Chapter Twenty-Nine
Boxing Day
Mel and Finn are both quiet in the morning as they wake, get dressed, and begin packing up their things. When Mel puts her final piece of clothing in her suitcase and zips it up, she just stands there, staring at it, not wanting to move.
“So,” Finn says and she turns to look at him.
“I suppose this is it.” He’s standing with his hands in his pockets, and he can’t quite look at her.
“Mum wants us all to go to the pub on the way back to St. Andrews. Do you want to end it here, or after the pub?” His voice is flat—and she knows he does not want this any more than she does.
So she takes a breath. “What if I don’t want to end it at all?”
He frowns at her. “Don’t you? Because yesterday it seemed like…” She tries not to wince, to let on that she’s hiding something, but she knows what she was doing yesterday, pulling away a little, so he wouldn’t guess the truth. But she can’t tell him that, can she?
He’s watching her, and she sees him reading something on her face—though she can’t guess what. If he asks her outright if she’s hiding something, what will she say? But he doesn’t. “At the engagement party,” he says slowly, “things seemed a little…off.”
Her eyes narrow and he holds his hands up. “Before I…Before all of that, I mean. Was it work?” he continues quickly, as if he’s trying not to think of what he’d actually done. “Was it you being stressed, like you said, and not wanting to talk to me about it?”
She nods slowly, hesitates, then sighs, pulling a hand through her hair. “I was thinking about taking another job. That was what the call was about. I don’t know if you remember, but—”
“I remember,” he murmurs. “You were on the phone to someone. You said it was work.”
“Right.” She grimaces. She hadn’t thought of it as a lie—because it was still about work, wasn’t it?
Just not her work. “Well. I’ve told you how stressed I was with the business.
I was panicking, thinking maybe I couldn’t do it anymore.
So that day there was this recruiter who was supposed to be calling and hadn’t—and I was freaking out, thinking maybe I couldn’t do anything else, because, apart from my business, and not counting my shop-assistant days, I’ve never had another job.
” She takes a breath. “So I was constantly checking my phone and it was stupid, but when he called I was so relieved I had to answer. And then…” She closes her eyes briefly, not wanting to relive that day.
“Then everything with us happened, and I realized it would be madness to quit my business, so I kept going. And then all the stuff with Lillian happened and I…” She raises her hands in the air, lets them fall again.
“I wish you’d told me,” he says quietly.
“Yes, well, I wish you’d told me you’d quit your job, were hating London, and thought things were over between us.”
He winces, then nods. “I know. I should have. I’m so sorry, Mel. I just, I guess I felt like I was failing to be the stable person you deserved—and then I started thinking maybe you didn’t really want me to stay, anyway.”
“You’re such an idiot,” she says on a sigh, and he smiles, just a bit.
“And for my part,” she continues, because if they’re getting it all out there she might as well say the whole lot, “I thought I needed to figure it out on my own. I thought that I’d come up with something better, and that maybe I could still be the person everyone thought I was.
The person you’d fallen in love with. I was scared that if I showed you this side of me, if I showed how much I was flailing, I’d prove not to be the girl you’d thought I was and you’d leave.
” She swallows. “But then you left anyway.”
“I’m so sorry, Mel,” he says again, and his eyes say how much he means it. He takes a tentative step toward her. “For what it’s worth, I love all the sides of you. No matter how many there are.”
And there it is. The words she’s wanted, needed, to hear. She feels a lump rising in her throat, swallows it down. But she doesn’t say it back, not yet.
His eyes trace the lines of her face. “So what now, with your job? Are you going to quit your business?”
She chews on her lip. This is what she’s been trying to work out over the last few days.
“I don’t think so,” she says slowly. “But I think…” She blows out a breath.
“I don’t want to keep running the business like I am.
I can’t keep doing it. Especially not if Lillian wants me, specifically, to design the pieces.
So I think…” She is thinking out loud as she speaks.
“The bit I love is making the jewelry. That’s why I started it.
And I suppose I’ve been reminded of that.
I haven’t quite figured out how it would work, but businesses hire managers and CEOs all the time, don’t they?
So who’s to say I can’t do that—hire someone to take care of the actual running of things—and then I do what I love, what I’m best at? ”
He smiles, brighter this time. “No one’s to say that. It’s your business. You can do what you like.”
“Right.” She lets out a small laugh. “I can do what I like. So that’s what I’ll do.
I’ll say yes to Lillian, look after her designs and maybe more.
And I’ll get someone else to do the organizing bits.
” And the relief she feels when she says it makes her sure it’s the right decision.
Okay, so maybe things won’t be done exactly how she would do them, maybe she’ll have to let go a little and share the business with someone else, but she’ll be able to do the bits she loves as a result.
She squares her shoulders, looks Finn right in the eye. And comes to the crux of it all. “And, Finn, if I do that, I don’t think I need to be in London. At least not full time.”
His eyes turn a little cautious—not quite the reaction she’d been hoping for. “I can’t ask you to move for me.”
She lets out a frustrated sound. “Haven’t you been listening? It’s not just for you. That’s the whole point.”
He takes her hand in his. “I don’t want to let you down, Mel.”
She snatches her hand away, throws it in the air.
“For God’s sake, Finn! Is this the same bullshit about your dad?
Because you are not your dad, Finn. How many times do I have to tell you?
You will not do to me what he did to your mum.
And you can’t keep using that as an excuse—you have to bloody grow up. ”
He splutters. “Grow up?”
She sticks her chin in the air. “Yes. Grow up. You are an adult. You are responsible for your own actions, your own decisions. As far as I can tell, you’re letting fear of an imagined future stop you from living the life you want today.
So, fine, either keep on thinking that, keep on being sure that there is some kind of inevitability to what will happen—or fight, Finn.
Decide you’re not going to be like your dad. Decide you want me enough to try.”
There’s quiet for a beat, and Mel feels heat flooding through her system, a mixture of anger and nerves. But, you know what, if he is going to continue to use this same excuse, continue to let what happened with his mum and dad define his future, then screw him. He can just—
She’s turning away, when he grabs her to stop her. “Of course I want you. You’re it for me.” He lets out a breathless laugh. “Fuck, you’ve always been it for me, Mel.”
She stares at him, heart thumping, breath catching in the base of her throat. “Yeah, well.” She throws her hands in the air, frustration and anger and relief all mixed into one. “You’re it for me too.”
Their gazes hold, the air between them buzzing. She’s torn between wanting to kiss him and wanting to thump him on the chest for being such a bloody idiot.
He moves toward her, gaze dropping to her mouth.
“Auntie Mel, Uncle Finn!” Freya’s voice booms up the stairs.
Mel is well and truly Auntie now, isn’t she? So let’s just hope that’s not all for nothing. Her throat bobs as Finn’s eyes find hers again, but Freya is shouting again, impatience lacing her tone.
“It’s time to go!”
Finn pulls a hand through his hair. “So…we’ll talk? Later?”
Mel’s breath loosens in her chest. There is still Susan to think about.
Still that secret she is keeping from him—and talking about any sort of future is going to make that harder.
But she doesn’t want to break up with him.
She doesn’t want to go back to an empty flat, alone, knowing she didn’t at least try.
“Yes,” she says firmly. “We’ll talk.”