The Driver Read online

  I made an approving noise after wincing at the icing.

  “I think the lemon icing gives it a bit of a tang.” He was looking at me hopefully.

  Martin had told me repeatedly to give him honest feedback on his food, so we were well passed me lying when I didn’t like something to spare his feelings.

  “It’s too sweet. I liked the cake part.”

  He nodded, not looking offended, and ate the other half in one bite. He chewed thoughtfully and then nodded. “Yeah. The cake’s too dry, but I’ll get there.”

  “What is Matcha anyway?”

  “It’s very fine, powdered green tea.”

  I looked back at the plate that had contained the cake and frowned. “That could be promising, then. If it’s a health food, can you put it into coffee?”

  “Yeah, you can have Matcha lattes and stuff. I’ll force you to drink one next time you come in.”

  “Gross. I’ll look forward to it.”

  A few customers came in at that point and he sauntered away. I watched his easy manner with them, he was way better with people than I ever had been.

  Martin always kept the café open late. He didn’t serve alcohol but wanted to maintain the idea that there was a café open into the night where it was relatively quiet and no one was drunk. It wasn’t exactly rammed with people, but it was certainly getting a bit of a reputation. If we could only keep it afloat a little longer until we secured a loan his dreams for the restaurant wouldn’t die.

  He finished serving the couple who had entered, telling them his brownies were the best in London and getting them laughing before heading out again.

  He came back over to me and as it was quiet we had a rare moment where he leaned against the counter, and had a few minutes to talk. That was never a good sign.

  “What?” I said, feigning irritation.

  “He came in here a few days ago, you know.”

  “What? Who?”

  “The little shit you work for.”

  I felt my stomach do a flip flop and gave it a stern mental talking to before replying.

  “Well, he works near here, that’s not all that shocking.”

  “He was asking about you. About me. I think he was trying to work out if we were…” he raised his eyebrows suggestively and gestured between us.

  I laughed loudly and he gave me a stern look as I’d made some of the customers look up at us.

  “Christ, sorry. That must have been awkward.”

  “I had to tell him who I was.”

  I stared at him. “You told Cal you were my brother?”

  “What else was I supposed to do, pretend we’re an item? You’re an idiot.”

  I ran a hand through my hair, irrationally annoyed with him for revealing something so trivial and yet so personal about me.

  He was still watching me. “Seriously, why didn’t you tell him?”

  Now Martin sounded pissed off. “Marv, I didn’t tell him who you were because he’s a nosey little dickhead and he likes to have personal information about people to bribe them with later. Also, I didn’t want him to bother you. He likes to bother people to rattle me so that I’ll resign.”

  The door jingled, and as I turned, before I even looked, I knew who it was going to be.

  “Speak of the devil,” Martin muttered under his breath and walked over to the counter to greet Cal.

  “Evening,” Martin’s voice sounded like two metal plates banging together in a subterranean cavern.

  “Hi.” Cal said cheerfully. “Could I get a coffee to go?”

  Martin glanced my way. “Sure. Americano?”

  “Thanks.”

  Martin turned his back to Cal who walked over to my end of the bar where I was quietly trying to dissolve into my coffee.

  “Thought I might find you here,” Cal drawled as he sat next to me at the bar.

  “I thought you were going to be a while.” I tried to keep my voice level but I was really concerned now. He was getting to know me in the car, and now he was sitting next to me like we were friends. We weren’t friends. Even after four months together we had probably exchanged twenty words with each other and half of them would have been me saying ‘yes, sir’.

  “I’m not allowed to get a coffee?”

  “I’m pretty sure they serve coffee in Blakeman’s.”

  “Sure they do, but you said this is your favourite place for coffee.”

  “No. I didn’t.”

  “Gerry told me.”

  “I’m sorry, Gerry told you? How did Gerry tell you?”

  “I asked him. You and him are friends aren’t you? You never talk to me. I sit in a twenty foot space with you every day and you never say a word to me, so I had to ask other people.” He glanced over at Martin. “Including your brother apparently, who you never introduced me to.”

  I sighed and just stopped myself from putting my head in my hands in despair. I was fine with him breaking the rules and chatting to me when he wasn’t supposed to, but this was just getting weird. For whatever reason the idea of him getting to know me terrified me and I couldn’t quite work out why.

  I glanced up to see Martin watching us, but he must have seen my startled expression because he frowned. Slowly he approached from the other end of the bar with another luminous green cake.

  He plonked the cake down in front of me, as though as a punishment. Cal cleared his throat looking pointedly at me in my peripheral vision.

  “Christ, fine!” I pointed at my brother than at Cal. “Marv, this is Cal Emerson. Cal this is my big brother, Martin.”

  Cal stretched out a hand and I could tell by the way Martin shook it, that he’d squeezed a little harder than he should have.

  “We’ve met.” Martin said, looking like a mountain of a human about to crush Cal into a small pile of sand.

  “Nice to see you again.” Cal said with his usual casual charm. “Is that a Matcha muffin?”

  I exchanged a look with my brother who now had a reluctant smile on his face. He winked at me.

  “Yep. Jon doesn’t like it. Wanna give me your take? New recipe.”

  Cal picked up the cake and bit into it without hesitation. He chewed for several seconds, almost carefully, swallowed just as carefully and looked back at the cake.

  “It’s good. I like the icing. More Matcha in the cake mix probably would make the colour pop a bit more. It looks good and people will buy it. It’s all the rage at the moment.” Cal was using his more professional voice and I felt a little bit of warmth spread in my chest as I realised he was genuinely looking at it from a marketing point of view.

  “The sponge is a little dry.” Martin said, almost thoughtfully.

  “You know, my Grandma used to make amazing cakes. She always used ground almonds in the sponge which helped keep it moist and she always said four eggs were better than three.” Cal stopped talking suddenly, a strange expression coming over his face, but it vanished almost as soon as I noticed it.

  To my annoyance Martin nodded and actually smiled at him. “I reckon I’ll fiddle with the recipe for a bit, but if you come in again I’m feeding you something green.”

  “Bring it on.” Cal said, with a grin and I stared into my coffee wanting to kill my brother.

  Martin went to clear the tables around the rest of the place and I waited for Cal to leave, but he didn’t. He stayed sitting beside me and staring at the clock with the same frown across his face.

  “You don’t like working for me do you?” He finally asked.

  I paused for a long time, trying to work out what was going on and getting a sinking feeling when I thought I’d worked it out.

  “I like working for you, Cal. I like working for you just fine.” I sipped my coffee and felt the burn as it went down my throat. “Where’s this going?”

  It was starting to make sense now. He was going to fire me and make it sound as though it was my idea.

  “You don’t seem to.” He didn’t meet my eyes, picking repeatedly at the side of his c
offee cup.

  “Well I like working for you. If you’re going to fire me, at least have the balls to tell me it’s your idea, not your father’s and not mine.”

  He looked up, his eyes darting to me and back to the dark liquid in front of him. “I’m not going to fire you.”

  He almost sounded offended and I fumbled with my coffee, nearly knocking it over. We sat in silence for a couple of minutes and I actually started considering the possibility of quitting while I was ahead. Sure, he was good eye candy, but the guy was a twat.

  I knew I could get a better job somewhere else, but it would mean getting used to a new routine and a new schedule. Cal was the first person I’d worked for who was almost never up early in the mornings and didn’t care that I wasn’t at his beck and call every hour of the day.

  A new job would mean uncertainty and that was something that Martin and I just didn’t need at the moment. Cal was low maintenance when it came to his drivers, or he was for the most part, minus the occasional pool of vomit I had to clean up, and I had cleaned up a lot worse from the back of my taxi when I used to drive one of those.

  I swallowed the rest of my coffee. Why was life never simple?

  “So what is it? Why are you acting like this?” I asked finally.

  “Like what?”

  “Talking to me. Being friendly. It’s making me nervous.”

  And that made him laugh. A proper laugh, not the hollow sound I suddenly realised I was used to hearing; this was a belly laugh and his whole face lit up like a lightbulb.

  After a moment I realised I was staring and glanced away. I stared fixedly at the mirror for a few moments and jolted as Cal slapped me on the back.

  “I never knew you had a sense of humour. It’s okay, Jay, maybe I just wanted to get to know you a bit. I probably spend the most amount of time travelling with this job. You barely say more than three words to me every morning and evening. I’m glad you don’t want me to fire you. I don’t believe you enjoy working for me, but I’m glad you’re not looking for an excuse to piss me off.” For what felt like a long moment his hand lingered on my back. Finally he rose, nabbed the rest of the green cake and left.

  Martin came back almost instantly, as I knew he would, and I glanced at him irritably.

  “So...”

  “Just don’t say a word.”

  He chuckled. “You’re not fooling anyone, least of all me.”

  “Stop it. And you’re wrong.”

  “What’s the problem? He’s hot, in a male kind of way.”

  I raised my eyebrows at him. “Excuse me?”

  “Maybe you should try to bang him, as the kids say.”

  I put my head on the counter and groaned. “Yes, he’s gorgeous, no, I don’t want to bang him because he’s also one of the most obnoxious people I’ve ever met and he could get me fired in a heartbeat.”

  “You look at him in a weird way.”

  I shook my head with a rueful smile. He was good at reading me but I had no intention of giving anything away. He sighed and scratched the back of his neck as he watched Cal’s retreating form out the window. It was at moments like this that reading people went both ways, I could see the worry in his eyes and I immediately snapped back into little brother mode.

  “Do you need me here tomorrow? I can be here early. Cal doesn’t have any appointments until early afternoon.”

  Martin’s face crumpled in on itself for a second and I laughed. “Seriously, Jon,” he almost sounded despairing; “I can’t keep asking you to do this.”

  “You’re not asking, I offered, and it’s honestly fine. I’ll be tucked up in bed by eleven, I’m pretty sure he’s done for the night. I’m here; use me to help if you need me.”

  Martin sighed. “Okay, tomorrow would be great, but you’ll be happy to hear I hired someone.”

  I looked up at him, seeing the pride on his face and feeling it myself. Martin didn’t ask for help. He was a mountain of support for everyone around him and usually when I mentioned getting extra help for the café he either shrugged it off or we got into an argument. He didn’t like the idea that he couldn’t do it all himself; upholding their dream together.

  The fact that he had not only considered a new hire, but actually done it, was a major shift, and a very good sign. I grinned at him.

  He gave me a glare. “Fuck off.”

  “Who is it?”

  “He’s a med student. Third year, lives round the corner, apparently, with some stupidly rich friend who’s letting him crash. He’s twenty three and pretty enthusiastic all things considered. He’s hardly saving lives making coffee, but he seems keen.”

  “You tell that to doctors who’ve been up for twelve hours. Coffee saves lives in hospitals, I guarantee it.”

  He chuckled and shrugged.

  “I’ll give him a trial run. He would be able to do some of the mornings if he gets his feet under the table quickly, and it would mean I didn’t need you as much, which would be good for everyone.”

  “Are you saying I’m not a people person?”

  “I’m saying you need to get more sleep before you crash that beautiful car that doesn’t belong to you.”

  I smiled. There was no use denying it, the current situation wasn’t tenable in the long run so this was good news.

  “I’m leaving him on his own for three hours from midday tomorrow while I go to the school. Molly’s teacher needs to speak to me about something. Is it okay if I give him your number in case he sets the place on fire or something?”

  “Of course. But I hate that till and if it’s anything to do with maths he’s giving everything away for free.”

  He frowned at me.

  “I might give him my number as a backup, too.” He paused, glancing at the till. “And a calculator.”

  I grinned and drained my coffee before I gave him a friendly hug and headed back to the car to wait for my charge to finish whatever he was doing, when he wasn’t spying on my life.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I was up at five the following morning, scrambling around in the semi-darkness for my clothes and cursing the café and everything to do with it. I was not a morning person.

  By the time I’d had my second homemade espresso and was walking downstairs to the front of my complex I felt vaguely human. Martin had texted me to pick up four pints of whole milk on my way, so I went via the local co-op at the end of my road, picking up a pain au chocolat along with the milk, which considerably improved my mood.

  Five forty-five in London was an odd time. There would always be people who were still drunk from the night before wandering home, whatever day of the week it was, but mostly it was the time when care workers, builders, contractors and bankers were getting onto the tube.

  I enjoyed driving and I absolutely adored the car that came with my job, but sitting on the tube before it got really busy was a nice break and I felt some tension leave my shoulders as I settled into my seat.

  I checked my phone, smiling broadly at a photo of Molly and Cassie, both only ten but long legged with streaming piles of messy hair and big grins on their faces in their school uniforms. Martin knew how to cheer me up.

  I was on autopilot for most of the journey until I exited the tube station into the usual bustle of London. The café wasn’t really central but it was in a fantastic location between several pubs, restaurants and a well-known thoroughfare of shops. The street it was on was a through-route to the tube, too, so we always got a steady stream of customers, and even had a few regulars. There seemed to be a plethora of businessmen in cleats tiptoeing in with their bike helmets still on, demanding flat whites, which always amused me.

  I dug out my keys and unlocked the door, smelling the familiar aroma of coffee and cake as I headed inside. Martin did the evening stint during the week and had hired a cleaner to sort out the lengthy task of hygiene, which he was obsessed with, but hated doing. I think we had the cleanest coffee machine in the world.

  I went into the stock room and drop
ped my bag, the accounts book and my coat on Martin’s tiny desk. I got the cash for the till out of the lock box in my bag and put the remainder in the safe, then went to the front of the store to get the wretched till set up. It was an old design but Martin loved it, and more importantly it had been picked out by Marie before she passed away, so I could complain all I wanted, but neither of us would ever get rid of it.

  I saw my phone light up with a message and, assuming it was Martin giving me his ETA, I opened it up and stared in surprise at Cal’s name. He was never up before seven, so this couldn’t be a good sign. The message just said Are you awake?

  For a moment I was touched that he hadn’t simply assumed he could call and wake me up, then I gave myself a stern talking to and typed back Yes before I could read into it anymore.

  My phone rang immediately.

  “Jay?”

  I scooped the remaining coins off the counter and into the till tray, snapping it shut with a bob of my hip and heading to the windows to open the blinds.

  “Morning Cal,” I grunted, my voice still husky from lack of use. “What are you doing up?”

  “I need you to come and get me. I’m at my flat.” His voice was odd, none of the friendly tone he had had the night before. I felt a thrill of concern; I couldn’t leave before Martin arrived. Shit.

  I checked my watch, pulling my phone from my ear. There was a text on my screen from an unknown number and I realised it must be the student Martin had hired. He was twenty minutes away, thank goodness. I’d have to give him a whistle-stop tour of the café and leave him here with no knowledge of what he was doing, but at least Martin would be back in time to help him open up. Damn Cal to hell.

  I put the phone back to my ear. “Okay, give me an hour.”

  “Ten minutes.”

  I sighed rubbing my forehead as I gritted my teeth.

  “Cal, I have to get the car. You didn’t have anything scheduled this morning so I’m not at home.”

  There was a long pause. Then another, longer, pause.

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m on my way back to my flat, but I’ll need to change and get the car. I can be there in an hour, maybe forty five minutes if I push it. I’ll do what I can to get there as soon as possible, okay?”