“I didn’t know where you were, and your phone has been dead since you left Wales.” She wiped a bit of tomato sauce from the corner of her mouth. It made him want to lick it off for her.
“I changed phones.” Guiltily, he realized he should have told her. “You don’t do Facebook?” He knew she did.
“You never post an update.” As soon as she said it, she bit her lower lip between her teeth, as if she regretted revealing she’d looked for updates.
The sight of the sexy move made his blood head south. It was still there, the tug of attraction between them. And she’d been watching his social media, waiting for an update? That surprised him.
“I figured you wouldn’t want me annoying you.” She studied him, as if waiting for his reaction.
“As if. It’s really good to see you. Just as well we bumped into each other,” he quickly added.
“Just as well for you and your problem baggage.” She smiled.
He sipped his coffee. He didn’t want to talk about that. The less she knew about it the better. “I looked at your sketchbook. You’re talented, even better than I remember.”
“Thanks. I don’t get as much time for it as I’d like. Not with the hours I have to put in at work, but it pays the rent. I do an evening class on a Monday night at the college I’d like to attend in the spring.”
“What happened to Art College in Bangor?”
“I enrolled. Started a foundation course, pre-degree level. I was doing okay, and then I got in a fight. I was suspended.”
“Seriously?” He laughed softly. Sky was a rebel, but he never knew she’d go that far.
She nodded. “I remembered what you said. London is where it’s at. So I thought I’d give it a try.”
Had he said that? An uninvited memory stirred, him and his father fist fighting during an argument. It was then Rory remembered throwing threats about leaving for London. Mostly he was having a dig at his dad because they were headed for London when they left Dublin, never got further than Wales. Had she overheard? He didn’t remember her being there. His dad hadn’t wanted him to leave. “Why not stay in Wales with us, do your mechanic apprenticeship here?” he’d said.
The truth of the matter was he’d only hung around as long as he had because Sky fascinated him. He hated being merged with another family. His own mother had only passed on a few months before they left Ireland. Then they pitched up in Cadogan and his dad was all about the new woman in his life, Shelly.
Sky held him there a while though. All her fire and rebellion called on something deep inside. Their parents warned him off every time they got close, and in the end the only way to stay away was to go away.
He couldn’t tell Sky that, not then, not now. He ate his pizza. It was good, she was right.
“So,” she continued, “I’m doing this evening class at The North Bank College, and hoping to enroll on a part time foundation with them next academic year.”
“Sounds good.” He shifted his Coke can around the table. “What was the fight about?”
She locked his gaze. “Our parents, of course. This bitch kept winding me up about them being hippies and hobos until I decked her.”
Rory smiled. “It’s a small town. They were the only hippies.”
“Don’t call them that,” she objected. “It’s even worse than pagans.”
Pagans. That’s what they’d called themselves, his dad and Sky’s mum. Shelly had seen Patrick hanging out in a biker café in Cadogan and they got chatting. A shared love of New Age hippie dippy shit acted like an aphrodisiac. They quickly grew close. Moving them all in together at Shelly’s house came soon after. Then their parents got hitched.
Tentatively he quizzed her some more. “Do you ever hear from Shelly?”
Her eyelids lowered, but not before he saw the hurt there. She was still carrying it. “Me and Nan got postcards, at first. Then nothing. Rowan occasionally gets gifts for her kid. Stuff like driftwood and shells.”
He grinned. “Free shit you can pick up on the beach?”
“You said it.”
They laughed in unison. It felt good to share the joke.
She rolled her eyes and smiled at him, locking his gaze.
Rory was intrigued. Before, she would have glanced away, kept yammering on. Now she could hold a lengthy and silent sexy-eyed stare, and it tugged at the pit of his belly. She really had grown up.