CHAPTER 20
MYLES
I’ve been avoiding the Bennett women at school this week. Mostly Brinsley, because I know she saw me and Sheridan talking on Sunday, and even though Sheridan didn’t notice her twin lurking by the kitchen door, I did.
I’d bared myself to Birdie in that kitchen, and I have no idea if she’s going to take me up on it. It’s been five days since I wrote my number on the pale underside of her arm, and I haven’t heard a peep.
Shirley is less the issue, unless Brin told her what she saw, in which case I’m Coventry’s Number One Most Wanted by the Bennett girls. All three of them.
I dismiss my Friday afternoon Year 7 group, have a tidy up around the room so the cleaners don’t have too much to do when they come in later. Then I sit behind my desk and finish a couple of bits of work.
I see Sam—the Year 9 student who believes he possesses zero artistic talent—trudge past with his head low and shoes squeaking along the linoleum as he heads home for the day. Something warm thuds in my chest, an ache accompanying it that feels far too familiar for my liking. It’s a Friday afternoon and the kid looks like he’d rather be going anywhere but home. No child should feel that way about Fridays.
He was quiet this week, and last week if I really think about it. He wasn’t really paying attention, but it wasn’t like the other kids where they were lost in their work. It seemed like he was more lost in his head. I’d had a quiet word with him in the hopes of avoiding embarrassing him. I’m not the type of teacher to call out a kid for not paying attention when I used to have the same problem. If something’s going on at home—which should be a safe space—it’s going to take a lot of your attention. Something tells me there’s always a lot going on at home for Sam.
Not long passes before I get a notification on my phone. For a second, I think it might be a text from Sheridan, but I’m not that lucky. It is, however, the next best thing: an announcement from BennyBetty with the release of a new Goth Frogs episode.
This girl has been on fire with the episode releases recently.
Forgetting where I am and what I’m supposed to be doing, I sink into the animated world of frogs in fishnets, black lipstick, and silly onyx toupees.
“Goth Frogs, aye?”
I startle, my phone clattering to the floor. My heart is thundering in my ears. “Fucking hell, Brin,” I heave. “You scared the shit out of me.”
She gives me a wry smile and swipes my phone up unscathed. Something about her is smug, and it’s unnerving. “Sorry.”
I shut off the video, feeling jittery, and place it face down on the desk. I glance up at her. “You know about Goth Frogs?”
She hesitates a moment. “Yeah, I know the creator.”
No fucking way. Brinsley knows BennyBetty?! Fuck, this is cool. “Really?”
“Yeah, I…went to school with them for a little bit.”
“It’s a woman, right? The creator?”
She gives me a tight-lipped nod, which tells me Brin knows more about this than she’s letting on. Knowing that BennyBetty is anonymous, I can only assume Brinsley is trying not to give too much away.
“That’s so cool.” I say, like a complete dork. “I’ve been watching it from the start. Probably sounds a bit lame to you, but it’s my favourite series online. No, anywhere.”
“Not lame at all, Myles. I’m sure she’d be flattered if she ever heard you say that.”
“I, er, normally wait ‘til I get home to watch new episodes, but she’s been updating more often than usual, and I got excited. This must be what Harry Styles fans feel like when he releases new music.”
Brinsley snorts. “Must be.” She perches on the edge of a stool close to my desk. “Do you not want to go out with everyone tonight?”
I lean back on my chair and pull a face that’s something between a cringe and a grimace. “I think if your mum found out I’d gone out with Emily, she’d probably disown me. And I quite like your family.” One member in particular, especially.
“Aw, we like you, too. But don’t let my mother bully you into submission. If you like the French teacher, you like the French teacher.”
This is not where I was expecting this conversation to go. Emily is harmless, constant flirting aside. And she is relentless, but I’m not really about sleeping with co-workers, and I have my sights set on a certain pink-tipped, curly haired pixie anyway. If she’d only text me. Going out with the other teachers probably will be uneventful, so long as Emily keeps her hands to herself.
“I don’t,” I clarify quickly. “Like Emily.”
Brin looks taken aback. “Okay…”
I clear my throat. “I actually thought you might be here to interrogate me about Sunday. I’ve been waiting for you to corner me.”
She laughs, the sound so similar yet so different to her twin’s. “You make me sound like some kind of mafia wife.”
“Is that not why you’re here?”
She grins. “No, it is why I’m here. Sheridan has avoided me all week, and so have you.”
“Great,” I mutter.
“What does that mean?” She demands, defensive.
“I kind of already had the lecture off your brother on multiple occasions during our trip away. I’d rather not have it again.”
“Lecture? What lecture? Why would I lecture you? And which brother? Beau?”
“Yeah, Beau. And the one about me staying away from Sheridan because I’ve got too much baggage, and she doesn’t need any more shit in her life. Whatever that means.”
Brinsley flinches. “Okay, ew. No, I’m not here to lecture you. And fuck Beau for even going there. I apologise on his behalf because that is straight up not okay.”
“He doesn’t seem to think so.”
“Fuck him. Tell me what happened on Sunday.”
“I don’t know if I should.”
“Why? Is it bad? If you’ve upset her, I hope you know I’ll make your life absolute hell. Way worse than Nash or Beau could.”
“I don’t dispute that.” And this is knowing that Nash can be a nasty son of a bitch if he needs to be.
“That’s not what it looked like, though. If anything, it looked like you wanted to strip her naked and shag her right there on my parents’ kitchen floor.”
Not entirely inaccurate. I’d suppressed a boner when I first saw her in that soft dress and thigh highs. Then she got a bit lippy, and I remembered how much I like that side of her. And above everything she’d let me touch her. Only her arm, but it was good enough.
With a sigh, I say, “She gave me her number and I lost it.”
“Well, that’s silly. Why didn’t you ask me for it.?”
I lift a brow at her.
“Right. The inquisition.”
“I gave her mine instead hoping she’d text me, but she hasn’t yet.”
“Knowing my sister, she’s only making you wait because she had to. She won’t give you the silent treatment forever.”
“Do you think she likes me?” I ask, then realise how pitiful I sound.
Brin snorts again. “You’ve been spending too much time around teenagers. But yes, I do. If she didn’t like you, she’d have binned your number the second you gave it to her.”
That’s what I’d hoped for. “Will you give me her number now?”
Brinsley purses her lips while studying me. “No.” At my protest, she holds up a hand. “Sheridan is a romantic at heart. Giving you her phone number now is too easy. You’re gonna do one better.”
I blink at her. “What…?”
“I’m gonna give you her address.”
* * *
Brinsley sends me to an address in one of the small villages just outside the city.
On the way, I stop at a florist just about to close for the day and tell the lady I need a bouquet of peonies, dahlias and carnations, if she can. She tells me that since it’s the end of the day, I’ll get what I’m given, and she’s formidable enough that I don’t argue. I don’t even know what any of those look like—Brinsley just told me they’re Birdie’s favourites. The bouquet I’m given is a hodgepodge of blooms where no two are the same. I don’t think, anyway.
I then stop by a Tesco Express and pick up a bottle of wine, condoms because I’m optimistic—and cautious—and a box of Lindor chocolate.
The cashier raises a suspicious brow at me. “Valentine’s Day is in March, mate.”
“No, it’s in February,” I retort.
“That’s what I meant,” he mutters, suitably scorned.
I pay the teenager and head back to my car.
I drive for another ten minutes before the sat-nav tells me I’ve arrived. I peer out the window, not convinced.
“This can’t be right.”
I’m parked in front of a cottage that looks like it’s come out of a fantasy land. Or the house from Tots TV.
A thatched roof, red brick with visible timber foundations painted black. The front garden is picket-fenced with a small raised porch, a bench outside the front door, and an iron bird pond in the centre of the front lawn.
It looks like somewhere my grandma might live. If I had one.
I decide to text Brin, just to be safe.
Me
Are you sure this is the right address?
Brin
Fairy cottage?
Me
Yep
Brin
Then you’re in the right place!
I blink at my screen, and then out the window again. Fuck me. Either Sheridan got very lucky with inheritance, or interior designers make way more money than I realised.
Taking as many calming breaths as I can, I collect the flowers, wine and chocolate off the passenger seat and head up the path to the shiny black front door.
Steeling myself, I knock three times.
I hear the dog first—a kind of terrified yowling from somewhere near the front of the house. He quietens down soon enough, and a moment later the curtains in the front window rustle. It’s too quick for me to see her, but I know she’s seen me because the window is cracked open, and I can hear her hissing profanities.
I have to stifle my laughter.
Sheridan doesn’t leave me waiting long, and before I know it, the front door eases open.
She’s got Hector tucked under her arm, the poor sod shaking like a damn leaf in a light breeze. Her hair is piled atop her head in a mass of pink and blonde curls—the pink now faded to more of a pastel shade than it was in the summer—and she’s wearing some grey leggings that show off her curves, a baggy T-shirt that’s so old I can barely make out the print on it, and fluffy boot slippers. But best of all are the thick black frame glasses perched on her nose.
For the entire week we shared a cabin, I did not see her in specs, but fuck me do they suit her.
“Hi…” She says warily.
“Hi.” I feel awkward. This was a rubbish plan—turning up at an unassuming woman’s house without prior indication. People get arrested for this kind of behaviour.
“What… How did you find out my address?”
I swallow my nerves. “A woman who looks an awful lot like you gave it to me after seeing how sad and pathetic I am.”
Sheridan’s lips twitch, but only briefly. My appearance is clearly unsettling. “Sad and pathetic?”
“Yeah… But I’m now realising how weird and inappropriate this is.”
“Don’t tell me—my sister thought it’d be romantic?”
“Technically she said you would find it romantic. I’m starting to think Brin might be getting what you want mixed up with what she wants.”
“I’m certainly not used to men turning up at my front door with flowers and…wine?”
“What can I say? I’m optimistic.”
She sighs, placing Hector back on the ground—threat assessed. “You sure you’re not here to murder me?”
“I think I would find very little satisfaction in murdering you, Birdie.”
Her smile is bitten and cute as hell. “Fine,” she says around a sharp exhale, and opens the door wide, “you can come in. Only because I can see those chocolates and I forgot to pick some up myself when I went shopping this week.”
“There’s a corner shop not fifty metres away,” I say as I step over the threshold and into the cottage that looks like it came right out of a childhood fantasy of mine.
“I only leave the house when I absolutely have to, Myles. Which is rarely.”
Sheridan takes the bouquet off me and shoves her face in the foliage. “Did Brin tell you I like carnations too?”
“Maybe, but I don’t know if they’re in there. The florist was a bit shitty with me.”
She giggles, and I realise I’ve missed that sound. “You did good.”
I shove my smugness back to the pits before my head can get too big. Praise from this woman is like a drug.
Birdie guides me through her fairytale cottage—all low ceilings, bright colour walls and exposed beams—to the kitchen at the back of the house. It overlooks a small, well-manicured garden and the canal.
The kitchen is modest, but not overwhelming, with pale green cabinets and clean white marble surfaces. It’s cluttered in places with washed utensils still on the drainer, piles of post on the breakfast table and winterwear crowded in by the back door, likely for the rougher dog walks.
Sheridan leaves the bouquet on the counter and rummages through a cupboard, retrieving a crystal vase. She fills it up a third of the way with tap water, then transfers the tied blooms over. She then produces two wine glasses from a smaller cupboard and hands them over to me.
“Have you had dinner?”
“No, I came straight from the school.”
I follow her as she weaves into the next room, which happens to be the lounge. It’s smaller than I expected—a loveseat and an armchair, both assaulted with colourful woven blankets and throw pillows. A large TV sits mounted on the wall above the fireplace, a coffee table stacked with books, scraps of paper with scribbles on them and other items that she hasn’t bothered to put away sits in the middle of the room.
“You have…a lot of soft furnishings.” I blurt.
Sheridan laughs as she sinks into the sofa, the flowers now pride of place on the coffee table. “I have a friend. She makes a guinea pig product and I get the finished items when she’s perfected it.”
“That’s cool.” I set the glasses down on the table, take out the wine and chocolates, and start pouring.
“My boss hates my house.”
“What—why?”
“It doesn’t exactly scream interior designer.”
“Who cares? You’re the one living in it.”
She pats the sofa when I hand her a glass of the good stuff, and I squeeze in beside her. “This is what I’ve always said. Just because I know how to make other people’s houses look good—to societal norms—doesn’t mean I want that for myself.”
“It feels very you here.” I tell her. “Of the two rooms I’ve seen, anyway.”
“Does that mean you approve?”
“Not that my opinion means much, but I do approve, yeah. It feels like a home.”
She studies me with a little dip in her brow, big blue eyes more intense than I’m used to, magnified by the lenses in her specs. And then the intensity clears, and she grins at me. “Thank you. Anyway, back to the matter of food—I also haven’t eaten, and I use having company as an excuse to order a takeaway. So, what do you want?”