Handle Me with Care (15 page)

Chapter Nineteen

‘Sorry I’m late.’ Maddie flopped on to a seat opposite Ally in Jerimiah’s. ‘I was running late with a patient, and then Mum called just as I was about to leave.’

‘How is she?’

‘Good.’ Phone calls with her parents were pleasant enough, but Maddie missed what she used to share with them, particularly her mum. Pre-Riley they had chatted for hours on the phone or in person, and Maddie knew that part of her had shut down to block out any memory of the past.

‘Does this mean you’re planning a visit home?’ Ally asked warily.

Maddie grinned. ‘I booked the flight at lunchtime. I think Mum was only calling because she’s so excited.’

‘It’ll do you good to see them after everything that’s happened recently.’

Maddie knew she was talking about Evan. She smiled and pulled out the band from her hair to free it from her work-typical pony tail. She sucked the straw in her glass hard to get the strawberry smoothie moving.

‘How’s Evan doing?’

‘Okay. I think.’

‘You think? Haven’t you been in contact with him? It’s been three weeks since his surgery.’

‘We’ve been texting, but I haven’t actually spoken to him. I don’t even know his results yet.’

‘Do you think that means it’s bad news?’

Maddie shrugged. ‘I have no idea.’

‘Men.’ Ally shook her head. ‘I’m sure he’ll be in touch eventually. It must be one hell of a journey for him, regardless of the diagnosis, and the way I see it, he wouldn’t have come over the night before the operation and he wouldn’t have texted you afterwards if he never wanted to see you again. It’s not like you’re a member of his family who he
has
to humour.’

‘True.’ She always could trust Ally to put a smile on her face. ‘I did think about baking a funny cake for him and taking it over as a surprise.’

‘Please tell me you’re not going to replicate the penis and testicles, because I think under the circumstances that would be pretty sick.’

‘I’m not that insensitive. I was thinking more of a naughty cake, something to put a smile on his face.’

‘Are you sure it’s a good idea?’

‘I gave him space last time and it was him who ended up getting in touch with me. Maybe it should be me this time. I don’t want to screw this up, Ally. I finally feel as though I’m starting to move on. I can’t let that chance slip away.’

When Maddie got home she frantically pulled out ingredients, determined this was the right thing to do, determined he was pushing her away for some reason that had nothing to do with how much he wanted or needed her. And again, she lost herself in the world of baking as she made the cake she hoped Evan would appreciate.

*

The next evening after work, Maddie iced the cake, excited at the prospect of seeing Evan again. She paused in the middle of sifting the icing sugar. What if he really didn’t want her? What if after the operation he had realised everything was going to be fine and he could carry on with his life pre-Maddie, without a care in the world?

She shook away that thought along with the rest of the icing sugar. Coping alone was something she had tried to do for far too long after Riley, and it had got her nowhere. She recognised the signs of Evan doing the same and she couldn’t let him deal with this on his own. And if he told her to get lost, well then, she would just have to accept it.

Determined that this would all work out, she made the finishing touches to Evan’s cake and drove over to his apartment, the cake safely inside a plastic cake carrier box and sitting in the passenger footwell wedged with towels on either side to prevent it from sliding when she turned corners. She thought back to Riley’s exams and when he had failed the most important one at the end of his first year at University. He’d been crushed. Maddie had baked him a set of assorted cupcakes decorated with boobs, penises and pert female bottoms. It had worked like a charm.

After she pulled up outside Evan’s apartment block, Maddie battled the wintry air that blasted her cheeks as she carried the cake box up the steps to the building’s main entrance. She balanced it on one knee and buzzed Evan’s apartment, her heart thumping as she waited to hear his voice for the first time since the night before the operation. Surely this gesture could go some way to bridging the gap between them. She didn’t want it to widen any further than it already had, like a crevice she could slip through if she wasn’t careful.

She buzzed again, hoping that after the first buzz he hadn’t taken one look at the video intercom, seen her face and decided not to let her in.

His voice sounded over the intercom. ‘Maddie, come on up, I’m on the eighth floor.’

She blushed as she looked at the monitor, knowing he could see her yet she couldn’t see him.

When she stepped out of the lift he emerged from a doorway towards the end of a long, carpeted hallway with soft lighting, not too dissimilar from her own apartment building.

‘This is a nice surprise.’ He leaned in to kiss her on the cheek when she reached him.

The greeting and the kiss were a good sign, weren’t they? You didn’t say or do that when you wanted the person to get lost.

Inside, she slid the cake box on to the kitchen bench and, noting the fawn carpet, pulled off her knee-high boots.

‘This place is great, it’s so central.’ Nerves were making her babble. ‘You don’t find it too noisy?’

‘Nah, I’m too young for noise to bother me. Give it another five years, though, and I’ll probably be desperate to migrate to the suburbs.’ He took her coat.

‘I know what you mean. My place is pretty quiet, but the odd party or being woken up by the dinging of the trams sometimes makes me think about living further out.’

She looked around at the bachelor pad that felt strangely non-lad-like. There were two identical black leather couches set at right angles to each other – okay, so pretty bachelor-like – and a tall lamp cast a soft glow across the room. A chocolate-brown rug on top of which sat a glass coffee table was positioned in front of the couches and matched the colour of two side tables. Even the walls held a couple of paintings and she paused to look at them.

‘That one’s Huntley High Street,’ he said from behind her right shoulder.

His proximity sent goose pimples up her arms. ‘I know. I recognise it. And what’s that one? I recognise that too, but I can’t place it.’

‘That one’s Brighton beach – I gave Jem a similar one for her birthday with those bright, colourful bathing boxes. She loves it.’

Her insides melted at his demeanour when he mentioned his family. It made him all the more attractive when she could see beyond the tall, dark-haired man with melting-pot eyes to someone who was caring and considerate too.

She had done the right thing in coming; she was sure of it now.

With her coat still draped over one arm, he took it over to an old-fashioned coat stand behind the door.

‘That’s pretty stylish.’ She put a hand out to feel the wooden, carved piece.

‘It belonged to my dad. He was a stickler for us hanging up our coats and now it’s a habit that I’ve never been able to shake off.’

‘It’s beautiful.’

She moved along to another picture. ‘This is you,’ she said, focusing on the photograph of a younger Evan running across a finishing line with a black number on a white background pinned to his chest.

‘That was the London Marathon,’ he said.

‘I’m impressed. And this one of the London skyline is great.’

‘London at night. Impressive, isn’t it?’ She caught her breath when his arm reached from behind her, across her shoulder as she stood in front of the painting. ‘There’s Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Bridge and, of course, the Millennium Wheel.’

‘Who took the picture of you crossing the finish line?’

‘That was Jem.’ When he moved away she felt able to breathe again. ‘She made the trek across the seas with Mum. She was almost ninety.’

‘I’d love to go.’

‘You could sign up for the London Marathon.’

‘Steady on. I was thinking more like a visit someday to see my sister, perhaps shop on Oxford Street, lunch in Covent Garden.’

‘Females.’ He shook his head, and then as though suddenly remembering the cake box, he pointed to it. ‘What’s this?’

At once she felt embarrassed at what lay inside. She paused, her hands on the box, ready for the big reveal. ‘It’s something I thought may cheer you up. Now I don’t know you well enough to know whether you’re a breast, leg or arse man, so I went for the most likely.’ She didn’t admit that the time they’d laid naked together and he had lingered over her breasts had given her the biggest clue as to his preference. She wiggled the lid off the box and said, ‘Ta-da!’

A wide grin spread across his face. ‘Come here you.’ He pulled her into him and she drowned in his long, lingering kiss, the unkempt stubble on his face softer than usual now that it had grown.

‘She must’ve had a boob job.’ He looked admiringly at the cake.

The breasts Maddie had made didn’t have a person attached, but they were two generous sized cakes piled with buttercream over vanilla sponge.

‘Those are some crazy looking nipples.’ Evan’s arms lay relaxed, draped across Maddie’s shoulders.

She looked down at the two chocolate discs with multicoloured sprinkles. ‘I made it on a whim. I didn’t have much else to use, so I had to make do with chocolate speckles.’

‘So multicoloured nipples it is, then.’ He kissed the top of her head. ‘You’re really talented, you know.’

‘I can make tasteful cakes too, but these get a better reaction.’

‘Can I get you a drink?’ He pulled away and Maddie wondered again whether she had done the right thing in coming here tonight. She was scared of making everything so wrong by trying to make it so right.

He filled a glass of water for her and pulled out a couple of plates, and it was then that Maddie got a glimpse of the same Evan who had captured her attention in the first place. They laughed over which boob to slice up first, over who would get the chocolate nipples covered in multicoloured hundreds and thousands.

‘It’s the patient’s prerogative,’ Maddie concluded. ‘You can choose.’

He cut two slices off the right cake and stole the speckle from the other so they each had one.

‘Thank you.’ Maddie sat on the sofa. ‘How are you feeling?’ She stopped herself from adding, ‘What’s the diagnosis? What the hell is happening?’

‘Good.’ He bit into the cake, halting the conversation in its tracks. It was as though the Evan she had been smitten by was playing peek-a-boo; one minute he was there and the next he was hiding again.

‘So have all the follow-up checks gone well?’ Her words came out staccato as she grappled to balance compassion with phrases that wouldn’t make him feel as though she was prying.

‘So far, so good.’ He popped the chocolate speckle into his mouth. ‘This cake is fantastic.’ He paused before his next bite. ‘It was definitely cancer, by the way. Stage one seminoma, if that means anything.’

He made his announcement with as much emotion as he had when he told her she’d baked a good cake.

‘Apparently it’s not a bad diagnosis, considering,’ he continued. ‘And if the cancer was going to spread it would have most likely have been to the abdomen, lungs and the lymph nodes in the chest, even the brain or bones in some cases. But there’s no sign of any of that at this stage. I’ll still need to be monitored, but they say with chemo to kill off any cancer cells that may have spread prior to the operation, the relapse rate is down to about five per cent.’

He took another bite of cake, unaware that as he ate, Maddie sat beside him reminding herself to breathe in and out. The sweet cake mixture felt too sickly in her mouth as she finished the last piece.

‘When will the chemo start?’ she asked.

He pushed his empty plate on to the coffee table. ‘The fun starts in a couple of weeks.’

The game of peek-a-boo had suddenly come to an end. He finally let his guard down. ‘I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel, Maddie.’ She let him reach out and pull her hand into his own. It rested, with his, on top of his thigh as they sat side by side on the sofa.

Evan had so much to deal with, a fight to go through. But then so did she. It was happening all over again; the man she loved could be taken away from her and it was beyond her control.

‘You’re tired. I should probably leave you to it.’ Maddie wanted to run from the apartment. She wanted the icy wind outside to take hold of her and push her far, far away from reality.

When she stood, his hand tugged her own. ‘Don’t go, Maddie. Would you stay, just for a while?’

Helplessly, her eyes met his and she lowered herself back down and settled against the leather sofa. He lifted her hand to his lips and brushed it with a kiss, sending tingles snaking through her body as she remembered what it felt like to be with him, to make love to him.

‘Stay, watch a movie with me maybe.’

It seemed so easy now if she just let herself be in the moment; no future, no past, just the two of them alone in a room. And she had to do it for him; that was the reason she had come, wasn’t it?