CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Jamie – Now
Avi’s avoidance of me has made it pretty clear how she feels about our kiss.
We haven’t so much as spoken a word to each other outside of passing pleasantries when other people are around.
So, to keep myself from dwelling on it—because I really want to dwell in that moment—I’ve been channeling everything into writing With Love, From Skye.
It’s been months since I felt this at ease in my writing, words pouring out of me to move this idea from a jumbled mess into something cohesive. Something people might want to read.
Over the soothing sounds emanating from my headphones, a commotion of voices coming from just down the hall has me pushing my laptop aside, drawing me out of my writing cave.
I hear Avi’s voice as soon as I pull the door open, mingling with Gran’s and Grandad’s, along with several others.
I could’ve sworn Avi was going down to Glasgow this weekend.
I slide my hands into my pants pockets as I walk down the hall, but the sound of a bellowing laugh from Avi stops me in my tracks.
I haven’t heard her laugh like that in—well, years.
She hasn’t seen me yet, so I get the chance to watch her for a moment. The smile across her face presses her full cheeks up and the skin around her eyes crinkles. God, she’s gorgeous—stop-my-heart gorgeous.
When I sling my arm around Gran’s shoulders, she startles but then looks up at me with her shimmering green eyes.
The smile she gives me rivals the one on Avi’s face.
I don’t think I’ve seen that smile since coming back either.
She covers it well, but Grandad’s health weighs on her—a constant worry, a niggling fear.
But this is the lighthearted woman I remember from my youth.
I pull my gaze away and take in the people around me, noting that the entire group has fallen silent. Like, eerily silent. My gaze lands first on Callum and Fiona, Avi’s parents—who I haven’t seen since I was seventeen—and then on the boy by Avi’s side.
The one I can’t look away from.
He’s tall for a ten-year-old, almost reaching her shoulder, and he looks so much like her with the same blond hair she had at that age, the same nose and chin, and matching freckles too.
The most notable difference is their eyes.
Lennox’s are a vivid green, but before I can wonder what the chances are that the man from the pub had green eyes like mine, I notice a blooming bruise around his left one.
What on earth happened there?
“Hello, Jamie,” Avi’s mum says, breaking the weird tension that was holding us all in stasis for a moment. She closes the distance between us and wraps me in a warm hug I didn’t expect.
“Mrs. Stewart, it’s wonderful to see you,” I say.
She scoffs. “Goodness, call me Fiona. You’re not a boy anymore.” She steps back, hands on my shoulders, and looks me over. “Nope, you’re most certainly a grown man.”
“Mum!” Avi chastises her, and over Fiona’s head, I watch her roll her eyes in exasperation. I don’t hide my smile.
“What?” Fiona asks defiantly with a pointed look at her daughter.
Her dad is next to step forward, extending his hand toward me. “To keep things simple, why don’t you just call me Callum as well.”
Am I imagining it or is he squeezing my hand a little too hard for a standard long time no see sort of handshake?
“Thank you, sir. It’s good to see you as well,” I say. I don’t remember him being quite so intimidating when I was a teenager.
“Jamie,” Avi says, drawing my gaze and all of my attention, “this is Lennox. Lennox, this is Jamie. He’s an old friend of mine.”
Her voice is even, but there’s uncertainty beneath it, like an invisible tremor. Something you’d only be aware of if you could actually feel it, and somehow I think I can.
“Hi,” Lennox says with a small smile, a smile that’s familiar but not. I can’t put my finger on it, but it’s not Avi’s smile… Yet I feel like I know it.
“Hello. It’s nice to finally meet you,” I say, extending my hand. He exchanges a look with Avi before he reaches out and shakes it.
This is Avi’s son. I knew I’d meet him eventually, but it’s surreal. When I slide my gaze to her, there’s a softening in her features as she watches him shake my hand, and her shoulders fall away from her ears.
“Did I miss the memo that you were all coming up for the weekend?” I ask. “I thought Avi was making the trip to Glasgow.”
The Stewarts trade furtive glances and I wonder what I just stepped into, especially when Lennox drops his chin to look at his shoes. Wellies. Of course she has him in wellies.
“We had a wee change in plans. Lennox has an”—Avi hesitates on a breath before continuing—“unexpected week off school and he wanted to come spend it up here. Right, buddy?” She runs a hand along the back of his head and he looks up with a nod—something passing between them that I don’t understand.
“Angus, Aileen, I hope you won’t mind him hanging around while I’m working. ”
“Och, no, we’re thrilled to have him,” Gran pipes in, looking elated at the prospect, and Avi’s shoulders drop a little further, her posture softening.
“Dinner?” Grandad asks, clapping his hands together. “You’ll all join us, I hope?”
“Oh, we wouldn’t want to impose on your family dinner, but if you’ve got an extra table tonight, we would greatly appreciate it,” Fiona says.
“Nonsense, you’re all family. Come on.” Grandad leans into his cane and motions for the whole group to follow him into the pub.
Dinner is an event of raucous laughter and easy conversation.
Lennox keeps mostly quiet, taking in his surroundings and leaning toward Avi most of the night.
This past month must’ve been hard on him, being away from her…
And I wonder if the shiner on his eye—that’s getting more and more purple as the night progresses—has anything to do with his impromptu week away from school. But it’s not really my place to ask.
“Can I see the kitchen, Mum?” Lennox asks when we’ve all eaten our fill of sticky toffee pudding.
“You don’t mind, do you, Angus?” she asks Grandad.
“How many times do I have to tell ye, lass? That’s your kitchen. Stop asking me for permission to do whatever the hell you want with it.”
“Angus,” Gran chides with a smile.
“What?” he says, shrugging.
“There’s a child present.” She nods toward Lennox and offers an apologetic smile to Avi.
“It’s alright, Aileen. I’m pretty sure he’s heard worse.” Avi ruffles Lennox’s hair and he rolls his eyes. It reminds me of her at his age. “Okay then, bud, let’s go. I can show you the garden too, if it’s not too dark.”
Who is she kidding? We’re so far north and it’s nearly the summer solstice; it won’t be dark for a few hours yet.
“You coming?” Lennox says.
At first, I’m unsure who he’s talking to. His grandparents? But they’re looking expectantly at me, and I realize, so is he.
“Oh, I can. If you want me to. But…” Will Avi want me to crash their alone time?
I glance at her, but before she can do or say anything, he says, “Okay.”
And that’s how I end up on a tour of the kitchen and grounds of a place I called home for half of my life.
It’s entertaining to hear about it from Avi’s perspective, so I mostly hang back, just listening.
She introduces Lennox to the staff in the kitchen, showing him around and giving him the location of the secret stash of biscuits she always has on hand.
Something I’m personally glad to know as well.
I follow them outside into the garden and, when she sits on the swing, I’m flooded with the memory of our kiss last week and the many many kisses we shared before it. Lennox snuggles down into her side, eyes roving around the space.
“Would you like a picture?” I ask, pulling my phone out. It’s a habit I picked up from Rory who, being a photographer, is hardly without her camera. The colors of the garden along with the slowly fading light has Avi and Lennox lit in a perfect golden glow. They should have this memory together.
“Oh. Aye, that would be great,” Avi says, so I frame them in—smiling faces, freckled cheeks, bright eyes.
There’s a familiarity that goes beyond the two of them, but it’s gone as quickly as the flicker of the flash.
“You know, there used to be a really cool tire swing out here that we played on when we were your age.”
“You knew each other that long ago?” Lennox asks, surprise coloring his tone. He makes it sound like it was eons ago that his mum and I were his age… but I guess to a ten-year-old, eighteen years does seem like a long time.
Avi laughs and shakes her head, then pulls him in to ruffle his hair. “Aye, that long ago. We spent a lot of time in the gardens around the inn.”
“And up on the roof,” I say without thinking, and then cringe. Fuck. I shouldn’t have said that.
Lennox’s eyes track over my shoulder to the ladder bolted to the side of the inn. The curiosity in them is the same I used to carry in my own at the prospect of climbing up there. I guess all ten-year-old boys are the same.
“Oh no. Don’t even think about it,” Avi says. Her scolding mum-voice is aimed at Lennox, but the reprimanding look in her eyes is all for me.
Sorry, I mouth, my face twisting in a grimace.
She shakes her head, eyes closing and a small smile tilting her lips.
“Ah come on, if you did it, why can’t I?” Lennox asks, and I trap my lips between my teeth to stifle a laugh. It’s a fair question.
“We were older when we used to go on the roof. And it’s not safe. Off-limits. Understood?”
His shoulders sag but he nods. “Fine.”
“Fine,” she mimics, and he bumps her with his shoulder. She chortles before planting a kiss on top of his head.
My heart tugs in my chest with a longing for something I have no part of.
She looks… happy. At ease. This is the most like her she’s been in the month since she arrived. I thought it was because of my being here that she was different, but maybe she just needed him here. She said he was her everything, and I can see it—he is.