Chapter 6
CHAPTER SIX
DOUGLAS
I make my way up the hill towards home. Braeview Drive is quiet, as it always is at this hour. A cat watches me from a garden wall, its eyes catching the light from a lamppost, then it loses interest and drops out of sight.
It was a good night. Lachlan and Blair were in good form, Ainsley was sharp and funny, and even Struan’s toast, humiliating as it was, came from a decent place.
But my mind keeps circling back to a single moment.
I’m hardly available, am I?
God. Something in Ellie’s eyes dimmed when I said it. She tried to cover it with a smile, but I saw it.
I reach the house. There’s a light on downstairs, a warm glow behind the curtain. I let myself in quietly. Shoes off in the hall. Jacket on the hook.
In the living room, my da is in the armchair, head tipped back, mouth slightly open, doing the thing he insists isn’t sleeping. My mum is on the sofa with a book open on her lap. Her red hair—darker than mine, streaked with silver now—catches the lamplight.
She looks up as I come in. “Hello, son.”
“All right, Mum.”
“Good night?”
“Aye, it was fine.”
Da stirs at the sound of my voice, blinking himself back to consciousness. He straightens and rubs a hand through his beard. “Hi, son. Seen the forecast for tomorrow?”
“Light westerly. Should be calm enough.”
He nods, satisfied. That’s my da. Hasn’t fished commercially in years—handed the Mary Beth over to me when his knees started giving him trouble—but he still takes an interest in the weather like he’s heading out at dawn himself.
“How were the twins?” I ask.
“Good as gold,” Mum says.
I raise an eyebrow.
“Well, good enough.”
“That sounds more like it.”
Mum marks the page in her book and stands. Da pushes himself out of the armchair with a quiet grunt—those knees of his complaining again.
“We’ll get out of your hair,” Mum says. “We’ll be back again before too long.”
“I know. Thanks, Mum, Da. I appreciate it.”
“Ach.” Da waves a hand. “What else would we be doing?”
Sleeping in their own bed. Not setting an alarm to come over before dawn so someone is in the house when the twins wake up.
I don’t say this, but the guilt is there, quiet and constant, like a low-grade headache I’ve learned to live with. They do too much. I rely on them too much. And they never once complain, which somehow makes it worse.
“See you in the morning,” I say.
“Five o’clock,” Mum confirms. “Or thereabouts.”
I see them to the door. Da claps me on the shoulder, Mum squeezes my hand, then they’re gone.
Upstairs I push open the twins’ bedroom door and carefully step inside, avoiding the spot on the floor where the boards creak. The nightlight casts a dim orange glow over the room.
In the bottom bunk, Rosie is sprawled diagonally across the mattress with one arm flung above her head, the other hanging off the edge. Her duvet has been kicked to the bottom.
I pull it back over her and tuck it loosely around her shoulders. She stirs, her eyes half opening—unfocused, heavy with sleep.
“Da?” A mumble, barely a word.
“Aye. Go back to sleep.”
Her eyelids flutter shut and she drifts straight back to dreamland.
I press a kiss to her forehead then climb a few rungs of the ladder and peer over the top.
Logan is curled in a tight ball, knees drawn up, arms wrapped around a puffin toy he’s had since he was a baby.
During the day he’s too grown-up for cuddly toys—he’s seven now, as he likes to remind me—but every night, without fail, it ends up in his arms. He’s out cold, breathing slow and steady.
I reach over and pull the covers up to his chin, then kiss his forehead too. When they’re asleep, they look like angels. No fighting, no shouting, no drawing on library walls. Just two small people, safe and still and finally quiet.
I climb back down and ease the door shut behind me. Downstairs, I reach for the whisky bottle in the kitchen cupboard, even though I shouldn’t. I’ve had two pints, and I’ll be up at half four. I pour myself a small one anyway and sit at the kitchen table.
I’m hardly available, am I?
Aye, I’m still thinking about it. Because I’m not available. I have a wife.
Sure, the wedding ring isn’t on my finger and hasn’t been for years.
I took it off one evening after the twins were in bed and put it in the drawer of my bedside table, and it’s been there ever since.
I don’t even remember the exact night. It wasn’t dramatic.
I just looked down at my hand and thought, What’s the point?
Leah hasn’t been in contact for months. That’s just how it is with her.
But at some point she’ll show up at the house—unannounced because there’s never a warning—and she’ll play at being a mother for a few days.
Maybe even a week. Then she’ll grow bored and disappear again, giving as much notice as she gave before her arrival. Which is to say none.
I take a sip of the whisky. It burns, warm and familiar.
I’m hardly available, am I?
I could have said it differently. I could have just laughed Struan’s comment off, the way you’re supposed to when your mate makes a joke. But I didn’t.
He was just taking the piss. He wasn’t asking me to declare my marital status in the middle of the pub, but I did—because something in me panicked. The thing is, there’s a line and I have to stay on the right side of it. I think I was reminding myself, as much as them, that that line exists.
Whatever my reason for blurting out what I did, it came out harshly and Ellie didn’t deserve that. She’d just paid for the round, plus we’d been chatting and it had been nice. Then I ruined it.
I owe her an apology.
I finish the whisky then rinse the glass and set it on the draining board.
I check the front door is locked, switch off the kitchen light, then head upstairs, where I brush my teeth and change.
The bed is cold when I get in. I pull the duvet up, stare at the ceiling for a little while, then close my eyes.
I’m hardly available, am I?
Damn it. I really need to stop thinking about that. Because half four isn’t that far away.