Calling it a flat didn’t seem right. It was a self-contained annexe, and absolutely perfect for one or two people.
AKA, perfect for me.
“Water!” Dad said brightly, running the kitchen tap. “Huzzah!”
Laughing, I tested the bathroom taps. “Here, too! Gross water, but water all the same.”
“All right,” he said. “The good news is that with a deep clean, this space will be liveable for you.”
“It sounds like you’re tired of living with your grown-arse daughter.”
Dad held his hands up. “I said nothing.”
Laughing, I looked around the open plan space. “It feels like the perfect size, honestly.”
“Yes. And you’ve got the door to the main part of the bed and breakfast there. That’s the one we couldn’t open before,” he pointed out. “And that one at the other end is through to the office for easy access.”
I bobbed my head. “So… start here?”
“No. Let’s start with the horror movie prop that is the badger in the kitchen, then we’ll start in here.” He smiled. “This won’t be as bad as you think, Lottie.”
Now who was the optimistic, naïve one?
I eyed him wearily. “Let’s hope those aren’t some of your famous last words, Dad.”
CHAPTER FOUR
A wake wasn’t the kind of party I wanted to go to.
Actually, most parties weren’t the kind of party I wanted to go to. I was more of a slumber party kind of girl—pyjamas, pizza, and falling asleep halfway through whatever movie was on the television.
But wakes were just… Well, they were morbid, weren’t they? Who wanted to party after burying someone?
I understood the point of them, and of course it wasn’t like I was attending a rave complete with glow sticks and sambuca shots. It was a casual get together at the local pub to celebrate Grandpa’s life. To share memories and happy moments with others who loved him so he’d live on in spirit, but it was hard.
I didn’t know any of these people anymore.
And I was sure that I wasn’t the teenager they all remembered—especially the locals who were closer in age to my parents.
Mum’s drugged sleep earlier had done her the world of good. She’d slept for six hours before waking up like a new person, and while she claimed it was knowing that Grandpa was at peace, me and Dad were pretty sure it was the sleeping pills.
Not that him being buried and the whole ‘saying goodbye’ process had nothing to do with it. Funerals were final, like the first step of closure on the path of grief, but you know.
It was the sleeping pills.
The wake so far had been an endless stream of reintroductions and reminiscing, as I’d expected. Mum was sitting at the bar with Robert Burton, who owned the butcher shop on the high street and ran it with his two adult sons, Brandon and Tyler. Brandon was about my age while Tyler was younger, and Brandon and I had been friends back when we were teens making terrible decisions like getting drunk underage and going rock pooling in the dark.
Ten out of ten, do not recommend.
I’d never managed to get rid of that scar on my left shin.
Louis and Elizabeth Fletcher, who ran Home Cookin’, a cosy restaurant not far from the butchers, were also there. I remembered them being slightly older than Mum and Dad, but they’d always been friends, and they’d offered to cater the wake at cost price.
I’d been picking and pinching at their delicious food all evening, and I was definitely going there for lunch this week, that was for sure.
There were so many other people here. Heather and Kate Cooper ran the coffee shop and had moved to Fox Point several years ago with Kelsey, Kate’s teen daughter from her first marriage. Apparently, Grandpa used to stop in for a cup of tea every morning until he’d moved away, and they missed him terribly and wanted to pay their respects. They’d even offered us all a free drink on the house the first time we stopped by.
Yet another place I planned on visiting this week.
I’d need an itinerary for Lottie’s Fox Point Tour soon enough.
Laura and Richard Holmes owned the café at the other end of the high street, and they were here with their daughter, Hayley, and her fiancé, Stephen. Melissa Jenkins who owned the record store had arrived—apparently her sons were on holiday in Spain—along with the Edwards family who had run the garage for as long as I could remember.
Tracy Lawrence and her elderly father, David, owners of The King’s Head pub, were our hosts for the night, along with Walter Anderson and his wife, Carolyn, whom I’d never met. Walter had run the fish and chip shop on the promenade for twenty years, and he had happily introduced me to everyone who’d moved here in the last ten years.
Like Ben and Niamh who’d moved from Dublin and bought the old liquor store on the high street and turned it into an antique and furniture store, and Ryan and James Taylor who ran the pet store, plus a rescue centre on some of Ryan’s family’s unused land not far from Fox Point.
There were so many others that after a while they all started to blend into one, but none of those faces belonged to the one person I was looking for.
Well.
Looking out for.
I didn’t know if I wanted to see Noah George again.
The last time I’d seen him, he’d told me he loved me five minutes before I had to leave to go back to Bristol. I’d panicked and ran for it—which was really stupid considering I was arse over tit in love with the guy—and after a month of sporadic texting, he never spoke to me again.
I didn’t know how it had happened. Looking back, I could see it was probably just life doing what it did best—he was staying in Fox Point, unsure about his life, and I was staying in Bristol for uni.
But I’d tried. Over and over. I’d sent countless messages that would make grown me weep with embarrassment. I’d spent hours staring at my phone for a reply I knew would never come until I’d finally accepted it.
We were done.
We were over.
And he’d been too much of a coward to tell me the truth.
I wanted to see him, but at the same time, I kind of hoped he’d moved away to Siberia, and I’d never have to be near him again.
So far, he hadn’t shown up. I could only take that to mean he didn’t live here anymore, because from what I remembered, he’d adored my grandfather, and Grandpa had him. It was weird to think that he would miss this.
“I bet I know who you’re looking for, and he’s not here,” a very familiar voice said from behind me.
The owner of it leant forwards to put her glass down on the table, and two seconds later, Ashley George—the twin sister of the man who’d just been on my mind and one of my childhood best friends—took the seat next to me and smiled.
I cleared my throat and looked away. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Noah’s working. He asked me to pass on his apologies.”
“To my parents, I assume. Not to me.”
“Nah, you probably wouldn’t reply anyway.”
I pressed my lips together and met her gaze. “It’s not like he ever bothered to check in, and I’m pretty sure he is the one who never replied, not the other way around. I remember texting him a few times before he stopped replying.”