Page 118 of One Day Like This (Excess All Areas 1)

She fluffed her hair and looked down at her mug as he heard the creak of footsteps on the stairs.

“Jase?” Matt asked, his stomach turning. Had she been able to pull off a miracle and get him to come home?

Instead, a portly man with salt-and-pepper hair appeared in the doorway to the kitchen. “I’ll give you a call later, Rhoda, love.”

“Gerry, this is my grandson, Matthew. Matthew this is Gerry.”

Matt’s eyes widened. No wonder his nan was flushed and still upstairs at half nine in the morning. Doing, by the looks of it, the very same thing he and Izabel had.

“Pleased to meet you, Matthew. Your nan never shuts up about you. How talented you are. Good luck in London, lad.”

Matt wasn’t quite sure what surreal world he was in when his nan’s lover was calling himlad. Fuck, he’d laugh if it wasn’t so damn embarrassing.

“Yeah. Thanks. Nice to meet you too, Gerry.”

Gerry placed a wet kiss on his nan’s cheek and headed for the door. When it slammed shut, Matt took a large gulp of his tea.

“Don’t be looking at me like that, Matthew Palmer. I might be old, but I’m not dead.”

Matt shook his head. “Fair play to you, Nan. I mean. I’d rather not know anything at all about what the two of you were up to. And bizarrely, I had to clamp down on the urge to ask him what his intentions are towards you.”

“We had sex, Matt. And I’ve not asked you what your intentions were to Izabel, so I’d be grateful if you didn’t ask me.”

Matt blanched at the idea of Nan and Gerry getting down and dirty in the bedroom. Did he need to have a word with her about contraception? Fuck. No. Even he had lines, and it wasn’t like she was making babies anymore.

“You can ask me about Izabel. I asked her to move in with me. She said yes. I’m going to marry her one day and, God willing, have those great-grandkids you’re always banging on about.”

“Are you going to get on with it before I die?”

“Nan. You’re not even seventy-seven, and given what you and Gerry were just up to, I think it’s safe to say your heart’s in great shape.”

Nan fluffed her hair. “A little bit of cardio here and there makes it stay that way.”

“Urgh. Stop, Nan. While I’m in London, I organised for a bloke to come around. He’s going to fix those spindles and fix the mould in the bedroom once and for all.”

Nan put her hand on Matt’s cheek. “You’re a good lad. Always were.”

“Any news?” Matt asked.

She sat down at the chair and placed her cup on the kitchen table. “He’s seen the message.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I told him a day after I sent it that I was having one of my dizzy spells, and you know he always calls me when I have a dizzy spell.”

Sneaky. But then, she’d always known how to play them. “You spoke to him?”

“I did. Briefly.”

“Where is he? What did he say? Is he coming?”

“I don’t know, Matt. He understood all the details. And he was happy about it.”

“Did he say so?” If he was happy, surely, he’d turn up.

“No. He said you were a twat. But I’ve always been able to read between both of your lines. There’s just a way he says things when he’s wistful, or when something is so perfect, he can’t believe it’s real.”

“Do you think he’s going to be there, Nan?”

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