You're My Hope for the Future

Chapter 11

The next morning, having accomplished his mission the evening before, Paul was feeling pretty happy with himself. He hummed as he made his way around the flat, tidying up and sorting himself out for the football that afternoon with his brothers.

Although he'd started his day in an upbeat mood, by the time the game was half an hour old, he was starting to get anxious. His plan should have been put into action by now, but he hadn't heard anything. Martin had started to notice his out of character behavior and waited until half time to tackle him, once Colin had gone off to the bar.

"Everything alright mate?" Martin asked. But he got no reply. Paul was sat staring at nothing, his eyes glazed. Martin tried again. "Paul!"

Startled out of his deep thought, Paul whipped his head around to face his brother, eyes wide. "Huh?"

"I asked if everything was alright. You've been kinda... off since we picked you up earlier." Martin frowned. "And come to think of it, you were pretty quiet in the pub last night. Matt said you just ran off on him."

"What? No, everything's fine." Paul told Martin, looking at his brother like he'd just asked him the weirdest question he'd ever heard.

"Are you sure?" Martin pressed. "You know, you can talk to me. Has something happened?"

"No!" Paul snapped.

"Geez, alright!" Martin muttered, leaning away from Paul with his hands up in surrender. "You obviously don't want to talk about it."

Martin left it at that. He knew something was going on with his brother, but it was no use trying to press Paul on the matter, he'd only clam up further. When Colin returned with their drinks, Paul and Martin were sat in silence.

By the time the game was over, Paul couldn't wait to get home. He needed to be on his own right now. Something had obviously gone wrong. He hadn't heard from Hannah. Maybe she wasn't going to accept his apology.

Meanwhile, Hannah was just getting home from spending the day with friends. She still hadn't heard from Paul and was starting to get frustrated. If he wanted to make it up to her, he wasn't doing a very good job so far.

She'd headed upstairs as soon as she got in, changing into her comfiest clothes. The sound of the doorbell reached her and she pulled on her slipper boots before hurrying down the stairs. Not expecting anyone, she wasn't sure who she was going to find waiting outside the door. Unbidden, thoughts of Paul crept into her mind. Maybe it was him, maybe he'd come over to start trying to make it up to her.

Hannah threw the door open with a wide grin on her face at the thought of Paul stood there, but the grin soon fell when she saw it was just Graham from next door.

"Oh!" She exclaimed, trying not to look completely disappointed at the random visit. "Hi Graham."

"Hi Hannah. We took in a delivery for you this morning." Graham told her.

"Oh, thanks!" Hannah smiled. Okay, so maybe his visit wasn't quite as random as she'd first thought. Although she couldn't remember ordering anything.

Hannah watched as Graham reached to the side of the door to pick something up. When he straightened back up, he was holding a rather large bouquet of flowers. A riot of colour and shapes.

"Oh my God." Hannah murmured, eyes wide. It was a complete mess!

"Looks like you've got a secret admirer." Graham grinned, handing over the flowers.

Unable to see around all the blooms now in her arms, Hannah thanked Graham again before backing carefully into the hallway. She kicked the door shut behind her and made her way into the kitchen, placing the self-contained vase and flowers down on the kitchen counter.