Dad had a stroke. They caught it early, but he still needs to work to get better, to come home. Mobility and fight is needed, and my dear old dad just wants it to be over, I think. I did think that he might find love again, he has a friendship with a woman from the sandwich shop that is basically marriage, without the acknowledgement or funny business. And now I’m thinking about funny business and my dad, and I’d better sign off. I just wanted you to know why I’m here. I want to enter that competition, and even if I break my neck, if it gets my dad off his arse, it’s worth it. My dad lost the person he loved most in the world, and so he kept me close, so nothing could happen to me. The only trouble was, by doing this my whole life, nothing did happen to me. None of the lows, or the life lessons. He didn’t take risks. Getting better to go home to a lonely isolated life, I think he’s realised he doesn’t want that, but he’d rather die than try. I really think if I do this, if I show my dad how life CAN change, be better, full of colour, I really think I can save him, or get him to save himself, and that’s what brought me here. It’s been worth every single awkward moment too.
Especially because I met you. It’s corny I know, but I am glad, Becks. So very glad I fell into your café doors that day. Come find me when you’ve read this. I need to kiss you, and see your face. Don’t laugh at me being soppy.
Yours,
Luke
Rebecca read the pages twice, and let the puzzle pieces of Luke form a complete picture in her mind. This was a man who fell over his own shadow, but he was fighting to keep his family together. And his own life, judging by how busy his clients kept him. She put the papers back into the envelope and pushed it back into her apron pocket. Opening the drawer beside her, she pulled out the competition entry for the Alpine Challenge. She’d filled it in, it was ready to go. She tapped her finger on the form, making it bob up and down in her grasp. Luke was going to the offices later to take his entry in, she could go with him. Take hers. Enter. Shut her mother up. She could manage one, surely? Even if she tanked, so what? She wouldn’t be trying to beat her own record then, she wouldn’t have that pressure. No one had failed there yet. It was brand new. Until she failed of course, and that would make her the first loser for the comp. Nice.
The door knocked downstairs then, and Eloise shouted out ‘Sorry Bec, but we’re filling up!’
Damn it. She’d been up here a while. Dropping the form on the bed, she ran downstairs.
‘No worries, coming!’
*
Luke’s phone rang, the shrill tones making him jump. He’d just finished a long day with Hans, and he needed to get showered for his date, and get his entry form taken into the competition offices.
‘Urggghh,’ he moaned when he saw who had called him. One of his best clients. He had to get it, even though he was super pushed for time. The guy was due to open his first business the following month, he was imploding with panic over his website, and Luke leaving had seemingly sent the man over the edge.
‘Hello?’ He tried to be as professional as he could whilst half naked and still thawing his body parts out. ‘No, don’t worry about that. Can I help?’
Last night had been another amazing night. The best date. Not that Luke had a wealth of dating history to choose from, but he had been on dates. He wasn’t exactly a virgin, but he might as well have been. In Rebecca’s bed, he felt like everything was brand new. He stroked her pillow as his client explained his problem, and then stopped himself because it was a bit stalkerish. The perfume sniffing was bad enough. He just loved being here, with her. The client kept chatting in his ear.
‘Right, okay,’ Luke spoke into the handset. ‘Let me get a pen, you tell me what you think you need to change, and we’ll get it sorted. Plenty of time before the grand opening.’
He was good at what he did. He always felt confident with work. IT never let him down. His dad used to joke that he was more computer chips than boy growing up, and he wasn’t wrong. Luke had loved technology for as long as he could remember. I think it’s how it connects us to people. It makes the world feel a little bit smaller, a little less scary. Dad always said that people were what mattered.
Looking round at his surroundings right now, he could only agree. Getting out in the world, whether online or in person, was better than not connecting at all.
‘Do you have a pen?’ the client asked. Luke looked across at the bedside table, but it was empty bar a glass half full of wine from the night before.
The client was already chattering away. Luke looked around for a pen, padding around the room naked and trying to ignore the fact that his toes felt like they were going to shrivel up with the cold and
