Adam's goalkeeper had only one foot, and he was making a terrible fuss about it.
“It's an injury,” he said.
“It's a design feature.” Leah turned her handle. “It makes him streamlined.”
“You chose that side for me.”
“You said you didn't mind.”
She put the little ball down the chute. Adam bent over the table, his white shirt still clean, his sleeves folded to the elbows. He had come to work early because she had come to arrange flowers early. This was their reward for finishing: ten minutes in the game room before he had to open the bar and she had to become helpful again.
Beyond the doorway, the venue was filling with the sound of chairs being dragged. The old house had a ballroom that looked beautiful in photographs and a game room that never appeared in them. Here the carpet was faded, a pool cue leaned in the corner, and somebody had stuck a paper crown on the portrait above the fireplace. Leah preferred it.
Adam tapped the ball between two players, waiting for her to commit. She kept her wrists loose. He had beaten her on their second date, and she had spent much of their third date putting that right.
He watched her left hand.
“You're staring,” she said.
“I remember what it does.”
“Then you should be frightened.”
He sent the ball sharply towards goal. She blocked it, pulled back and hit. The ball rattled into his net.
Adam shut his eyes.
Leah raised both arms. “That was for your little man. He wanted me to put him out of his misery.”
“No spinning.”
“There was no spinning.”
“You were thinking about spinning.”
“Is that in the rules?”
He came round the table. She retreated a step, laughing, and met the wall beside the fireplace. Adam put one hand against it above her shoulder.
“I want a rematch,” he said.
“You're asking very close to my face.”
“Would you prefer I move?”
She took the front of his shirt and pulled him the last inch.
He kissed her slowly at first. Then she felt him smile, and the kiss stopped being slow. She liked that she could do this to him. Adam spent most of his day appearing untroubled by dropped trays, difficult guests and last-minute changes. With her he could forget what he had been saying.
The door opened.
“Oh, absolutely disgusting,” Finn said. “In a room with sporting equipment.”
Leah let go of Adam's shirt. “You knocked in your imagination, did you?”
Her brother carried a silver tray balanced on each palm. At twenty-three he could lift a heavy delivery box without complaint, but two trays of canapés were apparently a major injustice.
“Mara needs these out there. I said I'd find you. She said you were probably doing the last flowers.” He looked at Adam. “I generously didn't suggest an alternative.”
Adam took one of the trays. “Where?”
“Ballroom. Hungry people. You'll spot them.”
“I have to open the bar first.”
“Then give it here,” Leah said.
Adam lowered the tray into her hands. He touched her waist as he passed and murmured, “Same table. Later.”
She almost followed him instead of Finn.
“You've gone stupid,” her brother said when Adam was out of earshot.
“You've got pastry on your thumb.”
He licked it off. “Occupational hazard.”
They entered the little hall outside the ballroom. Warm light fell over the flowers she had put in the windows. Finn stopped beneath a vase of rust-coloured dahlias and presented his tray with a grave expression.
“The Frightened Mushrooms,” he said.
Leah looked at the tiny pastry cases. “The Landlord's Breakfast.”
“Too long. Disqualified.”
“There isn't a length rule.”
“There is now. These?”
He tilted his other tray. Little rolls stood upright in paper cups.
“Sausages in formal education,” Leah said.
Finn laughed so abruptly that two rolls slid sideways. He caught them with his thumb.
They had played this game at every family gathering since he was old enough to know the names of foods and young enough to get most of them wrong. Once, their mother had asked what they were laughing at and Finn had said, quite honestly, the potatoes. Leah could still hear the hopeless sound he had made when nobody else understood.
“Well?” he demanded.
“The sausages win.”
“Yes!” He raised his tray and immediately lowered it as Mara came through the ballroom door.
“Keep them level, darling. We're feeding people, not blessing them.”
She brushed a stray piece of pastry off Finn's sleeve and smiled at Leah. Her green dress had a loose knot at the shoulder; she had managed to look lovely and ready to lift furniture at the same time.
“You're both wonderful. Take those round once, then enjoy yourselves.”
“That's a binding promise,” Leah said.
“Absolutely. Except if I need you.”
Leah had known Mara for nine years. This was what she was good at: making a task feel like an invitation. Tonight she and Theo were hosting friends, staff and regular customers to celebrate the end of a busy season. Mara had arranged the music, the food and the lights. Theo had spent the afternoon moving things to the exact places she wanted them. They ought to have been pleased.
But when Theo appeared behind her, holding a folded stack of tablecloths, Mara stepped aside without looking at him.
“The cupboard upstairs,” she said.
“I know.”
He went past.
Leah turned her tray a little. Mara was already smiling at an older guest whose chair had caught on the edge of a rug. She crouched, freed the leg and offered her arm, doing it so neatly that he hardly seemed to have needed help.
Finn watched her until Leah nudged him with her elbow.
“Hungry people,” she reminded him.
He set off too quickly, and she followed.
By nine, the trays were empty. By ten, Leah had danced badly with Finn, danced much better with Adam during his break, and discovered that one of her flower vases had been used to prop open a door.
“It's heavy,” the guest responsible explained.
“That's because it's full of water.”
Finn rescued her before she could say anything less useful. He lifted the vase, said there had been a complaint from the flowers' union, and made the guest laugh. Leah took the flowers away while he found a proper doorstop.
She put the vase on the bar. Adam glanced at the damp trail it left.
“They needed a drink?”
“They needed a better class of guest.”
He passed her a cloth. As she wiped the water, she asked, “Are you free tomorrow morning?”
“Until three.”
“Come climbing with us.”
Adam looked at Finn, who had followed her over.
“Can you climb?” Finn asked.
“Up things, yes.”
“It's a bit more—”
“He's being difficult,” Leah said. “There's a beginners' wall. I can show you.”
Finn put his arm round her shoulders. “Sunday morning's ours. He can have Sunday night. We're very generous people.”
She leaned out from under his arm to collect her cloth. “You can still come when he's there.”
“And watch you two do whatever that was in the game room? All day?”
He was smiling. She smiled back, but his arm had been heavy on her shoulders.
“Only when we get to the top,” she said.
Adam started to answer. Theo reached the bar before he could.
“A glass of water.”
Adam filled one and set it down.
Theo looked at the three of them. His gaze stayed on Adam.
“Still rescuing everyone?”
“Just serving water.”
“Must be nice to be needed.”
Leah stopped wiping. Finn had moved back from the bar, but he was watching Adam too.
Theo drank half the glass and went away.
“What was that?” she asked.
Adam lifted one shoulder. “Long day.”
Mara called Finn from across the room. He was beside her almost before she had finished. Leah watched Mara touch his forearm and point towards the hall. Then a guest asked Adam for three drinks, and Leah took her vase somewhere safer.
Later there was a raised voice near the bottom of the stairs. Leah heard Theo say, “Don't,” and Finn answer too loudly for her to catch the words. A chair scraped.
She started across the ballroom.
Mara intercepted her with a little clutch bag in her hand.
“Can you give these back before she goes? She's at the front door. I found them under the chair.”
Car keys dangled from Mara's fingers.
“What's Finn doing?”
“Being Finn. I'll get him. Go on, she'll be stranded.”
Leah took the keys. At the front door, a departing guest was emptying her bag on a narrow table. Leah held them up, received a grateful squeeze of the hand, then went out with her to make sure they were the right set. The evening air felt good after the heat inside.
Finn came out while they were crossing the driveway. He was rubbing his right hand.
“Everything all right?” Leah asked.
“Fine. Going to get my jacket.”
He turned back into the house.
The guest's car was at the far end of the drive. Leah waited while the woman got in and checked for her phone. The engine started, then stopped. It was in her coat pocket after all. They laughed about bags that ate things. The dashboard clock said eleven-oh-four.
Leah stepped back to let the car turn. She stood alone beside the gravel bed and watched its rear lights pass through the gate.
From inside the house came a heavy crash.
She turned. The music was still playing. Somebody shouted over it.
Leah hurried towards the door. Finn burst out before she reached it.
“Come in. Leah, come on.”
He caught her arm.
“What happened?”
“It's Theo.”
She went in beside him. The ballroom music stopped. People had come into the hall and were standing in a loose, frightened crowd beneath the stairs.
Theo lay several steps above the bottom. One of the staff crouched beside him, speaking quietly. Adam knelt on the next step. His phone was at his ear.
“He's breathing,” he said. “Yes. We're with him.”
Leah caught a glimpse of blood on his white cuff. Mara stood higher up, one hand gripping the rail. Her dress looked almost black in the stairwell.
“Move back, please,” Adam told the people below him.
Finn pushed forward. “Get away from him.”
“Finn, leave room.”
“You did this.”
Adam looked up. “I called for help. Move back.”
Leah put a hand on Finn's shoulder. He shook it off so hard that she stumbled against the wall.
“I saw you,” he said. “Standing over him. Don't touch him again.”
The staff member beside Theo raised a hand for quiet. Leah could hear Theo make a small, rough sound. Adam listened to the voice on his phone and answered it. Whatever had happened, the stairs were no place for Finn to start another fight.
“Come here,” she told her brother.
He backed away only when she took his sleeve. He was shaking. She could feel it through the cloth.
Mara came down the clear side of the stairs. She bent close to Adam, speaking beneath the voices in the hall. Leah couldn't hear her words. Adam looked at her, then away. The staff member stayed beside Theo.
Leah asked Finn, “Did you see him fall?”
“I saw Adam.”
“But did you—”
“Look at his shirt.”
People were making room near the front door. Mara turned towards them. “We were arguing. He lost his footing. Please, just let them help him.”
She touched Adam's arm. He stood, leaving Theo with the staff, and came down.
Finn went towards him at once.
“Tell her,” he said. “Go on. Tell Leah what you did.”
Adam looked straight at her. There was a red mark high on his neck. His face had gone pale.
“I didn't push him,” he said. “I was outside with Leah when it happened.”
She stared at him.
She had been in the driveway. Alone. She had watched the car leave, heard the crash and come in with Finn. Adam had not been there for any of it.
Her brother stopped talking. Several people looked at her, waiting.
Adam kept his eyes on hers.
“We need to talk,” she said.