Page 95 of Into the Dark
I bite hard on my lower lip, and she drops her head, staring hard into her cup of tea. When she brings her head back up her eyes are glittering with unshed tears. I offer her a smile that I hope is one of empathy, not judgment. I can’t judge this woman. I don’t know this woman.
“How long have you two been together?” she asks me.
“A little while.” I smile. To tell her the length of time Jake and I have been in a relationship wouldn’t be a good demonstration of what our relationship actually is. I wonder if I should tell her I was probably in love with him from the moment I set eyes on him. I decide not to. She’ll think me flighty and emotional if I tell her that.
This is when I realize I care what Susan Lawrence thinks of me.
“I love him very much,” I add.
A small muscle at the side of her mouth tics at my admission. “I’m glad,” she says, sipping more of her tea. “I’m glad he has someone.” She opens her mouth to ask something, closes it, then opens it again. “The little boy in the photos. That’s…he’s…Jake’s boy?” There’s something so fragile in her voice it’s painful.
“Yes, Caleb.”
A flicker of a smile. “Yours and his?”
“No, not mine.”
She nods, her blue stare giving nothing away.
“That’s where he is right now, dropping him back home.” As I look at my watch I suddenly feel my own nerves start to crackle and kindle in the pit of my stomach. He’ll be back any minute. What is he going to do? How will he react? Maybe I should have told her to come back later. Christ.
“So he doesn’t live here? With Jake?” She looks around again.
“Um, no, he lives with his mother,” I tell her.
“I see.” Susan takes another sip of her tea, and we sit in a strange, loud, tense silence for a few minutes until I hear the sound of a key in the front door, quickly followed by the sound of it opening. My breath falters slightly, but I give her as reassuring of a smile as I can manage with my heart attempting to break out of my chest and my stomach somersaulting. I need to cushion him from the shock sitting on his couch. It’s essential.
He comes through the door carrying a plastic shopping bag and a bottle of wine under his arm and beams at me as he kicks the door shut behind him. He looks gorgeous, cheeks flushed from the sun and eyes sparkling with love. His tan has deepened on his arms, and he looks relaxed. Happy. I feel sick.
“Stopped to get you some wine.” He holds the bottle up to show me. “There’s none here, and I wasn’t sure if you were still on your detox thing, but I thought better safe than sorry.”
I nod, my face tight with nerves.
He notices instantly. “What? Was I supposed to get something else?” He frowns, coming toward me.
I open my mouth to speak, but no words come out—none at all. My lips start to move, but no sound follows.
I know the moment he sees his mother. I feel it. I see it. The temperature in the room drops and his eyes darken, his face turning the color of a rain-drenched sky full of clouds. I’m worried he’s going to drop the wine he’s holding, but he doesn’t. If anything, his hand seems to tighten around it, his mouth tightening too into a cold, angry line.
“Hello, son,” Susan says from behind me in a surprisingly stable voice.
When I turn my head to look at her she’s standing up from the couch, her hands still holding tightly onto her mug of tea. Her color is fine. In fact, she seems bizarrely uplifted by the sight of him. The shock seems to be all on Jake’s side.
Jake doesn’t respond. He moves directly into the kitchen and places the plastic bag delicately on top of the counter, the wine too, and drops his head, bracing himself against the worktop for a moment. When he finally turns back around he looks angry. Not surprised or shocked, just very angry. Not with me, thank god, but his mother. Biting the inside of his cheek hard, he strides across the kitchen and comes to stand on my left.
“What the fuck do you want?” he asks. He’s close enough that I can feel the heat radiating out of his body. The thrum of violence under his skin.
To her credit, Susan doesn’t waver. Her demeanor from before he arrived is replaced by a strange kind of confidence I didn’t predict. She pulls her shoulders back and walks over to place her teacup down on the kitchen counter then turns to face him again. “I just wanted to see you, that’s all.” She shrugs like it’s the really the most harmless thing in the world. “You look really good, Jakey. Nice place you have here too.” She looks around the flat again briefly before settling her eyes back on Jake.
“Yeah? Mind telling me how the fuck you found out where I live?” he asks, his voice like rumbling thunder.
“Well, I went down to Sal’s. Can’t believe he’s still there.” She shakes her head in wonderment. “But anyway, he said he knew you had a place in the Docklands but not where. He told me to go see Johnny Forbes who’d get your address for me. Which he did,” she explains.
None of these names mean anything to me, but I see Jake nod his head slightly. Shifting around to me, he inclines his head but keeps his eyes on her.
“Baby, remind me later to thank Johnny and Sal for being so fucking helpful, will you?” he says. Despite his surprisingly light tone, I decide to do nothing of the sort.
Susan only smiles.