‘Are you thirsty?’ Jannes asked as they entered the cooler air of the hotel lobby, the door swishing closed after them, shutting out the sound of the christening party not far behind.
‘A tactical retreat,’ she said. ‘Nothing worse than being ambushed in a churchyard.’
‘I’ll have to take your word on that one. Your dad?’ he added gently. ‘Or are the mums worse?’
‘Dad. He was at the church. Don’t know if he’s coming here, but if he does I want to see him before he sees me.’ Especially given the thoughts that she’d been having recently. The ones where she compared her behaviour to his and started to realise that he probably hadn’t wanted to hurt her. That her pain over the years had come from his failings, but not necessarily his malice. Did it matter, that she could see more clearly what had happened now? Should it make a difference to her, knowing that maybe he had still loved her, even while he was hurting her? That things weren’t as clear-cut and simple as she had made them when she was a teenager.
‘When was the last time you spoke to him?’ Jannes asked.
She tried to keep her voice matter-of-fact. ‘The night we left home and went to live with Pip and her mum. He tried, for a while, to get me to speak to him, but he gave up eventually. I’m sure he won’t even care that I’m here today but I don’t want to risk it.’
‘Okay, well, I’m here. Just tell me what you need.’
It was only as she squeezed his hand that she realised that she was still holding it, though there was no risk of losing one another here, and no one they were trying to convince they were a couple either. She should pull away, she knew, keep straight what they were to each other—what was pretence and what was real—but she didn’t want to. And Jannes wasn’t pulling away either.
‘So what’s the play if we see him? Offence or defence?’ Jannes asked.
She wished she was relaxed enough to feel grateful to him, but she couldn’t yet. Couldn’t think much beyond the fact that her father was going to be in the same room any minute now, and she hadn’t decided what she was going to do when she saw him. ‘Which is the one where I down my G&T?’
‘Defence, then,’ Jannes clarified, scanning the room behind them.
‘Keep at least five people between us at all times, please?’ Lara said. ‘And if you block my view of him with your big manly shoulders then even better.’
‘You think my shoulders are big and manly?’
She rolled her eyes. ‘Is that really what you’re taking away from this conversation?’
‘Yes, I’m your distraction, remember? Let me distract you.’ She smiled at the way that he always seemed to know how to get through to her. Knew exactly what she needed.
‘You’re definitely that,’ she said. ‘Have you spoken to Mormor while you’ve been away?’ It had taken her two weeks to get her head around the last spanner that Mormor had thrown in the works. She needed to know that there weren’t going to be any others heading in their direction.
Jannes shook his head. ‘No, and I dread to think what she’s been up to since I’ve been gone.’
‘Well, you
can put “aggressively liking my posts on Instagram” on the list,’ Lara said.
‘Oh, no, tell me she hasn’t. She’s never liked one of my posts.’
Lara gave a tight smile. ‘Ah, well, you’ve got a treat ahead of you. Anything remotely regarding the two of us and she is very enthusiastic with the emojis.’
‘Stop it. No. I can’t...’ Jannes wheezed, desperately trying to hold in a laugh, the bastard. She could see his shoulders shake, and realised how much she loved that. Making him lose control, even like this. Even when it was pissing her off at the same time.
‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you,’ she said with a smug smile.
But then a buzzing started in her ears, and she lost the sense of what Jannes was saying until his hand cupped her cheek and her eyes snapped back to him.
‘Dad alert?’ he asked.
‘Yes. Just arrived. Get your shoulders over here.’
She pulled him into position so that she was shielded from view for most of the room, and tried to track her dad’s progress as he made small talk with various relatives.
‘So your mum and Gloria still think you need therapy, huh,’ Jannes said quietly, so only she could hear.
‘Something like that,’ she replied, still peering around his shoulders, trying to keep an eye on her dad without him seeing her.
‘And you’re resistant to this idea because...’ Jannes prompted.