Page 29 of The Good Boy

“I don’t get it,” he says.

“Don’t worry,” Miles says as he comes over to join us. “We’ll keep practicing until you do, like it says on the list.”

“Hey, cool hat,” I say, looking up at Miles to see he is wearing a straw fedora, which normally I would abhor, except it suits the heck out of him. “You should buy it!”

“Oh no.” Miles snatches the hat off his head and returns it to the hook. “No, couldn’t possibly. Hats, they’re for losers.”

“Yeah, but you’re a loser already and you look good in it,” I say with a grin.

“Do I?” He looks at me suspiciously, like I might be about to pull the rug out from under my compliment.

“Oh, you do,” the shop assistant says, winking at Miles with a flirtatious smile. “You’d stand out in a bin bag.”

Miles looks at her. “Um, thanks.”

“Of course you would,” I say. “Anyway, you shouldn’t worry about what other people think. If you like a hat, wear a hat.”

“I know, but I do,” Miles says. “And presumably so do you, which is why you always wear black.”

Suddenly I stop in my tracks.

“You know what, Miles? I do worry. Every single day. I worry about what my family thinks of me, my friends, the people in the shop. I worry about it all the time even though I pretend that I don’t care. It’s bollocks to just tell people to be themselves and live for the moment and dance like no one is watching, because peoplearewatching, Miles. They are watching. Put the hat back.”

“That is not the takeaway I was expecting from this moment,” Miles says.

“People are watching because you are an excellent dancer,” Rory says, producing exactly the same fedora from a bag and dropping it onto Miles’s head. “And in your case, Miles, because you are very handsome. So, you dance and you wear the hat.”

He returns my card to me.

“I did the tappy thing,” he says.

This is like the time he learned to open the dog-proof bin with his nose all over again.

Chapter Eleven

When we arrive Kelly is leaning up against the wall of the inn that, when I phoned her earlier today, Mum told me is where Nanna Maria is staying.

“What are you doing here?” I say, giving her a hug. “I thought you didn’t want to bring the kids over?”

“Well, Dave was about to slope off, and I thought, You know what, no,” Kelly says, giving Rory a big hug, before kissing Miles on the cheek. “My best friend is having a crisis and he’s off to see his fancy woman? I’m not having it. So, I told him, Dave, I said, Genie needs me, you’ve got the kids. And I grabbed the car keys and walked out.”

“Well, I’m glad you are here anyway,” I say. “Nanna Maria always liked you.”

“I’ve always believed in her,” Kelly says, “plus, I’ve always wanted to see what the inside of this place looks like. Just like old times, isn’t it, Miles?”

“Old times were never quite like this.” Miles smiles.

“Excuse me,” the receptionist says when we start to creep up the dark-oak stairs of the sixteenth-century inn. “Upstairs is for guests only.”

“And ghosts,” Rory says, looking at the landing anxiously. I don’t think I’m going to ask him if he sees dead people, because there is one corner in my front room that he will never sit in and sometimes at night he stares at it and whimpers. Ignorance is bliss in my book.

“Don’t you take a tone with me, sunshine,” Kelly tells him. “I’ve got Tripadvisor, and I know how to use it.”

“My grandmother is staying here,” I tell the young man, gesturing to Kelly to stand down. “A Mrs.... Miss Maria Martinelli?”

The receptionist checks the register.

“We have no one staying here with that name,” he tells me curtly, as if I am a legit commoner attempting to get an audience with the king, which is a bit much if you ask me. This is only a three-star B and B in Whitby, not the flipping Ritz. I sigh, glancing at Miles, who shrugs.

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