Page 94 of After the Siren
‘Can we watch a movie or something?’ He didn’t want to be alone, or to think.
‘Of course,’ Xen said. ‘And I was making pot roast.’
‘You’re the best,’ Jake said. He let Paddy pull him to his feet.
‘Do I need to go and break Stavs’ legs for breaking your heart?’ Paddy asked.
‘No!’
‘Are you sure?’
‘No, we ... I mean, it was mutual.’
Paddy looked at him, incredulous. ‘Are you serious?’
‘It’s ... complicated. Can we not talk about this now?’
Paddy sighed. ‘Fine. Come on, you need some carbs.’
Chapter Twenty-One
Theo arrived home to the smell of something delicious. Eva had texted to ask if he was free for dinner, but he’d assumed they’d order takeaway. He could hear her singing in the kitchen. She had a lovely voice, but in high school she’d given up her singing lessons for debating and mooting. She was singing an Egyptian pop song he hadn’t heard in years. ‘I’m home,’ he called, toeing out of his shoes and heading for the kitchen.
Eva was in front of the stove wearing an apron he’d never seen before, her hair caught back in a colourful scarf. There was a bakery box on the table, tied up in familiar pink ribbon.
‘I’m making koshari,’ she told him. ‘And there are snacks.’
She’d made fresh aish baladi and hummus.
He sat down on a kitchen stool and helped himself. ‘This looks incredible. You didn’t have to cook.’ He couldn’t believe she’d hadtimeto cook. He’d barely seen her for at least a month; he mainly knew she was coming home in the evenings because there were rinsed dishes on the sink every morning.
‘I wanted to,’ she told him. ‘Besides, you need koshari, and mine is better than anything we could order.’
‘I need koshari?’
Eva turned to give him a look. ‘You do. You’ve been sad. You need koshariandknafeh. Luckily I’ve got both.’
She wasn’t wrong. He was sad, but he was also having to watchJakebe sad, which was much worse than dealing with his own feelings. It had been a deeply shitty ten days.
He’d been the one who made the choice. He knew it was the right one. But that didn’t make him feel any better about it. Asking Jake what he would have wanted if they weren’t teammates had been a terrible idea. Because Jake had told the truth – of course he had – and now Theo couldn’t lie down to sleep without thinking about an alternate universe where he still got to see Jake’s wicked smile and wake up with all of Jake’s limbs wrapped around him.
They were still friends – Theo still got to hear Jake’s laugh, roll his eyes at Jake’s silliness, see Jake almost every day, and that was going to have to be enough. Except Jake hadn’t laughed much since they’d called things off, and he was being meticulously careful not to touch Theo beyond a clap on the shoulder or a fist bump. Xen would occasionally look at Jake with a worried little crease between his eyebrows. Theo wanted to ask him if Jake was okay, but he already knew the answer.
They’d played a game the day after the ... talk, Theo would call it. Jake had the kind of bad performance that happened to everyone once in a while: put a good opportunity straight into the post, fumbled a couple of pick-ups, argued with an umpire and gave away a fifty. Jake usually shrugged off bad luck, but he’d come off the field looking like he wanted to punch a wall and vanished as soon as he could.
Theo was sad, but ... fine. He was playing well. This was what he had wanted. The ladder was tight, but the Falcons were on track to clinch a spot in the eight. He’d been able to reduce the dosage of his meds, although he didn’t see himself coming off them entirely any time soon. This was what he’d wanted. It proved he’d made the right call.
‘I thought we could watch somePoirot,’ Eva suggested.
‘It’s not that bad,’ Theo assured her. ‘I promise.’ Eva didn’t find murder mysteries as relaxing as Theo did. She’d been forever scarred as a child by a particularly harrowing episode ofMiss Marple.
‘My mind is made up.’
She dished up for both of them, at the kitchen counter rather than the dining table. They’d never been allowed to eat at the counter as kids. She was the type of cook who cleaned as she went, and the kitchen was warm from the stove and smelled of spices.
Theo took a bite of the koshari. It was incredible. ‘You’re right, this is better than anything we could have bought.’
‘Thank you.’ She preened a little. ‘Now, what’s going on? I’m your older sister, I’m allowed to pry. And I know it’s not work. You got seventeen disposals’ – she paused, as though not sure she’d used the right word – ‘in your last game.’
