“Sounds good to me.” Noah looked questioningly at Keira.
“Me too,” she said, smiling at Mel’s enthusiasm.
“I’m making your favourite dinner tonight,” Mel said as she backed out of the room. “I’ll get started on it now.”
As she waltzed away, Noah draped an arm around Keira’s shoulders. “Are you okay?”
“Yes.” She pushed on her toes to kiss him.
A relaxed night with Mel was exactly what Keira needed. It passed in a blur of laughing and drinking and easy conversation. Fairly inevitably, the end of the night descended into Keira and Mel gushing about how much they loved each other and how much they were going to miss each other.
Noah pointed out that it wasn’t even their last night together and complained that he’d have to hear the same conversations again the following night. They told him he probably would as he directed them to their respective bedrooms.
The remainder of the packing would have been quicker without a hangover. As it was, Keira stirred when she heard Mel getting up for work, then went back to sleep for a couple of hours. It was almost lunchtime when she convinced Noah that they really needed to get out of bed and get organised.
Mel finished work early, arriving home in the middle of the afternoon to sit on Keira’s bed with Noah, chatting away while Keira finished off her packing.
Keira had just zipped up her suitcase when her phone rang. Her heart raced when she saw it was her dad. She completely ignored Mel, who was trying to hand her a cup of tea, having just made fresh mugs for them all.
“It’s my dad,” she whispered, staring at the phone.
“Answer it.” Mel put the mugs on the bedside table and sat beside Noah. Both of them watched intently as she accepted the call.
“Your mum said you’re leavingtomorrow,” her dad stated accusingly.
“Yes.”
“I thought you meant you were going in a couple of months or something. I didn’t know it would be so soon.”
“Maybe if you’d have taken the time to speak to me, you’d have realised that.” She sighed, trying not to get caught up in her anger. “I didn’t really know it would happen so quickly, but I’m all packed and I leave tomorrow morning.”
“Right.” The silence down the line felt loaded. “I’d like to see you before you go.”
“I came to visit you on Wednesday. You weren’t interested in seeing me.”
“I had some stuff to do. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see you. What about dinner this evening?”
“Noah’s here,” she said, her words clipped. “And I already told Mel we’d hang out with her tonight.” As she said it, Mel widened her eyes and shook her head forcefully, making Keira’s resolve wane. “I guess I could rearrange things …”
“We could come over to you,” her dad said slowly. “Me and your mum could bring dinner. Nothing fancy … we could pick up fish and chips on the way over … enough for your friends too.”
“Um…” The shock must have been evident on her face given the puzzled looks she was getting from Noah and Mel. “I suppose that’s fine.”
“Is six o’clock okay?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll just get fish and chips for everyone?”
“Yes.” The conversation had her slightly shell-shocked and she was struggling to think straight.
Her dad told her he’d see her later and hung up.
“My parents are bringing fish and chips round for us later,” she told Noah and Mel. “We can still go to the pub afterwards. Is that okay?”
“Of course. It doesn’t matter about the pub.” Noah reached for her and pulled her to stand between his legs. “It’s good that your dad wants to see you before you leave.”
“Yeah.” She trailed a hand through his hair, not daring to hope they could sort things out before she moved. “I really hope he does want to see me and it’s not that he thinks it’s his last opportunity to take money from me.”