Page 87 of Riding the Waves

CHAPTER 43

Setting off from Amy’s house, Damian’s vague plan was to walk the mile and a half into the centre and familiarise himself with Oxford again. Apparently, his subconscious mind had other ideas, and it didn’t take long for him to stray off course.

Before he knew it, he was standing outside the block of flats he’d lived in with Amy seven years ago. He frowned as he looked up at the dingy concrete building. A middle-aged guy sat on the front steps with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other, making the difference between Amy’s current residence and this place even more stark.

Damian moved a little, to stand under the window of the first-floor flat that had been Marty and Billy’s first home. Memories came back to him in a rush, and he could almost hear Amy screaming at him while he paced with a crying Marty. Often, the neighbours would bang on the walls to add to the din. It had felt like constant noise, and the only respite he’d got was going to the job he loathed.

Inhaling a steady breath, he decided that dwelling on the past wouldn’t do him any good. Things would be different this time. He and Amy and the boys would be a family again and it would be good. They’d be happy and not living in a haze of stress as they’d done before.

He set off again, pulling out his phone as he realised he really didn’t know Oxford very well any more and could do with some pointers for how to kill the time until the boys got out of school. After firing off a quick message to Jack, his phone rang almost immediately.

“You’re in Oxford!” Jack said excitedly. “I can tell you all the best places to go.”

“More like he can tell you all the best bars,” Emily called in the background.

“I can definitely tell you the best bars,” Jack agreed. “But I know other places too. First, you need to visit my uncle, Clive. He has a cafe by the river, near Folly Bridge. They make the most amazing toasted paninis. Tell him I sent you.”

“You need to go to the castle as well,” Emily said, then told Damian all about her time working there as a tour guide.

By the time he got off the phone, Damian was armed with a list of places to visit and a smile on his face from Jack and Emily’s infectious enthusiasm. In fact, he had enough sightseeing suggestions to last him a week, which ended up being what he did when he wasn’t scouring the internet for jobs or viewing houses with Amy. He was nervous about getting under her feet when she was working, so he tried to be out of the house as much as possible when the boys were at school.

On Friday, he walked Billy and Marty to school, then crept back into the house as quietly as he could, only to find Amy standing in the middle of the kitchen with her hands on her hips.

“You don’t have to tiptoe around,” she said. “It’s your home too.”

He almost choked as he stifled a laugh. It was absolutely not his home. He’d never felt less at home anywhere in his life.

“I mean, you’re living here,” Amy said awkwardly. “You can make yourself at home.”

He slid onto one of the high stools at the huge kitchen island. “I just don’t want to disturb you when you’re working.”

“It’s fine.” She picked her phone from the counter and clicked into the property website. “A house just came up today,” she said, passing him the phone. “It looks good, and it’s close to the school.”

Swiping through the photos, Damian nodded approvingly.

“What do you think?” Amy asked, her brows drawing together. “It looks good, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah.” He squinted at the phone and the three-bedroom semi-detached, which looked very similar to one of the houses they’d looked at the previous morning, and which Amy had taken an instant dislike to. Since there hadn’t seemed to be anything wrong with it, Damian suspected Amy’s standards were just too high. To be fair, given the house she currently lived in, anything was going to seem like a hefty step down.

“I’ve just emailed the estate agent,” Amy said and took her phone back.

“Did you think any more about the places we saw yesterday?” he asked. “They were both pretty nice.”

“They didn’t feel right,” she said.

He swivelled on the stool. “We’ll find somewhere.”

He tried not to dwell on his inkling that Amy didn’t actually want to move and that in the end she’d take Anthony up on his offer to let her stay in the house. His eyes darted, telling himself that it was just a house and if Amy was happy there he could probably get used to it if necessary. Hopefully, it wouldn’t come to that.

“Jack’s uncle just called me while I was walking back from dropping the kids off,” he said, happy to change the subject. He’d fallen into an easy rapport with Clive when he’d met him at The Old Boathouse, the quaint little cafe by the river. He’d been back a couple of times during the week to sample his delicious sandwiches and pass the time of day with him.

“How come?” Amy asked.

“He offered me a job.”

“At his cafe?”

“Yeah.”

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