Someone Else's Shoes(75)

She looks up at him. “I don’t suppose you have any idea who she is?”

He frowns at the image, moves along so that he can see the other people around her. Scans back and forth.

“Uh . . . I think that’s the Uberprint lot.”

“The what?”

“The print firm over there. Yeah. Look—I can see Joel there behind her. He’s the one with dreadlocks. And Ted. They’re always in here on a Friday.”

“Uberprint,” she repeats. “Can you write that down for me?”

And then, as he hands her the piece of paper, she smiles, an abrupt, genuine, full-wattage smile of joy and gratitude, the kind of smile Nisha rarely bestows in her normal life. And Milo, gratified, smiles right back at her. They gaze at each other for a moment.

“I don’t suppose—”

“Don’t even think about it,” she says, and hops off the bar stool.



* * *



? ? ?

He is alone in the kitchen when she arrives, cleaning his station ready for the evening shift. He is bent over, scrubbing at a mark on the stove.

“Hey! Aleks!” He turns at the sound of his name and she runs up to him. “I found who stole my shoes!” she says breathlessly. She cannot help herself. She’s beaming from ear to ear and she does a little air-punch.

“You’re kidding!” he says. “Now you will get your life back!” He smiles abruptly, his whole face suffused with pleasure, drops his cloth, picks her up and swings her round by her waist so that she squeals and her feet lift from the floor. Suddenly, almost without realizing what she’s doing, she’s holding his face between her hands and her lips are on his. He hesitates, just a moment, and then his arms surround her, pulling her in, and his mouth lowers onto hers and he is kissing her back, his lips warm and soft, his skin against hers. She is lost in this kiss, consumed by it, the pressure of his mouth on hers, his strong hands pulling her in. He smells of warm bread, of soap and shampoo. He tastes so good she thinks she may actually want to eat him. She bites his lower lip and he lets out a quiet groan of pleasure and it may be the sexiest thing she has ever heard. Her hand clamps around the back of his neck, her body pressed against his. Time stops and swirls. And then they hear the swing door at the far end of the pastry kitchen and they are abruptly disentangling, her hand to her hair, smoothing it awkwardly as she takes a step back.

Minette carries two aluminum trays of dough aloft, humming to herself, her backside pushing the door as she swivels through. Aleks follows her gaze, then looks back at Nisha. He lets out a breath, as if he has been holding it.

“Well,” she says, as Minette disappears into the pastry kitchen.

“Well,” he repeats. He looks at his shoes, a little discombobulated. She feels a faint sense of gratification. When he looks up again, their eyes meet and she guesses there is faint color in her cheeks.

“You’re . . . clearly not a woman to cross.”

Her smile, when it meets his, contains a hint of mischief. “You’d better believe it,” she says. And then she dusts down the front of her trousers, glances at him again and, because she cannot work out what else to do, walks straight back out of the kitchen door.





twenty-three


The car has died. Of course it has. Four times yesterday Simon had informed her that in no way was she to be late today. There was to be a strategy meeting at nine, a sales meeting at ten, planning at eleven and Head Office were going to be at all the meetings. He’d said it like a warning, like this was bad news for her.

“Phil? . . . Phil?” Cat is in the kitchen, staring at her phone as she eats a slice of toast. “Where’s Dad? He’s not upstairs.”

Cat shrugs.

“Cat? Where’s your father? You must have seen him.”

“Probably in the van.”

She hasn’t got time to think about her daughter’s coldness, the way she no longer looks her in the eye when she speaks, even though this made her cry the previous evening. She grabs her bag and runs outside. The bonnet of the camper-van is up and Phil is underneath it, his upper half obscured.

“The car isn’t starting.”

“Probably the battery. It needs replacing.”

Sam waits for him to extract himself from the engine, but he stays there. “Phil?”

“What?”

“Well, can you help? Do we have any jump leads? I have to be at work for nine or I’m in trouble.”

“Probably best get a cab, then.”

She stands there, staring at her husband’s legs. He’s been out here at all hours for days. At first she was quietly pleased: that Phil was doing anything away from the television was a marvel. But there is something determinedly exclusionary about how much time he spends out here now, like he’d do anything rather than spend any time with her.

“You’re not even going to help?”

Finally he slides himself out from the bonnet and straightens up. His face, when he looks at her, is curiously blank.

“Well, I can’t magic up another battery out of nowhere, can I?”

They lock eyes for a moment and she feels a faint chill at the lack of warmth in his expression. “Well, thanks,” she says finally. “Thanks a bunch.”

Without a word, he takes an oily rag from the side of the engine and disappears back inside it.