Page 2 of Prudence
I burst out laughing, my giggles filling the confined space, and Derek chuckled softly, too. “Oh, my goodness, can you imagine if my parents named me Milton? I’d be a laughingstock.”
“They could be Milton Keynes F.C. superfans. You never know. I have a friend whose cousin gave their baby the middle name Juventus.”
“That is truly horrifying,” I exclaimed. “And since you’re so bad at guessing, I’ll tell you. Milly is short for Camille.”
“Camille,” Derek repeated as though testing out the sound.
Something about the way he said it, his voice deep and rumbly, had my skin tingling—and not because of the damp cloth sticking to it. We stopped at a red light, and he cast me a glance, his dark eyes trailing over me and making my skin feel tight.
“That’s actually perfect. You look like a Camille.”
I shifted in place, lowering my gaze because his gold-flecked eyes were a little intense. It was no wonder he was such a big hit with all the girls in this town. Having Derek’s Balfe’s full attention was something of an experience. My stomach wouldn’t quit doing frenzied somersaults. There was just something about him that had a heady effect on me. Perhaps it was the broad shoulders, his height, or merely the confident way he carried himself. His dark hair was short at the sides with a little more length on top, his nose straight and faintly Greek in shape. He also had what appeared to be a small brown birth mark on the left side of his neck just below his jawline. I found myself studying it intently before I lifted my gaze and saw him watching me. He smiled in a way that said he didn’t mind me looking. I could only imagine what he must think of me by contrast in my drenched clothes and mousy hair that always managed to turn both flat and poofy in the rain.
I was caught on his statement,You look like a Camille, curious to know what he meant. Was it a good thing or a bad thing? “What does a Camille look like?” I asked quietly.
Derek appeared as though he was about to say something but then thought better of it. He rubbed lightly at his chin then placed his hand back on the steering wheel. “Like you, I guess.”
“Well,” I said, relieved he hadn’t pointed out my bedraggled appearance but also vaguely disappointed he hadn’t said something positive either. “Literally everyone calls me Milly, so it doesn’t really matter.”
“Which do you prefer?”
“I honestly don’t mind. It’s just a name. So long as it’s not Milton.” I grinned.
“You’re not going to let me live that one down, are you?” Derek responded just as he pulled into my housing estate. He drove up the hill, made a left turn, then pulled to a stop right outside my house. I was stunned that he knew not only the general location of where I lived but my exact house, too. The Balfes lived in a large house right by the beach. I always imagined how nice it must be to just look out the window and have the sea right there. Walk across the street and sink your toes into the sand.
“It’s just that you really sounded like you thought it was a possibility,” I teased, undoing my seat belt.
“I was kidding, and you know it.” He reached across me and threw open the door, a waft of his cologne tickling my senses. He smelled like sage and sea salt and something pleasantly spicy that might’ve been his own unique smell. I was momentarily overwhelmed by his closeness, but a second later, he leaned back into his own seat.
“Um, thank you for the lift,” I said, climbing out and relieved to see the rain and hail had tapered off.
“It was my pleasure, Camille. Enjoy the rest of your day.” With a final charming smile, he reached over to pull the door shut then headed off to wherever he’d been going before he took pity on me and offered to drive me home.
My little sister, Jane, was peering through the living room window at me as I approached the front door. She was in the hallway by the time I got inside the house. Jane was twelve, so she was still in primary school. Being that there were six years between us, and my parents worked a lot, I tended to be the one who looked after her. My other sister, Donna, was fourteen and a little better at taking care of herself, though not yet mature enough to take on looking after Jane.
My dad was an electrician, and my mam worked at the florist in town. Both were hard workers but somewhat scatter-brained in various ways when it came to finances and running a household. For example, Mam was great at her job, but she could not for the life of her remember to pay a bill on time or complete a weekly grocery shop before we ran out of food in the house. The same went for my dad, who also liked to spend large chunks of money on random tools and gadgets he thought would make his life easier but ultimately ended up gathering dust in the shed or up in the attic. All in all, my parents were good people, but they were not adept at handling the mundane necessities of daily life.
As the eldest child, those tasks often fell to me, which could be exhausting at times.
“Who was that in the car?” Jane asked as she eyed my bedraggled appearance.
“Oh, just a classmate from school who saw I’d gotten caught in the rain and offered me a lift,” I lied because Jane could get a little overexcited when it came to boys. She was obsessed with the idea of me getting a boyfriend since I’d just turned eighteen, and in her opinion, it was time. I had to continually remind herthat between keeping our parents afloat and my studies, I had no time for boys. I only had two months left of Fifth Year.
Next year, I hoped to achieve enough points to study medicine at Trinity College. It had been my dream to become a doctor since as far back as I could remember. When I was a kid, I’d been obsessed with tending to family members when they got sick and rejoiced when they recovered as though it was my care that cured them and not the prescribed medication from their doctor.
“Where’s Donna?” I asked as I shouldered off my bag and headed upstairs to change into something dry.
“She’s in her room playing on the computer,” Jane replied, following me up. “Mam’s cooking cottage pie for dinner, but she forgot the potatoes, so she’s using turnips instead.” My sister made a disgusted face. “I told her I don’t think that’s going to be very nice, but she wouldn’t listen.”
Turnip topped cottage pie? Well, I definitely preferred potatoes, but it wasn’t the worst concoction my mother had ever dreamt up.
“It’ll be fine. We’ll just put lots of salt and butter on top to make it tasty,” I said as I grabbed something to wear from my closet. Jane didn’t look convinced, but she turned and left me to change anyway.
The following day, I was walking home from school again. My friends, Tara and Celine, lived on the other side of town, so we rarely walked together. I didn’t mind, though. I enjoyed my solitary strolls. It was often the only part of my day that I got to myself, where I didn’t have to be present in class or help my parents or younger siblings and could just let my mind wander.
Unsurprisingly, today, my mind was constantly wandering to Derek Balfe and our short car journey. I couldn’t stop replaying the way he’d looked at me, how he’d playfully triedto guess my name, but most of all his devastatingly handsome smiles. Butterflies filled my stomach every time I remembered.
I hadn’t had very many boys look at me how Derek had. Well, none had looked at me precisely as he had, but my next-door neighbour, PJ, asked me out last year, and it’d taken me so much by surprise that I’d requested a day to consider it. Then I’d gone into my house, and my favourite aunt, Nell, was there visiting with Mam. Nell gave great advice, mostly because she’d lived a full and interesting life, having been married and divorced three times over, not to mention having a career as a top talent agent in the entertainment industry. Some of her clients were super famous actors from both stage and screen, and she split her time between her house in Ireland and her apartment in London. I was in awe of her, and though I wasn’t interested in the same career path, I wanted to be just as successful as her when I was older.
