Chapter Three
Six days to Christmas
It’s dark outside as the train pulls into Aberdeen station. Mel lugs her suitcase off the carriage and winces at the bitterness of the air—definitely colder here than in London. Of course it is, she thinks with a snort—it took seven and a half hours straight north to get here.
There are a surprising number of people making their way off the platform, and Mel briefly wonders what they’re all doing.
Heading home for Christmas—or is it still a few days early for that?
She sometimes enjoys people watching on trains, wondering where everyone is traveling to and why, but she’d spent the entire journey today working, cursing as they constantly went in and out of signal, then reaching for her notebook to sketch out a few more designs.
Not that she’ll likely show anyone—she has people for that now.
But, still, it was a welcome distraction from the mounting nerves, and a way to avoid thinking about why the hell she’d agreed to this totally ludicrous idea.
Her stomach twists with anxiety as she crosses the station bridge, then she heads toward the car park as instructed.
She feels knackered and wants to change out of the jeans and jumper she’s wearing.
Her insides give another annoying squirm as she reaches the ticket barrier and she tries to tell herself she just feels a little sick from the journey.
She gets out her phone to scan her e-ticket, sees a WhatsApp from Priya.
I still say this is a terrible idea.
Mel beeps herself through the barrier without answering.
Priya has spent a solid week trying to convince her not to go through with Finn’s plan since Mel left her a long and detailed voice note explaining the whole thing.
She has told Priya, repeatedly, that she is over him and therefore she is in no danger whatsoever of anything going wrong, that she’s doing this purely to even the scale between them.
She’d gotten a long line of emojis back after sending that particular message—emojis she was sure were trying to convey some kind of narrative, though she hadn’t been able to figure out what.
But Priya is in Australia, too far away to stop her, and it’s too late now, anyway.
Because there he is, waiting for her in the ticket office.
He’s staring intently at his phone, shoulders hunched slightly in that long black coat, eyebrows pulled together in what she recognizes as his “thinking expression.” Her traitorous heart lurches at the sight of him—and she’s grateful that she’s the one who has noticed him first, so she can school her face, make sure she looks nothing other than mildly irritated by his presence.
They’d headed to Scotland separately today—thank God, as she couldn’t have done the whole journey sitting next to him—but he’d insisted that it would look odd if they didn’t arrive at the cottage together.
She manages to get right up next to him without him noticing.
She clears her throat and he jolts, then smiles.
And for a second it’s a warm, unfiltered smile—the way he used to smile at her when they were first dating and hadn’t seen each other for a while.
It’s a smile that makes her want to return it, a smile that was so often followed by his arms coming around her, that scent of pine enveloping her.
Right now, though, she forces her face to stay impassive as he reaches for her suitcase. “I can take it.” Her voice is not quite a snap, but it’s getting there.
“Don’t be silly. I’ll do it.” He tries to take it from her, and she yanks it back.
“I think we can agree that me carrying my own suitcase is not the ‘silliest’ thing we’re doing right now.”
He looks as if he might argue for a second, then gives her a “fair enough” type of nod.
“Car’s this way.” He jerks his head toward the car park, leads her out of the ticket office.
The air is so cold it sears her cheeks, and their breath mists out in front of them as they walk.
She shivers—she packed several scarves and a hat, but they’re currently in her suitcase, taken off during the too-hot tube ride to King’s Cross more than eight hours ago.
He unlocks a little red Yaris that seems distinctly un-Finn-like. Neither of them had a car when they lived in London together, but she’d always imagined him with something less…neat.
“You bought a car?” she can’t help asking.
“No, it’s a rental. Can’t get to where we’re going without a car.”
He heads around to the driver’s side, and she folds herself awkwardly into the passenger seat. It’s too quiet—and still just as cold. Finn switches on the heating, programs the internal GPS, then switches on the radio. Immediately, a Christmas song comes on—Mariah Carey belting out at full volume.
Mel stares out of the window as Finn pulls away from the station and starts weaving his way through the city.
Soon the streetlamps are lost behind them, meaning Mel can’t really form much of an impression of Aberdeen with only passing car headlights to light up the dark around them.
She’s been to Scotland a few times, but never this far north.
“So how was your journey up?” Finn asks, his tone falsely bright.
“Oh, just dandy.”
He either doesn’t notice or ignores her sarcasm. Probably the latter. “Get much work done?”
She glances at him—at the assumption there—but he looks straight ahead as the GPS tells him to turn right. “Some.” In truth, not enough, but she’s not going to open up to him about that. She doubts he even cares anymore, just fishing for small talk.
“I drove up from Wales yesterday,” he says, apropos of nothing.
“Hmmm.” He’s trying to start a conversation, but no way is she making this easier for him. She will have to play nice in front of his family—she knows that—but there are no rules when it’s just the two of them.
He glances at her. “I’m flipping a house there. An hour or so outside of Cardiff.”
She stiffens before realizing what she’s doing and forces her shoulders to relax.
So he’s flipping houses again. It’s what he was doing when she met him.
He always did love it—the adventure, the excitement, moving from one place to the next.
She remembers how he lit up, talking about how it gave him such a sense of satisfaction to see the end result.
Of course he’s gone back to that nomadic lifestyle, she thinks, a little bitterly.
Though at least he hasn’t moved on to someone else, settled down with them in a place for good.
Then her pulse jumps against her wrist. What if he has met someone?
It might just not be serious yet. Her stomach churns with the thought, before she reminds herself that she shouldn’t care.
She is here to get her own back—that’s all.
“If you’re in Wales and I’m in London, how does your mum think we’re back together?” she asks.
His eyes catch the headlights of a car heading the opposite direction, a brief flash of green. “I thought we could say we’re giving long distance a go.”
She looks back out of the window. It’s why he’d moved to London, gotten a job in marketing—so they didn’t have to be long distance.
But all she says is “Fine.”
Silence falls between them, and despite the noise of the radio the awkwardness is like a physical thing, making the air stodgy.
It never was like this between them. Almost since the moment they met in Edinburgh, one New Year’s Eve, it was comfortable—yes, there were nerves, but it was never awkward.
She closes her eyes. Rule number one—don’t let herself think about the way things used to be.
“Where are we actually going?” She hadn’t asked. They’d exchanged texts on the logistics. He told her he’d pick her up from Aberdeen—that was it.
“It’s in the Cairngorms—you know, the national park.”
She nods, even though she doesn’t know the first thing about the Cairngorms. Still, a national park sounds good.
It sounds big—plenty of chances to go on long walks on her own.
Maybe she’ll even have some kind of grand epiphany, like in the films. She’ll be on her own and hike to the top of some mountain and realize exactly what she’s supposed to do next in life. Something like that, anyway.
She goes quiet again, leaning her head against the cool window. Why does she feel so tired, when all she’s done today is sit?
Her phone buzzes. It will be work—but she can’t bring herself to look at it.
She closes her eyes instead. She tries to pretend Finn isn’t there, though that’s impossible—her body too aware of his, of how close he is to her.
She listens to the music, the distant hum of the engine, to distract herself. She’s so, so tired.
The next thing she knows, a big hand is squeezing her shoulder gently, pulling her from sleep. A hand that she finds herself leaning into, craving the comfort of the familiar. “Mel? We’re here.”
She blinks a few times, then stiffens. That’s Finn’s hand on her shoulder.
He must sense her tension, because he draws it away, leaving behind an echo of his touch that travels down her spine.
She straightens, rolling her shoulders to try to loosen them.
The car is toasty warm now and smells faintly of damp, the way everything does in winter.
Underneath that, though, there’s the scent of pinewood. Of Finn.
They’re parked in the pitch black, though the light from the cottage windows in front of them offers a glow from behind the curtains. They’re at the end of a long driveway, surrounded by hills in the distance and tall trees up close. It’s two cottages, she realizes—both stone—sitting side by side.
Mel feels her stomach twist and nerves flutter.
I still say this is a terrible idea.
Shit. Priya is almost definitely right, isn’t she? What the hell is she doing?