Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
DOUGLAS
I kissed her.
The thought keeps coming back, again and again, as I walk through Ardmara with my hands pushed deep into my pockets. I kissed Ellie Macpherson in her kitchen, then I panicked and left.
No, I didn’t leave. I bolted, like a man fleeing the scene of a crime.
I replay it. Can’t stop replaying it.
She was sitting across from me, and I was trying to explain why it couldn’t work: Leah, the marriage, the mess of it all.
I stood up to go—I almost got out of there without making a fool of myself—but I only made it as far as the doorway.
Then I turned back, closed the distance between us, and kissed her.
For a few seconds the noise in my head just stopped. For once I wasn’t thinking about the twins or the boat or the house or school or constant logistics and planning. There was just me and her. Our mouths pressed together, my hand on her face, my thumb against her cheekbone.
Fuck. I got hard instantly, of course. Was still hard when I bolted out of there—hence the hands in my pockets. Even now, three streets away, my dick hasn’t fully calmed down.
But the softness of her mouth . . . and the wee gasp of surprise she let out when my lips met hers . . .
My dick twitches, which is unhelpful. I’m wanting the bloody thing to settle down, not perk up again.
Why am I running away?
I stop in the middle of the pavement. Huh, that’s a good question. Should I turn around, go back, try to explain myself? After all, the whole point of going round to Ellie’s was to clear things up, and instead I’ve only made everything infinitely more complicated.
But how would I explain myself when I don’t understand why I did what I just did?
I can see it now—me standing on her doorstep, opening and closing my mouth like a landed fish while she waits for me to form a coherent sentence, unable to take my hands out of my pockets in case she clocks what’s going on in my jeans.
Bloody hell.
No, I need some time to sort my head out before I see her again.
I walk on, to my parents’ house. I left the twins there before going to Ellie’s. A quick arrangement, nothing unusual. Just popping out for an hour, if that’s all right.
As I walk, I force myself to mentally plan out tonight’s dinner, and by the time I reach my parents’ place, my body has thankfully calmed down.
I let myself in through the back gate. The twins are in the garden with Da, who’s supervising from a deck chair while Logan balances on the low stone wall.
Rosie is crouched on the grass, peering at a ladybird crawling over her finger.
“Da!” Logan spots me first and wobbles, arms windmilling, but catches himself. Then he grins, says, “Watch this,” and proceeds to launch himself off the wall. He lands on the grass on both feet, then stands up proudly. “Did you see?”
“Impressive, mate.”
Da raises a hand from his chair. “All right, son?”
“Aye. Thanks for having them.”
“No bother.”
I’m about to round them up and head home when Mum calls from the kitchen doorway, “Douglas, could you help me with something quickly?”
I step into the kitchen, and Mum closes the door behind me.
“What do you need?”
“Oh.” She glances around then points to the spare coffee jar on the top shelf. “Could you get that down for me?”
I do and pass it to her.
“Thanks.” She puts it on the worktop. “So, it was Ellie Macpherson’s house you popped round to, was it?”
I didn’t tell her that. I did, however, mention to the twins that I needed to drop something off at Ellie’s. She obviously got it out of them. Not much goes by my mum.
“Aye. The kids been okay?”
“Fine, fine. So, why did you have to dash round to Ellie Macpherson’s on a Sunday morning, then?”
So much for my attempt at changing the subject. “I was just dropping something off.”
“Oh aye? That’s good. She’s a bonny lass that Ellie, isn’t she?”
“Mum.” I shake my head. “Don’t go getting any ideas. It’s nothing like that. Now, should I put that coffee jar back on the top shelf? Because by the looks of things”—I nod at another jar that’s sitting by the kettle, still three quarters full—“you won’t be needing it for a while.”
“Oh, do you know, I hadn’t even seen that one. Aye.” She passes me back the jar I got down for her. “You can put this one back up, thanks.”
A few minutes later, I’ve gathered the twins and we’re heading home. It’s a ten-minute walk—or at least, it should be, but Logan wants to climb every wall we pass. It’s his new thing, apparently. As for Rosie, she fires questions at me that I’m too distracted to focus on.
“Da. Da.” She tugs my sleeve. “I said, what do you think? Otters or seals?”
“What?”
“You’re not listening.”
“Otters,” I say. I’ve no idea what the question was. I just want to get home.
Rosie studies me with those sharp wee eyes of hers. “You’re being weird again, Da. Just like last night.”
“I’m not being weird.”
“You are. You’ve got a funny face.”
“This is just my face, Rosie.”
“No, it’s your weird face. You had it yesterday too.”
“Right. Well—”
“Race you to the house, Rosie!” Logan yells, saving me from further interrogation by my seven-year-old daughter, who it seems is every bit as perceptive as her grandmother.
When I reach the front door—last, of course—I unlock it and usher them inside. “All right, shoes off and go play.” They thunder upstairs.
The rest of the day passes the way Sundays do.
I deal with the laundry, sort snacks for the kids, break up an argument, sort them more snacks.
It’s basically a slow grinding countdown to bedtime, and through the whole thing, I replay what happened in Ellie’s cottage and try to think what I’m supposed to do next.
I think about texting her. I even pick up my phone half a dozen times, but what would I say?
Sorry I kissed you and ran away? That doesn’t exactly cover it.
I shouldn’t have done that is true but it makes it sound like I regret it, and I’m not sure I do, which is a problem in itself.
Can we talk? Nope. If I can’t think what to put in a text, there’s no way I’d manage a phone call.
I get the twins bathed and tucked into bed. It takes the usual amount of negotiation and delay tactics. When they finally settle, I tidy the kitchen, check the doors, and turn in.
I don’t sleep well.
My alarm goes the next morning at half four. I snooze it. I never normally do that.
When it goes again, I drag myself up and dress in the dark. I’m out the door by ten past five, after exchanging a few words with Mum and Da, who, as always, have come over to be in the house for when the twins wake up.
The harbour is quiet. A number of boats are already out, their lights faint in the grey beyond the breakwater. The air is sharp, the kind of cold that gets into your lungs and wakes you up whether you want it to or not.
Ben’s on the Mary Beth, sorting the bait. He nods as I step aboard. “Morning.”
“Morning. Here before me today, eh?”
He doesn’t comment that it’s me who’s late, not him who’s early. I don’t either.
We cast off and motor out towards the first fleet of creels. This is where my head usually clears, the routine taking over, but not today. Today the routine just gives my thoughts more room.
We come up on the first marker buoy. I hook it, bring the line in, and we start hauling.
Normally, it’s automatic. Swing the creel onto the gunwale, take out the prawns, then Ben rebaits the creel and sends it back into the water.
The rhythm of it always settles in quick. I’ve done it countless times.
But today I haul the first creel onto the gunwale and just . . . pause. I stare at it for a second too long, like I’ve forgotten what comes next.
“Sorry,” I mutter, shaking myself out of it. But the day doesn’t get much better after that. I’m off my game. Nothing major, but I notice, and Ben notices.
He doesn’t say anything. He’s nineteen—he’s not about to question his skipper. But I catch him glancing at me a couple of times, like he can tell something is up.
Then, on the fourth fleet, he doesn’t secure the bait properly when rebaiting a creel.
It’ll wash out before the creel hits the seabed.
Any other day I’d reach over and fix it without comment, but today I say, “Come on, Ben! That’s not right.
Do it again.” The words come out harsher than I mean them to.
Ben blinks, then nods and redoes it without a word.
“Sorry,” I say after a moment. “Didn’t sleep well.”
“No worries,” Ben says easily. Not much bothers the lad, but it bothers me.
The boat is the one place where I’m supposed to have it together.
Out here, I know what I’m doing. I know the water, the tides, the creels.
I know how the Mary Beth moves and what she needs.
Everything else in my life might be a mess, but this—this I can do.
Only today, I can’t. Not well, anyway.
I haul the next creel and tell myself to focus, but it’s no use. The same thought keeps turning over and over in my head, stubborn and unresolved.
I kissed her. And I liked it.