Chapter 30
Darren felt…cocooned, by the time the doorbell rang.
He had underestimated Jayden’s mother, he thought absently. The house was positively hostile every previous time he’d been here; now, bundled up on the sofa in the tiny living room wearing a jumper of his Jayden had found in the back of his wardrobe, an ugly throw wrapped around his legs, and the remote control for the TV under his power, he reflected that Mrs. Phillips could probably make Sylvia Plath feel comforted.
The housewife herself wasn’t around much: she had apparently gone on maternity leave last week, and so was flitting about the house cleaning and tidying and doing something with a squeezy-bottle of fluid that was masquerading as ‘lemon scented.’ Jayden was his attendant instead, fetching mugs of foaming hot ch
