‘That’s really nice of you, thanks, but I have to say no—it’s hard to get a babysitter.’ There, she’d given him the out. It was over and done with, and she awaited his polite smile back—it didn’t come. Instead he looked at his watch.
‘How long does a dental check-up take?’ He even smiled. ‘Can you try?’ He pulled out a card and wrote his mobile-phone number on it and handed it to her. Maybe he read her too well because instead of saying that he would wait to hear if she could make arrangements, he lobbed the ball firmly back into her court. ‘I’ll pick you up at seven, unless I hear otherwise. Ring me if you can’t get a babysitter.’
It was utterly and completely unexpected. She had thought he would run a mile—she’d given him an out, after all.
She wanted him to take it.
Bridgette really did. She just wasn’t ready to get back out there and certainly not with Dominic. Still, maybe tonight he would just tell her how impossible it all was; maybe she would receive a long lecture on how they found each other attractive and all that, but how unsuitable they were—yet, remembering just how good they had been, it was very hard to say no.
‘Hi, Mum.’ It was the second time that day she’d asked her mum for help. ‘Is there any chance you and Dad could babysit tonight?’
‘You mean have our grandson over?’ Betty laughed. ‘We’d love to.’ As Bridgette blinked in surprise, as she paused just a fraction, her mother filled the gap. ‘Though we do have a couple of friends coming over tonight. Old friends of your dad’s—remember Eric and Lorna?’ Bridgette felt her jaw tense. Her parents insisted they were accommodating, but it was always on their terms—when it suited them. ‘Could we maybe do it tomorrow?’
‘I’ve got an invitation to go out tonight, Mum. I’d really like to go.’
‘But we’ve got people over tonight. Tomorrow we can come over to you and stay. It might be easier on Harry.’ Yes, it might be easier on Harry, but it certainly wouldn’t be easier on her—or Dominic. He was already taking a leap of faith in asking her out. Though he wasn’t asking her out, she reminded herself—he simply wanted to clear the air. Still, no doubt he was used to having the door opened by a groomed, glossy beauty who invited him in for a drink as she applied a final layer of lip gloss—somehow she couldn’t imagine inflicting her mother and father and Harry on the guy.
‘Mum, I haven’t had a night out in weeks.’ She hadn’t, not since that night with Dominic. ‘I’m sorry for the short notice. If you can have Harry, that would be great. If not…’ If not, then it simply wasn’t meant to be, Bridgette decided. If she couldn’t get away for one single night without planning it days in advance, she might just as well text Dominic now with the whole truth.
It would be quite a relief to, actually, but after a moment’s silence came her mother’s rather martyred response. ‘Well, make sure you bring a decent change of clothes for him. I want Harry looking smart. I’ve got Eric and Lorna coming over,’ she repeated. ‘Have you had his hair cut yet?’ Bridgette looked at the mop of blond curls that danced in the afternoon sun as Harry built his bricks and wondered why her mother assumed that Harry’s hair was Bridgette’s responsibility. His mop of unruly hair was a slight bone of contention between them—Courtney would never think to get a haircut for her son and though at first it had irritated Bridgette, more and more his wild curls suited him. Bridgette was now reluctant to get them cut—she certainly wasn’t going to rush out and get a haircut just to appease her parents’ guests and, anyway, there wasn’t time. ‘No, Courtney hasn’t had his hair cut, but he’s looking beautiful and I’ve got a gorgeous outfit for him.’
And with Harry dropped off and the quickest bath in history taken, the flat had to be hastily tidied, not that she had any intention of Dominic coming in. She’d be ready and dressed at the door, Bridgette decided, so she had about sixteen minutes to work out a not-so-gorgeous outfit for herself.
There was a grey shift dress at the back of her wardrobe and she had to find her ballet pumps but first she had a quick whiz with hair tongs and her magical blusher.
‘Please be late,’ she begged as she remembered her screensaver was of them. Her computer was in the spare bedroom, but in case of earthquake and it was the room they ended up in, she had to change it.
‘Please be late,’ she said again as she stashed dishes in the cupboard beneath the sink and shovelled piles of building bricks into the corner.
‘Please be late,’ she said as she opened her bedroom door to get her pumps and was distracted by the shelves she’d been meaning to build and the million-thread-count sheets she’d bought in a sale and had been saving for when the room was painted.
But the bedroom was too untidy to even contemplate bringing him in and, no, her prayers weren’t answered.
Bang on seven, she heard the doorbell.
‘READY!’ Bridgette beamed as she opened the front door and stepped out, because there was no way he was coming in.
‘Shoes?’ Dominic helpfully suggested just after she closed the door.
‘Oh. Yes.’ Which meant she had to rummage in her bag for her keys as he stood there. ‘They must be in here.’
‘Can’t the babysitter let you in?’
‘He’s at my parents’,’ she said as she rummaged.
‘Have you locked yourself out?’
‘No, no,’ Bridgette said cheerfully. ‘I do this all the time—here they are.’ She produced them with a ‘ta ra!’ and she let herself in, which of course meant that she had to let him in too—well, she couldn’t really leave him on the doorstep.
‘Go through,’ she said, because she didn’t even want him to get a glimpse of the chaos in the bedroom. ‘I’ll just be a moment.’ Except he didn’t go through. He stood in the hallway as she slipped through the smallest crack in the door and then scrambled to find her shoes. She must get more organised. Bridgette knew that, dreamt of the day when she finally had some sort of routine. She’d had a loose one once, before Harry was born, but now the whole flat seemed to have gone to pot.
There they were, under the bed. She grabbed her pumps and sort of limbo-danced around the door so that he wouldn’t see inside. ‘Sorry about that,’ she said. ‘Just been a bit of a mad rush.’
‘Look, if you’re too tired to go out for dinner…’
She gave him a strange look. ‘I’m starving,’ Bridgette said. ‘How could anyone be too tired to eat dinner?’
‘I meant…’
‘So we’re not going out dancing, then,’ she teased. ‘You’re not going to teach me the flamenco.’ She was leaning against the wall and putting on her ballet pumps, hardly a provocative move, except it was to him.
‘Impressed with my Spanish, were you?’
‘No Flamenco Medico?’ She pouted and raised her arm and gave a stamp of her foot. Dominic stood there, his black eyes watching and sudden tension in his throat.
‘Any
