I Owe You One: A Novel(79)

“I’ve checked! There’s nothing there! I want the jumbo size for my mince pies.” She eyes me with a gimlet gaze. “Where are they?”

“Oh, right,” I say again, playing for time.

I had a row with Jake over the jumbo containers. He said they were bulky and tragic-looking and cluttered the place up. So we returned some and the rest are in our storage facility in Willesden.

“I can get you some in,” I say. “I can have them by this afternoon—”

“That’s no good! I want them now!” the woman huffs angrily. “I’ll go to Robert Dyas. But it’s out of my way.”

She walks off before I can say anything more, and I feel a wave of frustration. I knew we shouldn’t cut the stock so drastically; I knew we should play to our strengths—

“Bye, then, Fixie,” says Nicole, who’s been drifting around, fiddling with the displays, noticing nothing.

“Wait,” I say. “Jake’s asleep in the back room. He looks really rough. Not just night-out rough. Worse than that.”

“He’s probably burned out,” says Nicole sagely. “He needs to learn to self-care. He should come to my yoga class.”

“Right,” I say doubtfully. “I can’t really see Jake doing yoga.”

“Exactly! And that’s the problem,” says Nicole, as though she’s solved everything. “See you.”

She wafts out before I can respond, and I stare after her. Maybe she’s right; maybe Jake is burned out. He’s always been about more, Jake, his whole life. More money, more status, more stuff for him, more stuff for Leila … But how’s he paying for it all? With his health?

Maybe I should talk to him. I wanted to have it out with him about the food storage department—but this is more important.

I leave it for an hour, telling all the staff to stay away from the back room. Then I cautiously push open the door and survey Jake. He opens his eyes a chink and peers back at me blearily.

“Hi,” I say. “You fell asleep. You must have been tired.”

Jake rubs his face, checks his watch, and says irritably, “Jesus.” He pulls his phone out of his pocket and starts scrolling down his messages, wincing as he does so.

A few ravens begin to flap around my head, because Jake sometimes bites your head off if you ask him personal questions. But I can’t just let this go by. I have to say something.

“Jake,” I venture, “you look exhausted. Are you working too hard? Are you burned out?”

“Burned out!” Jake echoes with a short laugh, looking up from his phone for a nanosecond. He turns his eyes back to his screen and I watch as tension creeps up on his face. I’ve never thought of Jake as vulnerable before. But right now he looks anxious and beleaguered and weary, even though he’s just had a nap.

“Are you doing too many deals?” I try again. “Are you overwhelmed?”

“You know what’s overwhelming?” says Jake, and there’s a sudden edge to his voice which makes me wince. “Life. Just life.”

“Well, why don’t you slow down a bit? Why don’t you have a break?”

Jake puts down his phone and stares at me silently for a moment. His face is strained but his eyes are unreadable. Yet again, I realize I don’t know my brother very well.

“You’ve got a good heart,” he says. “Dad used to say that about you. D’you remember?”

“Dad?” I stare at him. “No.”

“When you were little. Nicole and I used to push you around in the wheelbarrow. And you fell out the whole time, but you always laughed. You never whinged.”

“The wheelbarrow!” A memory comes to me—an old wheelbarrow with red handles on our scrubby lawn—and I almost laugh in delight. “Yes!”

“You were cute.” A smile passes across Jake’s face and I think I can see genuine affection there, a nostalgia for the past. I smile timidly back, hoping we might talk like this for a while longer.

But already Jake is preoccupied by his phone again. “I’ve got to go,” he says, standing up.

“Wait,” I say eagerly. “Could we just have a word about storage containers?”

“Storage containers? Jesus, Fixie.”

All the softness disappears from his face. He’s back to impatient, scornful Jake again.

“What’s wrong with storage containers?” I retort before I can stop myself, but Jake just rolls his eyes.

“I do not have time for this,” he says, and strides out of the room.

I stare after him, prickling with stress, thinking, How did that go so wrong? when a text bleeps from my phone. I haul it out of my pocket, half-thinking it might be from Jake—but as I see the name, my stomach flips over. It’s from Seb.

It’s been ten days since his accident, and I thought I’d never hear from him again. I thought he was recuperating with Briony, playing chess and laughing uproariously at all their private jokes.

I wonder what he wants. I mean, it’s probably nothing.… It’s probably another mistake.…

Despising my fingers for trembling, I press on the text and read it.

Hello, guardian angel. I have a thank-you gift for you. Are you around this evening? Seb

—