“Is that what this is? You being nosy?” If it was, I wanted a turn.
Fen’s only answer was the packet of bacon he slapped on the kitchen counter. “I hope you like sandwiches because I pretty much live on them.”
Worked for me. I watched him fry bacon and butter bread while I gave him the short version of how I’d messed up enough to wind up stranded in his house with him for however long it took the road to clear. “It never occurred to me to check the weather. It’s been such a chaotic year, I forgot it was even winter.”
The lights on Fen’s tree changed their pattern, flickering in a rhythm that made my eyes twitch.
Fen chuckled. “You can blame Addie for that too. He couldn’t decide which one he liked so we set it to random.”
“My nephew decorated your Christmas tree?”
“And your niece. It was payment for the Norway spruce I gave Paddy to haul back up to their place.”
“That was nice of you.”
“They’re nice people.”
“I know. That’s why I came here.”
“To leave Charlie with Safia?”
The bacon was done. Fen fished it from the pan and placed it on the thick bread. He already knew I liked ketchup instead of brown sauce because we’d had that debate on the wing with an anxious inmate, a diversion technique that had worked far better than anything I’d ever learned from a textbook.
He passed me a plate and a bottle of Heinz.
I doctored my butty and pulled a face at the HP sauce he preferred. “That shit tastes like pickled onions.”
“And your point?”
“It’s disgusting.”
“All right, lad. Enjoy your jam on bread.”
The familiar exchange almost distracted me from the fact that Fen clearly knew the youngest members of my family better than I did. Then an ornament on the tree caught my eye. It was made of a cardboard tube and had eight faces drawn on it with crayon. Names were scrawled beneath each one: Mummo, Dadda, Addie, Mae, Uncle Rama, Uncle Damon, baby Charlie, and…Uncle Fen. He was the last face drawn next to mine, though with the purple beard the artist had given him, I’d never have guessed. Sandwich forgotten, I drifted to the tree and hooked the cardboard tube free from its branch. “How long have you had my portrait hanging in your kitchen?”
Fen frowned. “What?”
I held up the tube, turning so that his face and mine were on full display. “Missed me that much, eh? You could’ve, like, messaged me for nudes instead.”
A beat of silence thudded between us and I wondered if I’d gone too far. For all Fen liked to flirt, he’d never taken it to the gutter. Then he abandoned his own breakfast and crossed the room in two long-legged strides. He took the ornament from me and stared as if he’d never seen it before. “Damn,” he whispered. “That’s…I don’t even know what it is. Addie made this last year—it’s why Lalla isn’t on it—and I can’t imagine how I’d have ever looked at it and thought of you.”
“You don’t see the likeness?” My tone was dry, because in all honesty, there was none, and ever since Addie had coined me Uncle Rama when he’d been Charlie’s age, no other fucker in my family had called me by my actual name.
Fen fell quiet, lost in thought. I moved to take the ornament from him, but as fate was playing hardball today, naturally I missed and grabbed his wrist instead.
My fingers wrapped of their own accord around his strong forearm, but tightening my hold was a conscious choice. It had to be—it felt too good to be an accident. “For what it’s worth, I’d have called you if I’d had any clue how to find you.”
Fen smiled a soft smile that was as haunted as it was lovely. “I felt the same once I got back here and put my head back together. The irony that you were etched on that damn trinket all along is killing me.”
“Don’t die. I need you to make me those banging cups of tea.”
“Fair enough.” Fen hung the ornament back on the tree. “It must be pretty strange for you to realise I’ve been around your family this whole time and you had no idea.”
“That’s one word for it. They’ve never mentioned you by name, but then, every conversation I’ve had with Safia in the last…shit, however long this clusterfuck has lasted—has been about Damon and Charlie. It’s consumed us.”
“I can imagine. I know she was worried about him for a long time. She was worried about you too, I—” Fen shook his head. “Sorry.”
“What? What is it?”
“I just wish I’d known it was you. Maybe I could’ve helped.”
“What would you have done? Told my sister I was the bloke you’d been chatting up at work for a year and half and offered to be my live-in manny so I could take Charlie from Leanne before she got a chance to dump him?” It came out in an unpunctuated rush, and louder than I meant it too. “Fuck, I’m sorry. None of this is your problem.”
“Telling me about it doesn’t make it my problem.” Fen covered my hand with his and guided me back to the kitchen counter before he detached us. “Eat your breakfast.”
I obeyed while he watched me, but it didn’t feel as weird as it might’ve done if I’d had prior warning of this Twilight Zone morning. When I was done, he took my plate to the sink in a repeat of our dead-of-night snack. His back called to me again, though I couldn’t say why. I liked his face just as much and zeroed in on it the moment he turned around.
“What happens now?” he asked. “With Charlie, I mean. Is Safia going to keep him?”
“That was my plan when I hurled us up here last night, but perspective and a couple of sandwiches apparently do magical things for brain power.”
“How so?”
“I have parental responsibility for him—legally, as well as—” I brought my fist to my chest— “you know.”
“Safia could get that if it was what you both wanted. He’d have a grand life up here, and she’s the best mum.”
“I know that.”
“So…”
I tipped my cooled tea down my throat. “I don’t want to not be his parent, I just—” I closed my eyes, tracking Fen’s soft tread as he neared me again.
“It’s okay,” he whispered. “Whatever you feel isn’t wrong and none of this is fair to any of you.”
“Don’t be so reasonable.”
“Don’t be so guarded. It’s just you and me here. You can say what you need to say.”
I opened my eyes. Fen was right beside me, his gaze shimmering with the kind of empathy I’d never seen in anyone else, even the people who loved me most. He gets me. How I knew after such a short time in his company I had no idea, but it was true. I felt it. Believed it. “I don’t want to do it alone. It fucking scares me.”
“Then don’t do it alone. Stay up here with Safia and raise him on the mountain.”
A half-crazed laugh bubbled out of me. “Yeah, that’s not going to work for me.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m not a man-of-the-mountain kind of bloke.”