Her paranoia had flown away, replaced by exhilarated dread.
“Yes, I do. You’re such a bi
g part of my life. They’ll want to get to know you.”
“They’ll want to shoot me.”
“No. You make their boy happy. Why would they want to shoot you?”
“How old is your mother?”
“Fifty-three.”
“Okay. At least she’s older than I am. But she won’t want to see an old bint like me with her little boy. She’ll think I’m a cradle-snatcher. She’ll… Oh, God, I don’t think I can do it. Not yet, at least.”
“Ness, relax. Lie down.”
She lay back down, her hand over her mouth, pondering.
“It’s really too big an age gap,” she said at last.
“How can you say that? You don’t mean that.”
“Why can’t you be older?” she lamented.
“Because I can’t. After everything—all the good times we have, all the amazing sex, all the closeness… You’re panicking, that’s all. Just stop panicking, okay? You’ll see that this can work.”
“What are your parents like?”
“Nice. Tolerant. Liberal. Too liberal sometimes, especially when I was a teenager. Listen, they’ll just be relieved you’re not Sasha Milford.”
“Sasha Milford?” She cocked her head to one side inquisitively.
“My girlfriend when I was seventeen.”
“Was she older, too?”
“No, she was my age. Mad as a box of frogs, though. Constantly in trouble, sometimes with the police. She was so brave, though. She wasn’t scared of anything. That was what I liked about her.”
Vanessa smiled, finding the idea of Ben chasing after a crazy girl with his hair flopping all over the place irresistibly endearing.
“It wasn’t enough, though?”
“No. She ditched me in the end. Went and joined some kind of anti-capitalist tent city somewhere. Never saw her again.” He looked up to the heavens and shook his head.
“And off you went to music college.”
“Yes. Not much of a rebellion, really. What about your exes, then? Milan’s one of them.”
“Yeah. Disaster, for reasons you can probably guess.”
“Was it anything to do with his planet-sized ego?”
Vanessa laughed. “Basically. Yes.”
“What about your ex-husband?”
She turned away. “Ah, look, let’s not talk about him. I’ve already brought too much angst to the party. Are those clothes dry yet?”