Page 90 of One Day Like This (Excess All Areas 1)

Izabel blushed and looked around to make sure nobody else heard. “Stop it. I’m serious. Luke has asked me who did it. But we’ve got an end date of the fundraiser to tell Luke, and I can live with it.”

Matt kissed the top of her head. “Good enough. We’ll eat outside.” The smell of salted chips with way too much vinegar made his mouth water.

Five minutes later, they sat perched on a bench overlooking the Irish Sea. Izabel was tucking into a large, battered fishcake, chips, and gravy. He’d got pretty much the same, only a fish instead of a fishcake.

“I can’t believe how much vinegar you put on your gravy,” she said as she tucked into her food.

“It’s Nan’s fault. Always putting vinegar on the top of her steak and kidney puddings when we were kids. Can’t eat it without now.”

“Can I ask you a personal question?”

Matt looked at her, the wind blowing her hair around her face so much she had to hold it back to take a bite. “You’ve sucked my dick, Izabel. Figure that means you can ask me anything you want.”

She rolled her eyes as she finished chewing. “Do you ever think about trying to find your mum?”

“Nah.”

There was a long pause. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”

Matt sighed. “You aren’t prying. It’s just an easy answer. Mum was a single mum who did her highly incapable best. Don’t know who my dad even is, and Jase’s dad was an asshole who bailed after he got out of prison. But Nan’s never let us down. Not once. When Mum smashed the car with us in it, she was three times the legal blood alcohol level, and that was the last straw for Nan. Nan showed up at the hospital and took us home with her. No one stopped her. I doubt she thought she’d end up raising a second generation of kids, but she did it anyway.”

“I wish I had a nan like yours. Mum checks in occasionally. Mum’s parents have little time for her, even less for us. And I miss Dad something fierce. All I’ve got is Luke. He’s never let me down, and I’ve never let him down. Well, I mean, aside from the whole Jase thing. We’re all we’ve got. Anyway, sorry. I didn’t mean to make this a maudlin conversation.”

Matt took her hand and kissed the back of it. “Don’t be sorry. I like this. I like being able to talk to you about stuff like this. I want us to talk and shit. I want to know what’s on your mind, what’s bothering you. We’re more than just great sex. This. Us. What we’re building. I love it. All of it.”

Izabel smiled. The breeze had made her cheeks all rosy. She leaned toward him and brushed her lips against his. “I love it too.”

Matt grinned and they ate the rest of their food, watching the tide make its way back out to sea. Little kids chased it on its retreat. A seagull flew overhead as the sound of arcade games trilled in the distance.

Eventually, he stood and took the Styrofoam tray and wrapper from her, stacking it in his own, and offered her his hand. “I seem to remember promising you a whirl in the arcade.”

Izabel took it and brushed sand from her clothes. “I think you did.”

They spent the rest of the afternoon shooting zombies, Izabel not noticing how badly she sucked at the games. And Matt spent fifteen quid so he could win her a stuffed panda that probably would’ve cost a few pounds to buy.

And when he lay in bed later that evening, waiting for Iz to finish in the bathroom so he could show her just how much he craved her, he realised the day had been absolutely perfect.

* * *

Two weeks later, leaves rustled around in the entrance to the shelter, whipped up by the howling wind outside. Through the glass doors, Izabel could see Russel and Lin, two of their infrequent guests at the shelter, having a smoke on the other side of the street.

The door burst open, and Jon hustled in out of the cold. “Jesus. Colder than a brass jockstrap out there. Oh, sorry. Hey, Izabel. Guess what?”

Izabel grinned at Jon’s turn of phrase.

“I got it.” His exclamation was followed by a flurry of coughs, and Izabel wondered if she could recruit a volunteer doctor to visit the shelter.

“You got what?”

“A flat. I got the flat we bid on.”

For a second, it felt as though all the blood left her body. Everything went numb then filled up again with a whoosh. Izabel flung herself at Jon and hugged him. “Oh my God, Jon. Perfect timing. The weather is really starting to turn, and that cough of yours isn’t getting any better.”

He patted her back with his empty hand, the other still holding his bag of belongings. “I get the keys tomorrow,” he said gruffly. When he stepped back, Izabel could see his eyes were watery. From coughing or tears, she couldn’t tell.

“This is so exciting.” She gripped his arms, feeling how threadbare his coat was, and thanked the social housing gods he’d landed a place before winter had arrived. The previous year, a young man had frozen to death, bundled under damp sleeping bags outside the Tesco in Piccadilly Gardens, and no one had noticed he was dead for two days.

“They told me there’s barely a stitch in it though.”

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