wanted one of those when I was little – a big door knocker that would make a big thumping sound.
I’d have loved a house like this.
A proper home for a proper family.
I wonder if he has a family.
He gestures me inside and I feel awkward, my toes still squelchy from the rain. My pumps are soaked. I ditch them and go barefoot, and he doesn’t seem to care that my hair is dripping down my back and onto his posh wooden floor. He leads the way through to a kitchen. It’s huge and beamed and has one of those fancy range cookers, a granite island, too.
“What would you like to drink, Laine?”
“Just water, please.” My voice sounds weak.
He takes a bottle from the fridge, pours it into a glass. The nice mineral stuff. His fingers touch mine as he hands it over, and they are warm. Big.
“Thanks,” I say. “For rescuing me. That guy… he was…”
“A waste of life. Scum.”
I take a breath. “I’m such a complete idiot. Like Kelly Anne would ever stick around after a couple of tequilas.” I laugh but it sounds pathetic. “What a dufus I am.”
“She left you on your birthday. She’s the dufus, Laine.”
He slips off his coat, and I realise how tailored it is. He has a shirt on, white. It fits him so perfectly, like those people you see in expensive watch adverts. He could be one of those.
He rustles in one of the bags and pulls out a bunch of flowers, a cream cake, too. I watch mute. Like a fool. He digs around in a drawer and turns his back to me to block my view.
When he turns back around there is one of those little striped birthday candles stuck in the icing. It’s lit, this tiny little flame flickering away.
I don’t know why it makes me want to cry.
His eyes are so dark. It wasn’t just the shadows in the car. He approaches and I’m not even watching the candle, I’m watching him.
“Happy birthday, Laine. Sorry, it’s the best I could do. They didn’t have much of a birthday selection at the petrol station.”
The flowers are carnations. Red ones. The cake is chocolate. An eclair with that thick dark icing I love best.
It’s the best birthday cake I’ve ever had. The thought pricks at my eyes and my throat feels scratchy. Ridiculous. I’m ridiculous.
Drunk, and high on adrenaline, and tired, and scared, and happy.
“Thanks,” I say, like that could ever cut it.
But it does. It does cut it. He smiles like it’s enough.
“Make a wish,” he says.
And I do.
It’s a stupid wish.
A crazy wish.
A wish I’ve been making every year for as long as I can remember.
I wish, I wish upon a star. I wish for my daddy, wherever you are.
I don’t know where my daddy is. I wouldn’t even know him if I saw him.
But right now, the guy who rescued me from the rain, the guy with the dark eyes, and the smattering of grey hair at his temples, and the shirt that looks like it came from an expensive watch advert. Right now, I wish this guy could be my daddy.Chapter TwoNickThe Maculinea Arion is the largest and rarest of the blue English butterflies. Little, blue-eyed Laine reminds me of one — fragile and delicate and inviting predators, with no idea of its own beauty.