Page 51 of Break the Ice

‘Devon. Can you see the dog in our car?’ I say, and Eve looks through the two windshields. ‘We’re delivering him to Phoebe’s family home. He’s a gift for her nieces.’

‘I love that. What’s the dog’s name?’

‘Steve. Hey – he rhymes with your name…’

She laughs and opens her eyes wide at Ruby, who giggles back.

‘Seriously, you guys have saved our bacon,’ Joe says. ‘Can we get you a coffee to say thank you?’

Phoebe puts her hand in the air. ‘I’ll take a coffee. Joshua likes a hot chocolate with squirty cream, don’t you, babe?’

I raise an eyebrow that she went there, but nod for the strangers.

‘I’ll go in with you,’ she says. ‘I’m gagging for a wee.’

There’s a little dance she does to demonstrate this fact to us all, and Eve laughs. ‘Get me a latte, hun. Go large and get me a⁠—’

‘Burger King?’ he says, winking at her. I don’t think I could do a Whopper at this time of the morning, but she laughs as Phoebe and Joe walk away into the snow, towards the glow of the services building, their car engine quietly humming in the background.

‘She’s fun,’ Eve says when Phoebe’s out of earshot, still looking at both of them.

‘I know she looks slightly deranged with the pyjamas but she’s got a good heart.’

‘You can tell. The way she came over without hesitation, knowing we might need help. How long have you been together?’

I almost want to laugh. I don’t know how to tell her it’s been less than twenty-four hours. ‘For a while,’ I say cryptically.

‘Well, you make a cute couple,’ Eve says. ‘Don’t they, Ruby?’

The baby giggles and from my car I hear a dog barking, almost as if he agrees.

TWENTY-FIVE

PHOEBE

Joshua, Joshua, Joshua. Sometimes I look at him with his fisherman trousers and I study his scrunched-up face when I sing or chew or tell him a story that’s verging on TMI and I think, no. Last night was fun, it filled the gap, broke the ice, but I don’t think him and I are it. Yet on the other hand, he can walk up to a stranger’s baby, chat to him and then burp him, with skill and know-how so a sound comes out of that baby that makes me think an avalanche is incoming. Those are good skills because babies know people. They can spot twats and shitbags, but little Casper and Ruby were smiling at him, even laughing, which tells me he has a good soul. I had sex with someone with a good soul. Even if it goes no further than Christmas, I can be proud of that; I gave myself willingly to a man who isn’t a wanker. He’s careful with people. Whereas I run in, introduce myself and take over, he has good manners, and he’s alone with a woman and her two babies and he keeps his distance, he’s helpful and kind. Steve likes him too. Damn him and his innate niceness.

‘Phoebe, this is beautiful… like so quaint,’ he says as he drives, taking in the country roads as daybreak starts to peek over the horizon. I bite my lip. People don’t use that word, do they? He soaks up all this countryside but there’s still panic in his face as we go down these one-track lanes and he worries about another vehicle coming along. It’s literally eight in the morning, we’re not going to meet anyone here, unless we’re coming across Santa. It’s not been an easy drive since Exeter, since we rescued that lovely family at the services. Not all the roads have been cleared, so there’ve been a number of diversions that involved us creeping along roads that are like ice rinks, but also there’s a lovely camaraderie on the roads; people wave at us, we wave back, the Christmas spirit has overtaken us all. Plus, we’ve had chocolate, quite a lot of chocolate. I sense the sugar has really got us to this point.

‘Did you grow up as a town mouse in the big bad city then?’ I ask him.

‘Kinda. God, even the gas stations are cute,’ he says. ‘And all the houses with their lights up,’ he adds as we go past a parade of cottages bedecked in lights and holly. ‘This was the England I thought I was coming to. Rolling green fields, hedgerows and cottages… look at the stone walls…’

I laugh. He’s gone back into that zone of revelling in the novelty of it all, like he’s driving through a movie. See, I said the word movie. The man has Americanised me in just one single day. ‘What do they make the walls out of in America?’

‘You know what I mean. They’re fancy walls, they’ve got history and it’s all so…’

‘Quaint,’ I interject. ‘Take a left up here. My dad’s house is on the left.’

He turns the corner carefully, and looks out to the snowy fields, lines of oak trees and hedgerows framing the road.

‘Oh my gosh, seriously – Hollyhock Cottage? Are you kidding me?’ he says in loud, excited tones as he sees the name on the fence.

Yeah, we’ve definitely given you too much sugar. ‘Joshua, I can’t have you meeting my family like this, all right? The enthusiasm is off the chain. It’s just a cottage…’

‘But Phoebe, it’s so⁠—’

‘Don’t say quaint again.’