Sliding Down the Sky (17 page)

I pushed Callum out of my mind. I was determined to be present for her, rather than locked up inside my head, which was where I’d been all morning.

“Right there?”

She nodded, and I obliged, unfolding the blanket and laying it down on the grass. She’d picked a spot away from the house, and she stood watching me while I struggled to smooth the corners of the blanket down, one by one, until it was flat. Nothing less would’ve been acceptable. She had very high standards when it came to her tea parties.

“Good?” I asked, kneeling on the edge and awaiting her seal of approval.

She nodded, all businesslike as she put her pink plastic basket down on the blanket.

“Now, tea party,” she said.

I watched her take out her plastic tea set, laying it all out carefully on the blanket, all the while chattering away. I was so jealous. How wonderful it would’ve been to not have a care in the world.

“You have this one,” she said, giving me the yellow cup, saucer and matching plastic plate.

“What about the pink one?”

She tut-tutted, as if I were the child and she were the adult.

“Pink one mine, Sassy.”

I smiled. Of course it was. Pink was her favourite colour.

Voices from the house drew our attention. Almost at the same time, we both turned to see Callum and Gemma walking out the back door. My heart pounded just seeing him. It was as if I’d conjured him up from thin air. It was disconcerting to say the least, but Aria didn’t seem nearly as affected by his appearance as I was.

“Boys,” she said simply. “Boys okay at tea parties?”

There was no point making it more awkward.

“Sure,” I said, trying to keep things casual. “Why not? It might be fun.”

She seemed satisfied with that, and scrambled upright, running to meet him as he walked across the lawn. Gemma retreated into the house, the traitor.

“Hi,” I heard him say, as Aria reached him.

With her usual lack of tact, she pointed to his face.

“Ouch. Hurt?”

“Huh?” He touched his head briefly, and I could see the bruise from where I sat. “This? No, it’s okay.”

She seemed happy with that, grabbing his hand and dragging him over the lawn towards me.

“Have tea wif me and Sassy!”

She pulled him down onto the blanket beside me. I had kicked my shoes off and sat cross-legged, my arms resting in my lap. His leg brushed against mine as he sat, and it sent an unwelcome jolt through me. Once again, I felt like my body was betraying me, but this time it had nothing to do with phantom sensation. This sensation was very real. Too real.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hi,” he smiled uncertainly. “What’s going on here, then?”

“Tea party!” Aria cried, clapping her hands before sitting down opposite us.

I hoped he hadn’t come with a thousand questions, because I really wasn’t in the mood for questions. Not today. Today, I was trying to pretend the outside world didn’t exist. I glanced over at him, noting the bruises. He shrugged, but I’d already seen the way he winced when he sat down. Apparently, I could add ‘strong, silent type’ to the list of things I knew about him, which was still embarrassingly short.

He carefully tented his knees, resting his forearms on them.

“I can honestly say, I’ve never been to tea party before,” he said.

Aria’s eyes grew wide and she stopped digging around in her basket to stare at him openly.

“No tea party?”

He may as well have said he’d never heard of Santa Claus.

“You obviously don’t have sisters,” I said.

He shook his head.

“There was just me and my brother.”

“You have a brother?”

“I... not anymore, no. He died.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, cringing internally.

He shrugged it off graciously.

“It was a long time ago. We were just kids.” He paused, frowning. “This is so weird. I haven’t talked about him in years.”

Aria stood up and walked over to him, lacing her arms around his neck in a tight hug. He was completely taken aback, as was I. Aria’s capacity for love and comfort was endless, as I knew well. I’d never seen her be that familiar with someone she’d barely met before, though. After a few moments, his arms wrapped around her little body gently. I was jealous. Irrationally so, but jealous just the same.

“Thanks,” he murmured, as she let him go.

She stood in front of him for a moment, assessing him, as she’d done to me on many occasions. It was as if she was trying to reassure herself that he was alright. He took the scrutiny well, and then she sat back down opposite us, cross-legged, and turned her attention back to the basket she’d brought outside with her.

Callum and I exchanged a wordless glance, and I could tell he was moved by her affection. My heart sighed. He cleared his throat as Aria handed him a blue cup, saucer and matching plate.

“This yours.”

He held onto them awkwardly, his huge hands dwarfing them.

“Blue, for boys,” she said, as if that explained everything.

“Ah. Right. Thanks.”

He smiled, obviously highly entertained by her reasoning, and much more relaxed, too. He leaned in closer to me.

“What do I do with them?”

His eyes were pretty impressive up close, a blue that was almost azure, like the Mediterranean. The ever-present five o’clock shadow leant him a roguish charm that made his eyes stand out even more. I found myself struggling to keep my mind on his question.

“This really is your first tea party, isn’t it?”

“Cut me some slack, okay? And keep me in the loop, so I don’t embarrass myself?”

My lips twitched, and he stared at me blankly, mischief sparkling in his eyes. It was exhausting, trying to keep up with his many guises.

“Don’t you dare hang me out to dry here,” he warned. “I’m a tea party virgin – have a heart. Karma, remember?”

Despite the residual anxiety, I stifled a chuckle, indicating my own tea set sitting on the blanket in front of me.

“Right,” he said, following my lead and layering his set the same way.

Tea cup, saucer, plate.

“I get the tea now,” Aria said, standing up with her pink plastic teapot in her hand.

She looked sternly from me to Callum and back again, as if she was afraid we would make a run for it in her absence.

“You stay here.”

We both nodded.

“Is she seriously getting real tea?” he murmured, turning from the retreating Aria back to me.

I couldn’t resist pulling his leg, he was so serious.

“Totally. She brews it herself. It’s special stuff, Gemma orders it online. It comes in little pink teabags, and it looks a hell of a lot like glitter. Tastes a bit like marzipan.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“No,” I smiled. “She’s probably getting juice, or water.”

“Ah. Okay. Good. I suppose a beer’s out of the question? No, it’s okay. Don’t answer that, I was kidding.”

He shifted around on the blanket, getting more comfortable, and his arm brushed against mine. I willed my heart to be still this time, but it blindly ignored me, racing in my chest like a herd of stampeding elephants.

Obviously, he had no intention of going anywhere, so I asked the one question that had been on my mind since he arrived.

“What are you doing here, anyway?”

“I heard about the tea party and I wanted in.”

There it was again, that hint of mischief. The way he flitted from mood to mood made my head spin.

“Kidding – again. Obviously. I wanted to see you.”

The twinkle was gone, and his expression was one of concern, and that same endearing uncertainty that kept reeling me in, time after time. As if he was overstepping the mark but he hoped I wouldn’t notice.

“I mean,” he corrected himself. “I wanted to see how you were doing.”

It wasn’t so much that he was overstepping the mark. It was more that he was tap-dancing along it before running straight over it at full speed.

“I’m fine,” I said quickly. “As long as I stay here.”

He searched my eyes as if he were trying to gauge my sincerity. I wasn’t sure what he saw there, but it made me nervous. I cleared my throat and busily began to rearrange my tea set on the blanket in front of me.

“Yellow,” I said, trying to inject a bit of levity into the conversation. “For cowards. Apt, don’t you think?”

He didn’t reply and after a few moments, I looked up at him. He was staring at me intently.

“You’re not a coward. Far from it.”

“Feels like I am,” I murmured, turning my attention back to the tea set on the blanket in front of me because it was safer.

When he looked at me like that, it was like he was trying to burrow down beneath my defensive wall, and it scared me. Leo and Gemma rarely managed to get that far. He was a virtual stranger, and yet he was there already and he’d made it clear he wasn’t done digging yet.

We heard Aria talking to Gemma as she came out the back door, pink teapot in hand.

“Here comes the tea,” I said, anxious to change the subject.

I picked up my teacup and saucer and held it in my lap, waiting. When I risked a glance over at him, he was just staring back at me like he wanted to say something. Before he could, Aria sat down on the blanket in front of us, proudly holding the teapot.

“Tea?” she asked.

“Don’t hide your scars. They make you who you are.”

– Frank Sinatra

Callum

I’d never spent much time with kids, I didn’t really know any. Mostly, they mystified me. I remembered what Sass had said, about kids and drunks being similar. Strangely, it helped. She was right, and the more time I spent with Aria, the more similarities I could find.

When it came to instructions, keep things simple. Check.

Put your foot down when things get out of hand. Check.

Use your powers of negotiation. Check.

I guess the fact that I’d spent a good proportion of my adulthood drunk, or bordering on it, made a difference. I understood how it was from the other side of the fence.

One thing about drunks though, they didn’t tend to be obsessed with the colour pink.

After the tea party, Aria had insisted I see her bedroom. It was weird, because that had always been the guest room. To see it now, filled with all things girly in a thousand different shades of pink, made it look completely different, and definitely lived in. Sass followed us around as Aria took it upon herself to show me almost every book on her bookshelf, her bedside lamp (in the shape of a fairy and – no surprises there – pink), her pink fluffy blanket and a selection of her favourite dolls (of which there were many). I was glad I hadn’t over-indulged at the bar last night. I think that tour landing on top of a hangover would’ve sent me over the edge.

I’d never met a kid with as much confidence. She wasn’t cocky, but she was sure as hell assertive. Bossy, even. Despite that, she really was fun to be around. She treated me carefully, like I was bordering on mentally deficient. It was kind of funny, actually, like she had taken it on herself to educate me, a new puppy she had been tasked with training.

I could tell from the way she and Sass were together that they were close. They were like sisters, but Sass was quite comfortable pulling rank when necessary. Most of the time, though, the line was blurred. Aria didn’t seem at all concerned with Sass’s arm, although she was careful of it, and I could see the inhibitions fade away when they were together. It was the most relaxed I’d ever seen her.

Sass sat on the bed, as Aria and I sat on the floor.

“Hey, you guys,” Gemma said, appearing in the doorway with Leo right behind her. “We’re gonna get going. I’ve made dinner. It’s in the oven, turned on low. Should be ready in about half an hour.”

“Are you off already?” Sass asked.

“Yeah. I’ve got dinner for me and Leo, we’ll just warm it up in the microwave at the bar later.”

Aria stood up and ran to her father, who picked her up and squeezed her tight.

“Goodnight, Doodlebug. Love you. You be good for Sassy, okay?”

“Okay Daddy.”

He put her down and Aria repeated the process with Gemma.

“Why don’t you stay for dinner?” she asked, putting Aria down again as she addressed me. “There’s more than enough for the three of you.”

“She’s right – plenty to go around,” Leo said, digging his car keys out of his pocket.

I glanced quickly at Sass, who was doing a good job of trying to blend into the background. I grabbed the bull by the horns.

“Sure, I’d love to. If it’s okay with you?”

Sass smiled, nodding.

“Sure.”

“Yay!” Aria cried, throwing her arms in the air like she’d just won the lottery.

“I think you have a fan,” Leo grinned, tousling her blonde curls.

“It’s settled then,” Gemma smiled. “You guys enjoy your night, and we’ll see you later.”

“Bye.”

Aria didn’t seem to suffer from any sort of separation anxiety, and she continued talking me through her doll collection as her parents went off to work. Twenty minutes later, Sass suggested we adjourn to the living room and I was quietly relieved. Secretly, I was looking forward to Aria being tucked up in bed so I could spend some time with Sass in private. I had a funny feeling that she was dreading it for the same reason, but I didn’t let that deter me. Something told me she’d been using Aria as a kind of buffer. I wasn’t sure why she felt she needed one, but I was interested to see what she was like without her.

For so long, my Saturday nights had been spent in Barney’s. Tonight, they would be spent trying to get behind the walls that Sass Hathaway had built around herself. I’d seen a different side of her that day, and it had given me a little more of an insight, one that I intended to use as a foundation block.

“Okay, dinnertime,” Sass announced, poking her head out of the kitchen.

Aria and I were sitting on the couch, watching TV. Some hellishly annoying kids show that I’d never seen before. It seemed creepy as hell to me, but she seemed to like it, and it was approved viewing according to Sass.

“Aria, time to wash up,” she said.