Hello Stranger

I stared at her straight on. “I barely know her. She’s a girl I met on the train that I now work with. She’s barely more than half my age, and the only thing I know we have in common is that we like reading. That’s it. The sum total of how compatible we are.”

She was shaking her head at me. “That’s bullshit, Logan. I’ve never heard such crap in my life.” She gripped my hand in a vice with hers, and slapped it to her chest. “This is where it counts. Not how compatible you are. Not where you met her. None of that crap. What matters is here. In the heart.”

She was off again, all about the emotional love overrides everything shit and how maybe there is such a thing as fate, and normally I’d scoff and write it off. Normally I’d tell her to stop her fluff with me and save it for the carers, but not today.

Today I couldn’t find the words.

She noticed it. I knew she noticed it. I could feel it in her stare.

“I saw it for myself,” she told me. “I saw the way you looked at her, and I sure as hell saw the way she looked at you. Compatibility can kiss my sweet ass. You’re besotted with her.”

Her words slammed me. I felt it deep. And with the slam was that whisper of something inside, something I’d given up on a long time ago.

“Tell me I’m wrong,” she said, and let go of my hand. “Tell me I’m wrong and I’ll shut my mouth.”

I couldn’t tell her she was wrong.

I knew what was coming next before she said it.

“I haven’t seen you look anything like that since Evelyn. Not even close.”

I shifted on my feet, and my jaw tensed.

“Don’t make the comparison,” I said, and she held her hands up.

“Fine. I won’t. But you know it, and I know it. Don’t you dare let me croak it without giving yourself a shot at bloody happiness, Logan. Not now she’s in the picture.”

I poured her another juice. “Want another slice of toast?”

She shot me a smirk. “I want another slice of meeting Chloe, please. That’s top of my list for today.”

I pictured Chloe downstairs, nosing through my book collection. Then I pictured Chloe upstairs, spending time with my mother and all her buzzy eccentric ways.

“I’ll see how long she’s around for. Maybe she’ll venture up for another hello.”

“Good,” she said, and settled herself down. “I’m sure we’re going to get on like a house on fire.”

I looked over at her list on the wall.

“Don’t even think about trying to coerce her into the daughter-in-law crap, Mum. She’s a girl from work I happen to like a lot. She’s not some kind of fated soulmate.”

“Cross my heart,” she said, and laughed. “The rest of the saying can get fucked.”

“More toast, then?” I asked, and I loved the way her eyes sparkled as she finished her juice and handed me the glass back.

“Maybe Chloe can bring it up for me,” she said.

I rolled my eyes at her before I left the room, but I was smiling.

I was smiling in a way that had been lost to me for a long, long time.25ChloeLogan’s bookshelf was incredible. So much fiction, so much non-fiction, so much reference. He had a whole chunk of medical books, hardly a surprise. He had books about local walks and landmarks. He had books on time management, and achieving your best, and loads of other stuff that had my brain pricking, curious.

And the fiction. Oh wow, the fiction. So much classic, so much thriller, and so much fantasy and supernatural – just like Mythago Wood. Only not like Mythago Wood, since Mythago Wood is its own thing entirely, but yeah. He had a lot. And a lot that I wasn’t expecting.

I was caught up, my finger running along the spines when he joined me back in the living room. I had a load of questions about a load of books, but those dried up the second I saw him there, his hands in his pockets, looking casual while not looking casual at all.

“Great bookshelves,” I said, as though that cut it in the slightest.

“Glad you appreciate them,” he replied. “Not many people do.” He laughed a little. “In fairness, not many people ever see them, of course.”

I shrugged. “Don’t think they would appreciate them all that much if they did. People twist their faces when they realise what a bookworm I am. Unless they’re from the library club. Those guys are cool.”

“Can’t say I’ve been,” he said.

I smiled, and he smiled, and for once it was easy. Relaxed. And then we laughed, both of us. This little laugh that was easy and relaxed, and right then, in Dr Hall’s living room, messily dressed in his shirt, I knew it was going to be ok. We were going to be ok.