Page 78 of Kiss Me Like You Mean It

‘Do you like working at the inn?’ she asks.

‘What?’ I pull back, thrown by the question.

‘You’ve done an amazing job there, it looks beautiful, but do you enjoy it?’

‘Sure. It’s hard work but it’s satisfying. I like feeling useful.’

‘Yeah,’ she points her finger at me, ‘that. You know, when I used to ask you about your job you would light up. You couldn’t wait to tell me about what you’d been doing, what you’d seen. You didn’t go anywhere without your camera. Not since you were fourteen, Nico!’

‘What do you want me to say?’ My chest feels tight.

‘I want you to tell me why you’ve stopped taking photographs.’

‘You know why. I have to be here. I can’t drop everything and disappear for weeks to take photos on the other side of the world.’

‘But is that really the only option?’

‘Why are we talking about this? I don’t…’ I trail off, try to organise my thoughts. ‘I don’t know how to do it,’ I say finally.

‘To do what?’

‘I don’t know how to do the job I love without it being all that I am. Before, I took the assignments I liked, I went where the whim took me, in search of something… beautiful or moving or wild. I’ve never had any other ties or responsibilities before, and so my work was my life. But now my life is… something else.’

And that’s the problem. I don’t really understand what the something else is, but how do I explain that to Lee? How can you have a clear picture of the future when you’ve spent a year with your head down just putting one foot in front of the other? The only thing I know for sure is that I need to be here for Phoebe. Photography has always been such an all-consuming presence in my life that it never left room for much else, but my daughter deserves one hundred per cent of me and I have no idea how to keep a hold on any part of my old life without bringing my new one crashing down.

‘I get that,’ Lee says slowly. ‘I understand why you want to be the perfect parent, but surely it doesn’t mean pretending such an important part of your life doesn’t exist?’

‘It feels easier to pretend that it doesn’t exist than to try and live with only a piece of it.’

Lee’s expression softens. ‘Nico,’ she breathes, and I’m temporarily distracted from whatever she’s about to say by that – the shape of my name on her lips. Her eyes are so pretty, I notice, such a deep blue, fringed with long, dark lashes. Am I drunk? I only had a few glasses of wine but suddenly I feel drunk. ‘I know that you have this idea of yourself… that your dad made you feel…’ she hesitates, as if sorting through the words. ‘I need you to know that you’re not some… reckless wastrel.’

‘Wow, Daisy!’ I can’t help but smile at that. ‘Don’t think anyone has used wastrel in a sentence for quite a few decades.’

She squeezes my arms as if she wants to give me a shake. ‘Shut up and listen! You have this deep-held belief that you’re unreliable or careless, because that’s what he told you over and over again, but it’s not true. You said it yourself: you could travel where you wanted because you weren’t beholden to anyone.’

‘Beholden,’ I murmur, but she ignores me, all lit up with something and, whatever it is, my heart is beating harder.

‘But as soon as you found out about Phoebe, you were here. No questions asked. You changed your entire life for her. That’s not what a careless person does. You don’t need to change who you are. You don’t need to give up the thing you love like some sort of penance.’

Fuck. There’s a real tender part of my soul that she’s reaching right into here. I’m startled by an intimacy between us that I’ve never really acknowledged before, that Lee knows me this way, that she understands what’s bothering me without any need to explain myself. I guess this is what almost thirty years in each other’s lives looks like.

‘Being a parent is the ultimate responsibility,’ I say, and my voice is rough. ‘And I’ve never done responsibility before. My dad loved to remind me of that at any opportunity. Even from beyond the fucking grave with this whole inheritance nightmare. I can’t be the person I was a year ago. I don’t know how to trust myself with that, to trust myself with Phoebe. She’s precious and I’m so scared I’m going to fuck it up.’

Lee smiles. ‘I think that’s standard for any parent. But if it helps, I know you won’t fuck it up.’

‘You do?’

‘If Jack or Gran were in trouble, they’d call you, Nico. Your mum, too. You’re not irresponsible. You’ve always taken care of people, it’s a huge part of who you are. Who sat in the grass making daisy chains with me? Who was right there in the hospital with Gran last year? You.’

She’s looking at me with this earnest expression and I swear my chest is aching.

‘And you?’ I ask, suddenly needing to know the answer. ‘If you were in trouble. Would you call me?’

Her lashes lower so I can’t see the look in her eyes. She lets go of my arms and takes a step back, the movement careful.

‘You’ve always been my safe place, Nico,’ she says softly. ‘So… yes, even though I probably shouldn’t. I’d call you.’

‘I’m glad about that,’ I murmur, and I give in to the urge to brush the loose wave of golden hair away from her face, to tuck it tenderly behind her ear. ‘I’d want you to.’