Page 149 of How To Not Need You

I glare at him. “Sometimes they even let Ben clean the toilets.”

His grin disappears. That’s better. Tilly abandons her new friend and runs back towards Liv, immediately launching into an explanation about the truck that I can hear from here and is almost entirely bullshit.

Liv listens anyway. She even asks questions. Which is a mistake, because now Tilly is demonstrating something with both arms and nearly takes out Liv’s coffee. I watch them for a second. Three weeks ago, I wasn't sure Liv was coming back.

This morning she stole my coffee because hers “tasted suspicious,” argued with Tilly about whether unicorns would be classified as horses and threatened to murder Hades after finding him asleep on her clean shirt.

Then she got in the car with us and came here. I like this version better.

“You're doing it again,” Ben says beside me.

“Doing what?”

“The face.”

I look at him. “What fucking face?”

He glances towards Liv, then back at me. “That one.”

“I don't have a face.”

“Everyone has a face, mate.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Unfortunately, I do.” Across the lawn, Liv looks up and catches me watching her. She raises an eyebrow. I smile. She gives me the finger. That’s my girl.

Then Milo escapes. I see it happen from across the lawn.

One second Elsie has him by the hand. The next, he's free and running directly towards several tonnes of firefighting equipment.

“Milo!”

He ignores his mother’s frantic shout. I intercept him about two metres from the engine and scoop him up. “Nope.”

“WANNA SEE.”

“You can see it from here.”

“WANNA TOUCH.”

“Touch with your eyes.”

He stares at me. I stare back. His bottom lip starts to wobble.

Shit. I know that look.

“How about the cab?”

The wobble stops. “REALLY?”

“With me.”

“DRIVE?”

“Absolutely not.”

“SIREN?”