Gabe hesitated, then exhaled and threw up his hands. ‘Oh, for God’s sake. We’ll try it, then.
Seeing as I don’t have any choice.’
‘Good call,’ said Doug.
‘But only for a couple of weeks. Then she has to move out. And I’m not living like this.’ Gabe gestured at the floor in disgust.
‘We’ll help you clear the stuff away, won’t we?’ Lola beamed hopefully at Doug; now she could impress him by showing him how great she was at tidying up.
But Doug just looked at her as if she’d gone mad. ‘Me? Not a chance, I’m out of here. And you,’
he instructed Sally, ‘behave yourself and don’t give him a reason to chop you into pieces. Just try and get along together, OK? And put your clothes away once in a while.’
‘Not once in a while!’ Gabe exploded. ‘All the time!’
‘Oh, don’t start already,’ Sally jeered. ‘You sound like such an old woman.’
Doug forestalled their bickering. ‘My work here is done.’ His gaze fixed on Lola. ‘You can show me out.’
Lola’s breathing quickened; she so desperately wanted him to stop regarding her as the wickedest woman in Britain.
In the hallway downstairs Doug came straight to the point. ‘What was that about prison, earlier?’
He didn’t miss a trick.
‘What?’ Lola thought rapidly.
‘Your friend Gabe mentioned prison.Then he looked embarrassed and apologised. Who’s been to prison?’
‘My father.’
‘Really? God. Alex?’ Doug frowned. ‘What happened?’
Lola felt her throat tighten. ‘Not Alex. My real father. His name’s Nick James.’ Her voice began to wobble. ‘It’s all been a bit strange really. I only met him for the first time yesterday. Well, that’s not true, he’s been coming into Kingsley’s and chatting to me but it wasn’t until last night that he actually told me he was my real d-dad. And there was me, dressed like a r-rabbit ... God, sorry, I wasn’t expecting this to h-h-happen. Must be having some kind of delayed reaction.’
Hastily she pulled a tissue out of her bra and wiped her eyes. ‘To be honest I think it’s all c-come as a bit of a sh-shock.’
‘OK, don’t cry.’ There was a note of desperation in Doug’s voice; this was rather more than he’d been expecting and way more than he could handle. Lola realised he’d never seen her crying before. It was something she hardly ever did in public, darkened cinemas excepted, largely because some girls — the Snow White brigade — might be able to cry prettily but she always turned into a pink blotchy mess. In fact, the only way to hide her face from Doug now was to bury it in his chest.
If only he wouldn’t keep trying to back away...
Finally she managed to corner him against the front door and conceal her blotchiness in his shirt.
Oh yes, this was where she belonged, back in Doug’s arms at last. She’d missed him somuch. If she hadn’t needed to take the money, would they still have been together now? It was heartbreakingly possible.
Gingerly he patted her heaving shoulders. ‘Hey, sshh, everything’ll be all right.’
The fact that he was now being nice to her made the tears fall faster. Nuzzling against the warmth of his chest, making the most of every second, Lola said in a muffled, hiccupy voice,
‘All these years my mum lied to me about my f-father.’
‘And he’s only just come out of prison?’
‘No, that was years ago. Cigarette smuggling, nothing too terrible. He went to prison just before I was born. Pretty ironic really. My mother decided he wasn’t good enough to be my dad, so she refused to let him see me. And then seventeen years later, your mother decided I wasn’t good enough to be your girlfriend.’
‘That is a coincidence.’ Doug paused. Did she offer him twelve thousand pounds to stay away too?’
OK, still bitter.
‘I haven’t even told Mum yet. Heaven knows what she’s going to say when she finds out he’s been in touch. It’s just so much to take in.’ Lola raised her face and wondered if he ever watched romantic movies, the kind she loved, because this would be the perfect moment for him to sweep her into his arms for a passionate Hollywood kiss.
‘You’ve got mascara on your nose.’ Doug evidently hadn’t read the romantic-hero rules.
So close your eyes.
But that didn’t happen. Even less romantically, his phone burst into life in his jacket pocket, less than three inches from her ear.
The spell was broken. Doug disengaged himself and answered the phone. He listened for a few seconds then said, ‘No, sorry, I was held up. I’m on my way now’ He ended the call and opened the front door. ‘I have to go.’
‘Mustn’t be late. Or you’ll get home and fmd your dinner in the dog.’ She was longing —
longing — to know who he was rushing off to meet, but all Doug did was give an infuriating little smile. Almost as if he knew she was fishing for clues.
‘Why were you dressed as a rabbit when you met your father?’
Ha, he wasn’t the only one who could smile infuriatingly. ‘It’s a long story’ Lola was apologetic.
