A Memory Away Read Online Free Page B

face in his hands. “Oh my God. Oh my God, oh my God , oh my God .” He squeezed his eyes shut so tightly that spots sparked behind his lids as his body started to shake in reaction. “This is a nightmare.” He jumped when the door crashed open again and looked up as Megan dashed into the room, looking frantic and more than a little crazed herself. “This is a horrible, horrible nightmare.”
Megan flung herself around the desk and then her arms around Kyle in a hard hug. “No kidding!” She squeezed him tighter and said, “What happened? What did he say? Does he know? Kyle, sweetie, what did he say?”
“No, he doesn’t know.” Kyle shuddered and wrapped his arms around Megan waist as she whooshed out a breath of relief. He almost wailed into her ample cleavage, “He said he’d be back. Megan, he’s coming back .”
Megan was an excellent friend. She had been Kyle’s main support and comfort for more years than either of them cared to remember and she loved him with a bone deep surety that was only matched by his love for her. Nonetheless even being the stalwart friend that she was she couldn’t stop herself saying after a horrified pause, “Can I say I told you so now?”
Kyle spluttered with reluctant teary laughter, “You are so fired.”
~*~*~*
When he finally got home at just past six that evening, Kyle was seriously flagging and in need of several medicinal cocktails and a long hot soak in the bath. Unfortunately what he got was hit by a small, solid bundle of boy the moment he stepped through the door and the remnants of a half-eaten banana smushed into his Gucci pants. “Da!” Shea proclaimed triumphantly as he wrapped himself around one of Kyle’s legs and beamed up at him with a sticky face and a bite of banana in danger of slipping out of his smiling mouth. “Da, da, da!”
Kyle froze, closed his eyes in momentary horror at the mess that had been made of his previously immaculate pants, and then opened his eyes again to smile down into Shea’s excited face. “Shea.” He bent down and scooped the little boy into his arms, pressing enthusiastic kisses all over his son’s giggling face. “Shea, Shea, Shea!” He laughed when Shea shrieked with joy and felt a little of the tension he had been carrying inside him ease as his son bounced in his embrace. “Missed you, baby. Have you been good today?”
Shea shrieked again and threw the rest of his banana onto the hardwood floor in answer. Kyle looked down in time to see their black miniature poodle Lady Ga-Ga come shooting out from under the piano that stood in the corner of the large family area and snap up the dropped food. He sighed, gave her the stink eye – which she ignored as she started to sniff hopefully at the smears of fruit on his pants – and made for the kitchen at the back of the house where the tantalising smells of dinner were wafting into the air.
“Hey!” His housekeeper cum nanny, Louise, looked up as he walked into the room with Shea still screaming ‘Da!’ at the top of his lungs and Ga-Ga trying to lick his trousers as he walked. “Thought I heard you pull up. Good day?”
Kyle smiled at her and resisted the urge to yell at the top of his lungs just how very terrible his day had been. Instead he crossed to the sink where an ever present stack of clean cloths were stacked, dampened one under the tap and began the seemingly never ending labour of cleaning his son. “Fine.” He ignored Shea’s joyful crowing of his name dwindling into angry little splutters as he briskly scrubbed away slimy banana and some drool and asked, “What about you? Any problems?”
The pretty Asian girl shook her head and sent her pink and black hair flying around her shoulders. “Nope. We were at movement and sound class this morning and then we went swimming with some of the other kids from the toddler group at the rec this afternoon.” She shot Shea a wry glance where he was now trying to bite the cloth as Kyle swiped it over his