Chapter 16
HEATHER
She’s put the time to good use, to be fair. She now has an online shopping basket filled with knickknacks for the girls’ Christmas stockings and a few gifts for other people. Her main present for Georgia still eludes her.
She looks up from her phone when a thumping up the stairs alerts her to another person arriving on the second floor.
A gust of cold wind heralds their arrival.
The stairs, she can tell from the creak on the tread, are being taken two at a time.
After a handful of seconds, Scott appears.
His winter coat is wrapped tightly around his body, and he’s blowing on his hands to warm them up.
His face lights up. ‘Heather. What are you doing there?’
‘Waiting.’
Scott purses his lips and slowly inclines his head.
‘For?’
Heather uses her thumb to gesture behind her towards Georgia’s door.
‘She’s not answering.’
Scott’s eyes turn skyward, and he turns towards Brianna’s door. His hammering and hollering of her name is no more successful. He takes a step back and raises his hands in a ‘can you credit it?’ gesture.
‘Think it was a heavy night,’ Heather says.
Scott pulls his phone from his pocket, and ten seconds later they hear it ring out through the bedroom door.
Defeated, he stands alongside Heather and slides himself down the wall to join her on the carpet.
‘How long have you been here?’
Heather clears her throat. ‘Nearly an hour.’
‘Jeez.’ A puff of air blows out from his pursed lips.
‘I’ve been shopping.’ She shakes her phone in Scott’s direction.
He smiles again and the little dimple in his chin deepens.
‘Resourceful,’ he says. ‘I like that.’
Heather feels her cheeks pinken. It must be because she’s wearing her outside winter clothes inside. She loosens off the belt around her middle and pulls down the zip at her neck.
‘Bit stuck on a main present for Georgia, to be honest.’ She directs her voice to the opposite wall, careful not to look at him. This is the closest they’ve been since the spiking incident, and she knows how long it’s taken to recover from the aftermath of that encounter.
‘Yep. Me too. For Brianna, of course.’
‘Course.’
They sit for a few moments in silence whilst Scott huffs, puffs and removes items of clothing. Why are student flats always so boiling? He drops gloves, a hat, his coat and a scarf on the floor between them. Heather glances down. Then slowly twists her neck to look at him.
‘You thinking what I am?’ he says.
That you’ve pinched my scarf and said nothing about it?
‘I don’t know. Maybe.’
‘That the only loos we can access are on the other side of these doors.’
Ah, that.
‘And we may as well go and get a coffee.’
‘Right. Coffee. Yes. Good idea. I’m definitely needing to pee.’
Sensing a dampness under her arms due to her oversharing, Heather tries to stand up elegantly from her seated position against the wall, but after nearly an hour of waiting, her legs appear to have seized. Scott hooks a hand under her arm and pulls her up.
‘Um. Thanks,’ she says.
‘No problem.’
Scott stuffs his gloves and hat in his pocket and is about to put the scarf around his neck when he glances at her.
‘Err, Scott?’
‘Yup.’
‘Is that my scarf?’
SCOTT
Plonker. Idiot. Moron.
What should he say?
I don’t know?
No, definitely not?
Or the truth – yes, it’s yours, and I’ve kept it secretly for weeks because it feels so soft and it smells divine.
Weirdo. Stalker. Pervert.
‘Umm. Umm. Dunno. Might be. Not sure. Why do you ask?’
Brilliant response. Smooth. Suave.
‘I lost mine a few … A few weeks ago. And I guess … well … it looks similar.’
Scott pulls it from around his neck.
‘Here, you can have it if you want.’
‘Uh … Uh …’
He rams it into her pocket.
‘Keep it,’ he says. ‘I’ve got lots. I’m pretty sure Brianna’s getting me one for Christmas, anyway.’
Because she knows I stole yours and won’t give it back.
They walk into town, shoulder to shoulder along the sea front. If Heather thinks he’s weird, she doesn’t let on. She chats about Christmas plans and suitable gifts for teenage children. Luckily, he can help. A good thing. It stops him looking like such an incompetent dork.
The coffee shop is warm and welcoming. They stand in an orderly queue, eyeing up the cinnamon pastries and the festive brownies. He steals a glance at Heather who wears a khaki bobble hat which brings out the green in her eyes. Her long brown hair kisses her shoulders.
‘Americano. Black,’ he says to the barista when it’s their time to order. He turns to Heather. ‘And …?’
‘A decaf gingerbread oat milk latte, extra hot, please,’ she says. Then she stops. Looks at him. Sees him staring. ‘What?’
‘What’s wrong with a straightforward coffee nowadays?’ he asks when they take their drinks and look around for a table. It’s what any sensible bloke would think. So why not say it?
Heather sits, shrugs, then takes a sip. There’s a coating of foam and cinnamon on her upper lip and, don’t ask him where it comes from, but there’s a temptation to reach over and wipe it off with his finger and then – perish the thought – put his finger in his own mouth.
An act almost as intimate as sharing a toothbrush. Where the hell did that come from?
‘To be honest, Scott. I’ve spent so much of my life skittering around the edges of what I want. Always afraid to ask outright for what I need or what makes me happy. And I don’t know … now I’m in my late forties… I find I just don’t give a damn. I know what I want and I ask for it. Simple.’
Scott uses the wooden stick to stir the brown sugar into his straight-talking, manly drink and finds himself reassessing all these awkward orderers and menu interrogators that have put him off so much in the past. It’s just that nobody has ever explained it in this way before.
‘Fair play,’ he says.
The girls are awake by the time they return to John Logie Hall, and after ninety minutes of packing and dumping of bags into their two cars, Scott and Heather are ready to leave. The girls hug.
‘Can’t wait to see you at Christmas,’ Brianna says to Georgia as they embrace.
‘Me too. Me too,’ Georgia replies.
He glances at Heather. Catches her eye. He doesn’t say it. Particularly because in theory, he’s not that bothered. But, in all honesty, he thinks the same.