Chapter 11
Isla
Alistair: Boyfriend Alistair doesn’t mind being bored if he’s with you.
“You aren’t ready,” Alistair said when I opened the door Saturday morning. The front door. Not the connecting door. We were still pretending that didn’t exist.
That little divot cut between his brows again, right where his glasses were slipping down his nose. I was beginning to realise that meant he was disappointed. Something hadn’t followed his grand plans.
“You’re early.” My voice sounded like I’d just attempted to run a marathon without doing any training whatsoever.
Panic. I was panicking. Had been panicking ever since I’d gotten home, laden with ingredients from Brown’s, and realised the sheer magnitude of pastries I had to bake in one night.
Why had I only suggested trying something new to Jess the day before the market?
I could prepare our old menu in my sleep.
There wasn’t ever a good time to get distracted by a closed-lip kiss from your neighbour/fake boyfriend. But this definitely wasn’t it.
I’d spent the remainder of the afternoon shift feeling like a shaken fizzy-drink can, flipping between replaying the moment like a Regency-era wallflower who’d partaken in a sordid tryst, and bailing on this ruse altogether. What I should have been focused on was prepping for the food market.
I was so distracted that even Teddy noticed, very quietly saying “Aren’t we getting pizza anymore?” when I’d completely missed the turning on the drive out of Kinleith. I’d been forced to make a five-point turn on the narrow road.
Alistair checked his watch. “By three minutes. Would you have been ready in three minutes?”
“Probably not.” I blinked tiredly, fully taking him in, well aware I had chocolate mousse crusted into the ends of my hair.
He looked different. Still impeccably dressed, but he’d switched the shirt and tie out for a crew-neck jumper. It looked soft. Expensive.
This was casual Alistair. Weekend Alistair.
I’d been doing a good job of pretending that Alistair Macabe wasn’t insanely attractive. Used words like interesting. I’d registered his allure in a roundabout way. A not for me way.
Like when Ryan Gosling did the Dirty Dancing lift in Crazy, Stupid, Love and your stomach flipped, because he was basically not from this planet. Then you remembered – Oh right, he’s a movie star – and carried on with your life.
That was usually how I felt about Alistair.
I didn’t know if it was the kiss, or my lack of sleep, but today he felt . . . tangible. So real, I could reach out and brush my finger along his sharp jawline. Leave a fingerprint on his too-full bottom lip. Push his glasses up his nose. Slide them off.
His eyes flicked over my face, like he was remembering it too. Then he pointed at me. “You have a—” I followed the direction of his movements, patting my head and – shit! I still had the oversized roller in my fringe.
Tugging it free, I held the door open with a flour-crusted hand.
“Sorry, it’s been a long morning. Or night, really.
” I’d gotten maybe an hour or two of sleep on the sofa.
Most of the night had blurred into a rhythm of rolling, shaping, proofing and filling every configuration of pastry known to man.
Around three, while crying into a bowl of curdled raspberry crème pat, I accepted I was being a wee bit ambitious and nixed the fruit tartlets.
Alistair stepped inside hesitantly, unable to hide his curiosity as his eyes pinged around the space, a mirror image to his. And also about ten times messier.
“Don’t look at the kitchen,” I pleaded, which of course made him look at the kitchen. Bowls from my frenzied prep were strewn over the counter. Flour dusted the floor. Chopped fruit and chocolate dotted the counter. Every cupboard door stood open, the contents strewn out over the dining table.
I half expected him to shape-shift into Gordon Ramsay and call me an idiot sandwich.
“Did your dishwasher explode?”
“I wish. Maybe then our landlord would actually replace it.”
“It’s broken?” His attention snagged somewhere around my knees.
“Not broken exactly.” I tugged my long sleep T-shirt further down my thighs. “Some kind of filter issue that stops it cleaning properly. I’ve been bugging the rental company for weeks.”
He nodded, calm as ever, and slid his hands into his pockets. “Is this the reason for the bad morning?”
“No. I submitted our application for the Cairn he has friends on the council board.
” I nodded, breath still choppy. “My sister is nearly thirty-two years old and still a little shit-stirrer.” He didn’t say it with malice.
“Whatever she says, ignore it. Ignore all of my family in fact. What else was there . . . oh, I’m going to text Mal and see if he can pick up the crates – he makes early deliveries on a Saturday so he’s probably in the village already.
” He pulled out his phone. “The market doesn’t start until ten, right? ”
“Right,” I said a little breathlessly.
“I’m not sure there’s anything I can do about Annabelle stealing customers from Brown’s. Maybe send Annabelle a strongly worded email?”
“You are good at those.”
His lips curled. “Anything else I need to fix?” Like it was that easy. Hand him a problem and he finds a solution.
He hadn’t addressed the no one’s going to buy this elephant in the room. We just weren’t . . . right. The last thirty seconds had proved that.
I trembled with doubt where he didn’t.
Was uncultured where he wasn’t.
I didn’t smell like something expensive. Didn’t know what snail mucus did, or even toner, if I was completely honest. I didn’t know how to pay taxes. I didn’t own a French press. I ate dry cereal out of the box for breakfast and drove a car that only started thirty-three per cent of the time.
Instead of any of that, the only words I could form were, “You kissed me.”
He blew out a slow breath. Nodded like he’d been expecting it. “And I shouldn’t have.”
“I don’t know, I just . . .” This really wasn’t the time to talk about this.
I needed to shower. To get Teddy up and fed.
I couldn’t stop. “I didn’t expect it. We didn’t discuss .
. . anything really. What we’d tell people.
How we’d act in public.” I swallowed tightly, looking at my bare feet as I admitted, “I think we need some ground rules.” I needed ground rules, felt more accurate. So I didn’t lose myself in this.
A long silence followed. I lifted my head to look at him again.
He was staring at me. “You aren’t calling it off?”
“You thought I’d go back on my word?” He looked uncertain. It felt wrong on his face. He was the most self-assured man I’d ever met.
“I wouldn’t blame you,” he said and winced, shaking his head. “I’m really sorry about yesterday. I saw Callum and Juniper and got in my head. Panicked. When I should have checked with you first . . . made sure you were comfortable—”
“You didn’t make me uncomfortable.”
I watched him take a deep breath. “You’re right about the ground rules.”
“Maybe we call them guidelines.”
“That seems manageable.” His hands went to his hips. “Do you have a notebook?”
“Do I have a notebook?” I gestured toward the sofa, inviting him to sit, grabbing the spiral notebook and pen I kept beside the fridge for shopping lists.
His legs were slightly split in that way men always sat, and I perched beside him on the saggy cushions, handing the notebook and pen over.
Our fingers brushed before he flipped to a new page and wrote both of our names at the top in small, neat letters.
Of course he had the nicest handwriting I’d ever seen.
“I guess the first question I should ask is . . .” I cleared my throat. Just do it. You’re both adults. Then why did this all feel so incredibly lame? “What do you expect from a girlfriend, in terms of . . . of intimacy?”
His head jerked. “I don’t expect anything.” He practically spat the words.
“Oh.” I tucked my feet beneath me.
“Isla.” He bent a little to stare me in the eye. “We do whatever you’re comfortable with in the moment. If you want to hold my hand one day but don’t the next, that’s fine. I’ve never been a public display of affection type of person anyway.”