Chapter 13

He jogged back downstairs, expertly jumping over Max, and followed the voices to find Jude, who’d vanished. Anton found him on the living room floor, sitting cross-legged by the baby playmat tickling a shrieking, squirming Rose on the tummy. Mum was sitting in the armchair, surrounded by the local papers and their jobs pages, and ignoring them in favour of—oh shit—interrogating Jude.

“Anton, there you are,” she said, with a smirk. “Jude was just telling me how good you were in PE the other day!”

“Traitor,” Anton said. Jude beamed.

“Anton always enjoyed football at his old school,” Mum continued blithely.

“Traitor!” Anton repeated.

“Ready?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. I gotta go, Baby,” Jude said to Rose, and gave her grasping fingers a tiny high-five. “You work on that singing, okay?”

“Gurgling,” Anton corrected.