Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
MAISIE
Maisie’s door opened that dreaded Valentine’s Day lunchtime to a six-foot wall of man.
“What are those?”
“Codfish.”
Her features flattened, unimpressed.
“They’re called roses, Daffy,” Iain said, thrusting them towards her like he was allergic to their red petals, though his sarcastic tone missed the mark.
“You bought me flowers?” Maisie couldn’t remember the last time that someone had, much less for a date. Not that these next couple of hours were a date … This was two single people spending their Valentine’s Day together – second Valentine’s day together, evidently – in the name of appearing to be in a relationship.
Iain tucked a hand into his front jean pocket, the other keeping Ted from dashing into her flat. “I didn’t want to risk being seen coming here without a gift,” he said, though it sounded a lot like moaning. “This whole Valentine’s Day nonsense was your idea.”
Maisie stared at the flowers, and then at him. “I don’t have anything to give you.”
“You give me a headache. That’s enough.”
“Rude.” He had to go and spoil the moment, didn’t he? If he didn’t want this plan to happen then why had he agreed to it? “Ted can come in. You can stay outside for that comment.”
“You’re choosing my dog over me?”
“Ted has better manners.”
“Trust me, he doesn’t.”
Maisie swung her door shut only for Iain to stop it with his hand. “Do you want your nain and her friends to stop bothering us, or not?”
Shitting hell. He had a point.
Maisie opened the space between them again before the vein in Iain’s forehead enlarged any further. He took two steps inside, giving some slack into Ted’s lead.
“I hope he’s house trained,” she said.
“He is.”
“I was referring to you.”
The unamused squint that Iain gave her was enough to make Maisie spin and hide her face in her roses before she let out a snicker. Ugh, it was fun to mess with him.
She found the closest thing that she had to a spare vase in her kitchen (a pint glass) and set the roses within some water. It didn’t matter that the bunch was modest; six short stems tied with some paper and twine. Roses weren’t the cheapest of flowers at this time of year, not for the quality of the wide, open ones she stared at on her counter. Iain had obviously gone out of his way to find them.
“What happened to you?” Maisie muttered to herself. He’d said that he’d been burned by romance before, and yet he’d brought her – his fake girlfriend – an ultimate symbol of love.
In her living room, Ted sniffed around the edges of the furniture, finding interest in her round, fluffy sofa cushion as though it were a giant tennis ball. She caught Iain staring at the vase of wildflowers on her coffee table with a frown before his eyes wandered around the room. The sage walls, bright pink sofa, and colourful art prints probably made him cringe inside.
“The desk is still standing, then,” he noted when he clocked her standing there, observing.
“I appreciate your ability in following pictures to build it.” He grunted in return and Maisie smiled to herself. “Tea?”
“Thanks.”
Iain’s footsteps followed her retraced ones to the kitchen. Maisie moved aside the packet of blueberry muffins on the counter to pull two mugs down from the cupboard.
“I was thinking that maybe we could get to know one another better,” she said, dropping a tea bag into each cup. Iain’s eyes burned where he leaned in her doorway, but his lips didn’t move, silently demanding an explanation. “I can’t get caught out by something as simple as not knowing how old you are.”
“Thirty-five.”
“Twenty-nine,” Maisie volleyed. “That’s a start. What about?—”
“Why don’t we just avoid being too personal around the others?” Iain suggested rather brazenly.
“You at least need to know some things about me. Nain will see right through this plan otherwise.”
With one of his tolerant sighs, Iain acquiesced. “Fine. What’s your favourite colour?”
That one question was the bane of every talking stage Maisie had ever had. “Do you really think my favourite colour is what the elders of Aberystwyth will be focussed on?” She poured water from the kettle she’d boiled just before they’d arrived, adding, “It’s violet, by the way. Or mango-yellow.”
Ted came wandering in to scope out her kitchen too, and Maisie thought that she might need to doggy-proof her lower cabinet doors, given the rate at which he stole her food. It’d happened once , but that once was a trickier snatch than her freely accessible cupboards.
“No one is going to know that we were together today,” Iain said a moment later.
The whole point of this plan was to be seen together . How would that happen if none of the meddling elders knew they were hiding here in her flat? Luckily, Maisie had already thought that part of the plan through.
“I already told Nain that you were coming,” she said, letting the tea bags steep. “That’s enough bait for her to show up unannounced.”
Nose scrunching, Iain shook his head. “She wouldn’t. Not today.”
Maisie looked at him sideways. “Don’t underestimate her, Iain. Do you want milk?”
He went to her fridge of his own accord and handed her the carton. “Green,” he said as she poured, remembering how he’d taken his tea when helping her move.
“Green?”
“My favourite colour.”
“Oh.” That might’ve been the easiest piece of information he’d ever offered up about himself willingly, and not so surprising. He’d worn a scratchy looking jumper of that colour today with dark-wash jeans, a centimetre of black t-shirt peeking out of the collar.
One eyebrow formed an arc on Iain’s face. “Did you think it would be grey?”
“I had a feeling. Wait, let me get a notebook. If we’re doing this, I need to write it all down.”
Iain groaned and pressed himself against the cabinets for her to bustle by.
Comfortable on opposite ends of her sofa with Ted sprawled on the rug between them, they covered a lot in half an hour’s discussion, but Maisie found that she’d done a lot of the talking.
“What else?” she asked, tapping her pencil against her notepad. The taps filled the silence of her flat, except for Ted’s snoring and her occasional sniffles that were coming on.
Half of Iain’s face was highlighted by the window behind them, his body twisting to face her as he rested his arm along the back. His woolly sleeve stretched snugly over every muscular ridge from his shoulder to his bicep, and Maisie had to force herself to remember that it wasn’t usual to be attracted to half an arm.
“I hate sci-fi films,” he mused.
The sigh which Maisie tried to dampen was bored of trivial things. “Something real, please?”
Iain’s eyes snapped to her then. “Real?”
“We’ve covered a lot of your surface, Iain, but I bet there’s even more inside.” Maisie poked his solid thigh with the butt of her pencil – because she was close enough somehow to do that – while Iain pressed his tongue into his cheek.
She didn’t know why he was so reserved. It wasn’t his deepest, darkest secrets that Maisie wanted to uncover – though she didn’t doubt those would be interesting to delve into, because no man was born this stony. Just something more substantial which might give the appearance that they were actually trying to get to know one another.
She waited for the answer Iain worked himself up to give, watching the creases at the corner of his eyes.
“I was engaged,” he confessed, and tightness loosened in Maisie’s chest. “It ended two months before the wedding.”
Engaged? Her lips stayed in the ‘o’ that they’d parted. Iain caught the look on her face.
“Yes,” he intoned, “someone agreed to marry me.”
“No, that’s not what I …”
Well, it was just a little … The confession was just so unexpected. To be engaged meant he’d been in love once, or at least believed himself to be in love enough to almost marry someone. Oh my god, she realised as her pulse doubled, what if he still is? What if that’s the reason why he said he couldn’t commit to someone else?
“We split.” Iain turned his face to the window, quoting, “‘Irreconcilable differences.’” His body was so still, but Maisie could see a thousand things turning in his mind behind his stormy eyes, under the pinched set of his brows. What would it take for this man to relax? There was obviously still something about that breakup which haunted him.
It was a struggle for Maisie to not reach out and touch him as she said, “I’m sorry you went through that.”
Iain didn’t look at her. “Don’t be. One of us would’ve been miserable if the marriage had gone ahead. It’s better this way.”
Maisie set her pencil down in her lap, tucking her feet further beneath her. What she wanted to know was about to cross at least three different boundaries between them, but if they were going to continue to pretend, then she needed to know if everything ‘fake’ that he did for her was done with another woman in his mind.
She rolled her lips. “Did you still love her?”
Iain’s eyes were lost in a distant land. “Enough to let her go.”
“Oh.” Maisie didn’t think that she’d ever been close to that in her life. She wasn’t sure that she ever would get there.
It was hard enough as a woman of her size in this society to believe that she would find the deep, unyielding, main character love as a person who’d always been resigned to the ‘best friend’ status. It was difficult enough to find a man who wouldn’t give up on her before she’d even had a chance.
She didn’t feel obligated for more information; whatever had happened was Iain’s business; but as he worked his fingers back and forth over the backrest of her sofa, he offered up pieces of himself that Maisie didn’t think had been said aloud in months. Maybe years.
“Initially, she’d said she didn’t want children,” he told her. “Then her sister had a boy three months before we were supposed to be married. I guess that something within her changed, and all of a sudden she wanted three kids, nappies, swimming lessons, football on Sundays. I handled it badly.”
How heartbreaking that must have been, to be so close to marriage only for it to all go wrong.
Iain shifted his body. “Either way, she lied.”
Maisie knew that he was bruised, but that was harsh. “Or maybe she was just trying to make you happy by sacrificing what she really wanted?” She knew what that was like too well.
His eyes flicked to her and fell away slowly, perhaps reading between the lines she’d laid out. “Maybe.”
For the sake of making her point, she uttered, “Some people don’t know what they want until they realise they might never have it.”
Iain didn’t acknowledge her, deep off into his own world, but Maisie hadn’t just been talking about him.
Bloody hell , this had taken a turn.
She shivered, wishing all of a sudden that she’d worn a cardigan. She’d had a tickle in her nose and the edge of a headache all morning, which was probably just an effect of their walk the day before, and maybe her impending period too. Goosebumps peppered her arms, and she convinced herself they were from the perpetual chill in this old flat and not the conversation they were having.
“You don’t want children, then?” she asked, making light of the topic as she bundled herself up for warmth.
“No.”
“Me neither.” Iain’s head swivelled to face her. Since he’d been so personal, Maisie gave a little more. “I don’t think that I can have them naturally, anyway.”
The endometriosis diagnosis that’d taken far too long for her to obtain had all but confirmed that. Not that it was impossible to conceive, just harder in her case.
On all of the blogs she read online, there were mothers who shared their stories. But the more that she read, the less that she minded becoming a mother or not. It wasn’t something she was desperate to do. Her eldest brother, Maks, was married with a son, and Maisie loved to spoil him, though at the end of the day she came home and was glad of the peace. Of being able to live in her own space without a tiny person needing her every second of every day.
“I’m sorry, Maisie,” Iain said softly, which was strange to hear when he looked as though he could fight a bear and win.
“You don’t need to apologise. I’ve never seen myself as being a mother one day, so the fact it might be harder for me isn’t much of a burden in my case. I know it is for other women, so …” She’d made peace with that.
“You don’t have to explain your reasons to anyone.”
She looked up at Iain, feeling as though they were touching on common ground. “Neither do you.” He bobbed his head in acknowledgement. “Have you dated anyone since?”
“Define ‘date’?”
Maisie squinted at him, and then her cheeks warmed. “Ah.”
“Hm.”
She wasn’t ready to have a conversation involving sex, much less Iain having sex. Not with the rash decision of agreeing to let him kiss her only if the need arose still tumbling through her bloodstream. God, why had she agreed to that?
Change the subject. “Where is your ex-fiancé now?” Maisie asked.
“She has a daughter. Born at Christmas.”
“That’s good for her … Just not for you.”
Iain looked at her like she’d said something wrong. “She got what she wanted – what I wouldn’t give to her. Don’t feel sorry for me.”
Maisie felt urged to say, “You just don’t seem too happy, is all.”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
She sniffled and rubbed at her nose. “Well maybe not with me, but with someone?—”
“I don’t want to talk about it right now ,” Iain clarified.
If Maisie didn’t get the message from his firm inflection, then she did from the blade’s edge in his eyes. She’d told him she was there to listen, but it wasn’t fair to put him in a situation when he wasn’t comfortable to talk yet. It’s not your business. But she could lighten the evidently heavy load he carried on his shoulders, if he’d let her.
Iain scrubbed his hand over his face, the scratch of his palm over his dark beard quiet between them. “Are you hungry?”
Maisie was thankful for his tactfulness. She shrugged. “I could eat something.”
“Good. Let’s go.”
She’d forgotten that they’d intended to parade themselves along the promenade for the chance of one of Vera’s friends spotting them. A walk along the beach on Valentine’s Day was the most couple-y thing to do in this town.
Unfolding her legs off the sofa, Maisie stood, forgetting about the dog who’d been snoring on the rug. Tangled between her feet, Ted yelped and scampered off the floor before she could gather any kind of balance.
“Mais—”
She toppled over.
Straight into Iain’s lap.
He let out a pained oomph when her chin collided with the fold in his jeans. She coughed out a lungful of gagged air on impact, breasts squished between his thighs; once those had begun to let gravity take the reins, Maisie could’ve only expected the rest of her would follow.
Her hands … She didn’t know what they’d grabbed but it was covered in denim.
“Moo Moo! I brought you some leftovers from— oh my. ”
Oh. God. That wasn’t …
Oh but it was.
Maisie snapped her head up, the one that Iain’s gigantic hand had wrapped around the base of when she’d smashed her face into his crotch, feeling her stomach drop at the sight of her stunned grandma with fogged-up Tupperware in her doorway.
“Nain!” Her face burst into beet-red mortification.
“I am so sorry to interrupt.”
“No, no—we weren’t—there was nothing— fuck. ” Maisie pushed up with strength she’d never possessed, and Iain groaned at the palm she shoved at his?—
“Yes, that’s what it looked like I interrupted.” Vera scurried to the nearest flat surface which happened to be the desk. “I’ll leave this here.”
Staggering over, Maisie shoved her boobs back into place. “I wasn’t?—”
“Nice to see you, Iain,” Vera called on her way out. “Be gentle with my granddaughter.”
“Nain!”
This is terrible – absolutely not the kind of rumours Maisie wanted to start. She could cry with the influx of emotion that crashed into her, because what were the pensioners going to think? From the doorway, it would’ve certainly looked like she’d been giving Iain a?—
“Maybe take a look at some of her books?” Vera spun to take the concrete steps, eyeing Iain. “Those things are filthy. I know she seems sweet and innocent, but if she reads those things then?—”
“Please go, Nain . Goodbye.” More flustered than a hen, Maisie ushered her out.
The door was short of being slammed shut.
Hoping that the last thirty seconds hadn’t happened, Maisie pressed her palms into the cold wood. Her face burned as though someone poured lava from above, her hair saved by the two buns she’d plaited it in.
She was never going to be able to look her grandma in the eye again. She was going to have to pack up everything that she could carry and haul her arse on the first train out of town tonight, heading for somewhere that none of her family could find her. The Arctic Circle, perhaps? It might be cold up there, but she could acclimatise.
The room was too silent.
She turned as slowly as she could to delay the inevitable when her eyes connected with Iain’s.
But the bastard smirked.
“That wasn’t what I meant when I asked if you wanted to eat.”