Me-Before-You-by-Jojo-Moyes

It was part deference to Mrs Traynor, part force of habit. I was so used to
feeding Thomas, whose vegetables had to be mashed to a paste and hidden under
mounds of potato, or secreted in bits of pasta. Every fragment we got past him
felt like a little victory.
‘Let me get this straight. You think a teaspoon of carrot would improve my
quality of life?’
It was pretty stupid when he put it like that. But I had learnt it was important
not to look cowed by anything Will said or did.
‘I take your point,’ I said evenly. ‘I won’t do it again.’
And then, out of nowhere, Will Traynor laughed. It exploded out of him in a
gasp, as if it were entirely unexpected.
‘For Christ’s sake,’ he shook his head.
I stared at him.
‘What the hell else have you been sneaking into my food? You’ll be telling me
to open the tunnel so that Mr Train can deliver some mushy Brussel sprouts to
the red bloody station next.’
I considered this for a minute. ‘No,’ I said, straight-faced. ‘I deal only with Mr
Fork. Mr Fork does not look like a train.’
Thomas had told me so, very firmly, some months previously.
‘Did my mother put you up to this?’
‘No. Look, Will, I’m sorry. I just … wasn’t thinking.’
‘Like that’s unusual.’
‘All right, all right. I’ll take the bloody carrots off, if they really upset you so
much.’
‘It’s not the bloody carrots that upset me. It’s having them sneaked into my
food by a madwoman who addresses the cutlery as Mr and Mrs Fork.’
‘It was a joke. Look, let me take the carrots and –’
He turned away from me. ‘I don’t want anything else. Just do me a cup of tea.’
He called out after me as I left the room, ‘And don’t try and sneak a bloody
courgette into it.’
Nathan walked in as I was finishing the dishes. ‘He’s in a good mood,’ he
said, as I handed him a mug.
‘Is he?’ I was eating my sandwiches in the kitchen. It was bitterly cold
outside, and somehow the house hadn’t felt quite as unfriendly lately.