Invisible by Barbara Copperthwaite Read Free Book Online Page A

who
won’t say ‘I told you so.’ Hopefully she’ll know that person is me.
    With a sigh she scooped the
crumbs into a little pile with one hand, then swiped
them into the other hand that was outstretched just below the table. Then she
wiped her hands together, slap, slap, slap, cleaning away the crumbs and the
subject with the movement. Our hour was up, time to go back to work.
    I kept thinking about her
for the rest of the afternoon. The rest of the day. I
really hope she’s all right. Bad enough to be in a bit of a
sticky situation money-wise, but fella-wise too? It makes me realise how
lucky I am to have Daryl. If I were in a relationship with someone as dodgy as Sam
I’d scarper pretty damn quick .

 
    Mon 25
    Hmm, well, how best to
describe my weekend with Daryl? Not sure if there is one word to sum it up. Maybe if I write it down and commit it to memory forever that will
help.
    He came over on Friday and I
got all packed up and we got on the road. I haven’t had a look round his rig
for a very long time. When we first got together I’d go with him all over the
country but, well, life gets in the way and enthusiasm drains away for trips in
a noisy truck, especially after we bought our house together. Fact is, I wanted
to be in my comfy home, sitting on my big cream leather sofa and watching telly
rather than going glorified camping in my bloke’s workplace. But Daryl has
seriously pimped up the cab of his truck – it’s really cool!
    He’s got his laptop in the
centre console so he can listen to music on it as well as keep in touch with me
and work. There’s a mini fridge stuffed with food and drinks, the bed tucks
away so neatly behind a curtain that runs behind the two seats – oh yeah, and
how comfy are those seats?! They’re incredible, in fact they almost rival our
sofa, and because they are fully sprung they move with the cab, absorbing any
bumps in the road so that I didn’t feel a thing. A totally
smooth ride.
    We were going along merrily,
countryside whizzing past us, when Daryl glanced over at me and smiled, his
blue eyes crinkling at the corners. ‘Hey, in one of the glove compartments
there’s a CD I think you’ll want to hear,’ he said.
    Bemused, I reached up to the
locker that ran all the way across the top of the windscreen. ‘Not there!’ shouted
Daryl, his voice sharp and angry. I pulled my hand back as though from fire.
‘They’re always locked,’ he explained. ‘It’s safer, otherwise they might burst open if I brake suddenly. With stuff tumbling out it
might make me swerve and hit something, it could cause a crash. Last thing I
want is to get hit in the face by half a dozen spare rolls for the tacho .’
    Okay, okay. Lecture over, I popped
open the glove compartment right in front of me. Inside were some CDs and the
one on top had me grinning immediately. ‘Barry White!’ I laughed. ‘No way! Let’s put it on!’
    Seconds later, the opening
beat of our song, You’re My First, My Last, My Everything , was pumping out of the impressive
surround sound speakers. Daryl started shuffling round in his seat as if he had
ants in his pants, head moving back and forth like a demented pigeon.
    ‘Nice groove face,’ I
snorted, closing my eyes, biting my bottom lip and scrunching up my face in
mimicry. We bobbed and weaved in time to the music, singing along at the tops
of our voices. Daryl doing Barry’s bits, and me joining in as a backing singer,
‘ Ooooh , ooo-oooh , ooo-ooooh , oooo -ooooooooh !’
    What a laugh! Even Daryl’s
‘ironic’ collection of nodding dogs of various sizes seemed to join in our
seated dancing. As soon as it ended… ‘Again!’ I begged.
    ‘Again,’ nodded Daryl,
pressing the button. I couldn’t hear enough of our song, it was just exactly what we needed to get this trip off to the right start.
We’d been on our very first date when I’d initially heard it.
    We’d met at a house party –
wow, I haven’t been to one of those in a few