Chapter Fourty-three
“What are you doing here?”
I’d collided into the back of Emelie in the doorway of her mother’s sitting room so I didn’t know who she was asking, accusingly, that question of.
“Your mum invited me.”
Ah, Sammie. I peered around Emelie to see him sitting on Elodie and Clark’s couch with Declan beside him. They were watching soccer together. Clark was reading a newspaper. Clearly not a soccer fan.
“My mum invited you?” Emelie strode into the room, her arms crossed over her chest. “When?”
“Yesterday,” Elodie’s voice trilled behind us, and we turned to see her and Hannah walk in carrying glasses of soda. “What’s with the attitude?”
Emelie glowered at Sammie who grinned back up at her, unrepentant. “Nothing.”
“Sammie, you’re missing it.” Declan pulled on the sleeve of Sammie’s light blue sweater that did great things for his body. No wonder he and Tom got laid so easily. Together the two of them were like a GQ ad.
“Sorry, bud.” He gave Emelie a teasingly solemn look. “Sorry, can’t talk. We’re watching the football.”
“Better watch you don’t get a football rammed up your arse,” Emelie muttered under her breath, but both Sammie and I heard her. He laughed, shaking his head as he turned back to the screen.
“What’s funny?” Elodie smiled sweetly, completely unaware of the tension between her daughter and Sammie as she handed everyone a glass of Coke.
“Emelie said a bad word,” Declan replied.
Okay, so Sammie, me and Declan were the only ones to hear. “Emelie, he hears everything,” Elodie complained.
Emelie scowled, throwing herself onto an armchair. I thought it was best to give her some support since Sammie being here had clearly thrown her for a loop, so I perched beside her on the arm of the chair. Emelie sighed. “I’m sure he’s heard worse at school.”
Declan grinned at his mom. “I have.” Clark sniggered into his paper.
Elodie shot her a husband a suspicious look before turning back to Emelie. “That’s no excuse to speak that way in front of him.”
“I just said ‘arse’.” Declan snorted.
“Emelie!”
She rolled her eyes. “Mum, it’s not a big deal.”
“It really isn’t,” Declan agreed. “I’ve heard way worse.”
“Why did you say arse?” Hannah asked serenely from the other couch.
Clark choked on a laugh as he turned a page of the paper, still refusing to look up.
“Hannah!” Elodie spun around to glare down at her. “Young ladies don’t use bad language.”
Hannah shrugged. “It’s just arse, mum.”
“I was calling Sammie an arse,” Emelie explained to her little sister. “Because he is an arse.”
Elodie looked like she was about to explode. “Would everyone stop saying arse!”
“I know,” I blew out an exaggerated breath of exasperation. “It’s called an ass, people. Ass.”
Clark and Sammie burst out laughing and I shrugged apologetically to Elodie, smiling sweetly at her. She rolled her eyes and threw up her hands. “I’m going to check the dinner.”
“Do you need help?” I asked politely.
“No, no. My ass can handle itself in the kitchen, thank you very much.”
Chuckling, I watched her leave and then looked down at Emelie with a wide grin. “Now I understand why you don’t curse a lot.”
“So why is Sammie an arse?” Hannah persisted.
Emelie stood up, shooting the man in question a dirty look. “I think the question is: when isn’t he an arse?” And then she stormed off after her mother.
Sammie’s gaze followed her out the room, his eyes no longer laughing.
He turned back to me. “I messed up.”
Understatement of the year. “I guess you did.”
I could feel Clark’s eyes on us as Sammie sighed, and when I looked over at Emelie’s stepdad I could see he wasn’t amused anymore. His gaze was burning into Sammie with a million questions, and I got the impression he was putting two and two together.
Time to divert his attention. “So Hannah, did you read the books I recommended?”
Her eyes lit up as she nodded. “They were amazing. I’ve been looking up more dystopian books since.”
“You’ve got Hannah reading dystopian novels?” Sammie asked with surprise, smiling at me.
“Yes.”
“She’s fourteen.”
“Well, these are written for fourteen year olds. Anyway, I was taught 1984 when I was fourteen.”
“George Orwell,” Clark muttered. I grinned. “Not a fan?”
“Hannah’s reading Animal Farm for English,” he said, as if that explained it.
Hannah was smiling, a little twinkle of devilment in her eyes that reminded me of Emelie. “I’m reading it out loud to mum and dad so they can help me.”
In other words, she was torturing her mum and dad for fun. She and Emelie really were full of surprises. Angels with dirty faces, as the saying goes.
A few minutes later we were sitting around the table, Emelie and Elodie bickering unintelligibly.
“I just said you looked pale.” Elodie eventually sighed as she took her seat with the rest of us.
“Which translates into ‘you look like crap’.”
“I never said that. I asked why you’re pale?”
“I have a headache.” She shrugged, her shoulders tense, her lips and brow pinched.
“Another one?” Sammie asked, his eyes narrowed on her.
What did he mean another one? “You’ve had more than one?”
Sammie looked angry now, his concern for Emelie bordering on majorly pissed off. “She’s had a few. I’ve told her to get it checked.”
Emelie glowered back at him. “I was at the doctors on Friday. The doctor thinks I need glasses.”
“You should have made an appointment weeks ago.”
“Well, I made it this week!”
“You don’t take care of yourself. You’re running yourself ragged at the university.”
“I do take care of myself. In fact, I was taking care of myself on Friday night but someone ruined my downtime.”
“He was an arse.”
Elodie cleared her throat meaningfully.
Sammie held up an apologetic hand. “He was a butt.” Declan and Hannah giggled. Maybe I did too.
“You don’t even know him. And thanks to you, I never will.”
“Stop changing the subject. I told you to make an appointment with the doctor’s office weeks ago.”
“You’re not my dad.”
“You’re being a child.”
“I’m being a child. Listen to you. He was a butt? What the hell, Sammie? You’re making my headache worse.”
He frowned, and lowered his voice. “I’m just worried about you.”
Oh he was worried about her alright. I tilted my head to the side, watching him. God, he was looking at her like James looked at James.
Was Sammie in love with Emelie?
I stifled the urge to throw my fork at him and tell him to man up. If he cared about her, he should just be with her. What was so difficult about that?