Chapter 15
Find a solution? I get on that struggle bus right away, even before Dair leaves for Scotland. That’s how it feels the next morning to see him get smaller and smaller in the van’s wing mirror, his keys in hand for a final time. A real fucking struggle.
I know we said goodbye. Or at least he did. And thanks, when it should have been me thanking him, but here I am with a one-way bus ticket and no answer to a Dair-shaped problem.
He’s on my mind with each chair and table I lump into a warehouse full of bougie furniture destined for eateries and rustic wedding venues. That’s where I hear his voice as if he’s right beside me instead of heading for the Isle of Harris empty-handed.
The real money is in renting it out over and over.
Money is one of my main problems to solve. I don’t earn enough to make that northward journey more than once in a blue moon. And that’s what I want—more of Dair, not less.
I can’t help thinking he feels the same way.
Making enough cash to find out for sure is on my mind at an auction house, where I unload boxes full of china packed by Heppel Exes who came through for me when I needed. They’d come through for me again if I sent another SOS message to our group chat. I know it.
The thing is, their help would be short term.
Dair feels like a long-term proposition. An investment. One worth making, despite my minimum wage occupation. I can’t ask the Exes to fund that, but I do raise my phone to do what else I told Dair—I reach out to ask my herd of highly sexed cats a question.
“I should pay Dair a visit ASAP, yeah?”
No one reacts to my voice note with a thumbs-up. A flood of love hearts fills my phone, so many I have to mute my notifications while thinking over my second problem.
If I want to see him regularly, I’ll need to take a lot more time off.
I can’t scrimp and save my way around that roadblock. I carry it up and down each flight of stairs I trudge all afternoon with my cousin. It echoes through the homes we empty together, then tags along to each new location.
Kev has to notice. Once we’re done for the day, he sits in the cab of his van in rare silence that he breaks with a blunt statement. “He wasn’t just a punter to you.”
I shake my head.
“Want to know how I can tell?”
I nod, my chest prickling.
“Because punters don’t offer to split their auction profits fifty-fifty, do they? That’s what partners do.”
“Fifty-fifty?”
“That’s what he wanted. For you to keep half of whatever his stuff sells for, like you two were equal partners.
” He surveys me, squinting. “Wouldn’t sign the contract until he was certain you’d get half.
I warned him it would be half of almost nothing.
No one’s buying old china. Your Alasdair still insisted. ”
I don’t tell Kev how much I like that word your. I do ask, “When did he tell you that?”
“When you were loading up the van this morning, I went through the auction paperwork with him. He told me to split any profit right down the middle. Because of the work you put in, Vince. He wanted you to have it.” Kev studies my face.
Who knows what he sees to sound as soft as butter for once. “You gonna see him again?”
“I wish.” There’s no changing these facts. “The Outer Hebrides ain’t exactly just up the road.” That brings me to the one fact I do have the power to change. “I gotta make a lot more cash.”
Kev squints again, hard-faced. I also catch a glimpse of Stacey—he’s curious the same way his mum always was about her mudlarking treasures. “How you planning on doing that? By going it alone again, instead of working for me?”
“No. I’m thinking about you and me sharing a different business model.
” I must have absorbed that phrase during meet-ups with corporate high-flyers.
Today I voice it for the woman who taught both of us that working for free is sometimes the right decision.
“I’ll always want our midnight flit service to be available.
Whatever other changes we decide on, they’ve got to stay.
” I don’t know what reaction I expected.
Kev’s visible relief keeps me talking. “You still want to paint Cousin on the side of the van?”
“I want you to be happy, mate.”
He’s raw.
I am too.
“If you do, I’ll never be able to read it.
But if it’s important to you, how about Kevin Charles knows every detail. He also knows Flynn’s backstory.
“There’s something very wrong with the Smallbone family. I mean, I know Flynn is only tenuously related to them, but seriously, none of them can be trusted.” He lowers his voice. “Awful social climbers.”
The doorbell rings.
I get up to answer. “But you still sent him to one of our meet-ups.”
“Me?” Charles is confused. “Why would I ever do that?”
“Because he was one of your exes.”
“Flynn?” Charles laughs again. “Lord, no. He was never my ex.”
He fills me in on the real truth as the doorbell rings for a second time, and I retrace my steps to the front door, stepping over the scattering of letters again on the way to answer. I’m blind to everything but who stands on my doorstep.
Not a furniture fairy, more’s the pity.
I’d fucking love it if I opened the door to find Dair waiting.
I don’t.
All I got is regret that Flynn’s real ex has abandoned the boat-show circuit to wash up back in Britain.
Harry.