Page 58 of The Key to My Heart

‘You like him.’

I hesitate, my hands wrapped around my mug. ‘That’s what I don’t know, I think,’ I say, quietly.

‘Well, look, that’s okay. You don’t need to know anything right now …’

‘But I likebeing withhim, which is a start, right? And I feel like he understands. And it’s nice sort of … being out in the world?’

Shauna nods again, the two hoops in her ears swaying in time, like they agree and understand too. ‘Well, I agreethat it sounds like a good start. And it’s nice seeing you with a little spring in your step, love. It really is. You can see it in your face. The eyes …’

‘Tom said similar the other day. About my eyes. Got all artsy on me.’

‘Did he now?’ Shauna smiles to herself, straightens in her chair – a proud and puffed-up parent. ‘Well. He’s right. He spotted it. Happiness is something you wear, you know. Lights up every part of you. Inside and out.’

Shauna pushes her chair out, the legs screeching on the tiles, again. A man at the next table, on his phone, looks over his suited shoulder and winces, putting a finger to his ear.

‘I’m glad you’ve found each other,’ says Shauna, obliviously, ‘there’s safety in numbers, with this stuff, when you’ve been through the same thing. It’s equal ground. Plus, it’s nice to have someone who understands looking out for you.’

‘Ah, she doesn’t need that,’ says a deep, familiar voice. ‘She’s got me for that, right?’ Tom stands beside Shauna, tall and broad, a bag tossed casually over his shoulder. ‘Savedher the other week.’

‘Oh, hello, my Thomas! And … did you? Did he, Natalie?’ Shauna stretches her short, chubby arm around Tom’s back, and he puts his arm around her. Shauna lookstinynext to Tom.

‘Did you?’ I ask.

‘Uh, yeah? Treated the damp. Saved you from acute asthma. And probably other deadly stuff.’

‘Wow, okay. Now, I understand men,’ I say. ‘Theexaggerating.It really is a thing, isn’t it?’

Shauna laughs and pats Tom’s flat stomach. ‘Absolutely it is.’ She looks up at her son, face bursting with pride, with love, withI made this tall, strapping man with my own body, thank you.‘Coffee?’

‘I’d love a flat white,’ says Tom. ‘I’ve only got about ten minutes, though—’

‘I’ll be quick,’ says Shauna, charging off into Goode’s.

Tom sets his bag down on the floor and sits in the empty seat opposite me. ‘So. Natalie,’ he says. ‘Light of my life, maker of the wanky scrambled eggs. Long night? Foxes? Pipe status? What’s new?’

I can’t help but smile. There’s something so nice about having someone that knows the dull minutiae of my life, remembers it. All the silly, little, insignificant details. Foxes. Damp. Dodgy pipes. The only meals I can cook without making a crime scene. Plus, Tom always seems to make me smile. He’s one of those …infectioussort of people.

‘No foxes. Not lately.’

‘Proverbial?’

‘Neither proverbial nor literal.’

‘Blimey,’ says Tom. ‘You’ve hit the jackpot.’

Tom always looks so well turned out. I said this to him, after breakfast, the other day, that he’s a proper grown-up, like Jodie, and he laughed and said, ‘What exactly does that mean? Besidescongrats, dude, you’re not an oversized man-child?’and I told him. That he’s the sort of person that gets up at seven by choice, even when he doesn’t need to. The sort of person who says ‘Well, why waste the day?’ and mean it. Thesort who’s already up when you emerge at ten a.m. with hair like a hedge, with the radio on and a slice of toast and coffee and a well-rounded opinion on the latest headline. He hadn’t disagreed, just nodded and said, ‘Well, for what it’s worth, I like your hedge hair. But then, Marge Simpson, in my opinion, is the ultimate woman.’

‘And how was stuff with little surfing dude?’ Tom asks, brushing a smattering of sugar from the tabletop. ‘You were scant on the ol’ detail on WhatsApp.’

‘Littlesurfing dude?’

Tom laughs at his own joke. ‘You know what I mean. He’s about twelve, isn’t he?’

‘Twenty-sevenactually.And he’s fine. We hung out. It was cool.’

‘Cool?’

‘Yup. So, how are you?’

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