Chapter Eleven #2
“Yes.” Finn stirs the milk-cream mixture. “And he is really good at the boomerang. Like a national champ or something.”
“Cracking out all the stereotypes, hey?”
“You didn’t let me finish. He’s scared of spiders, so Priya has to do all those under-the-lid checks for him.
” Mel nods—sounds like something she’d do.
Priya may have been scared of big life choices, but there was nothing that could flap her in the day-to-day.
“And he likes sunset walks on the beach and he’s tall, probably, and has eyes the color of the ocean and… ”
“Is this Priya’s idea of a perfect Australian man or yours?”
“Honestly, at this stage I don’t know.”
She laughs, shaking her head. She can feel the way he is watching her, how his hand has stilled in the saucepan.
She turns to see him smiling at her. “I’ve missed that,” he murmurs.
She frowns. “What?”
His gaze catches on hers. “The sound of your laugh.”
She doesn’t know how to respond to that—and doesn’t like the way he is looking at her right now, the way it is making heat flood her insides. Who is he, to go on about missing things to do with her? He was the one to end it.
A phone lights up with an incoming message on the kitchen counter and Mel jumps, her attention drawn to it automatically.
There’s the quick question of whether it’s hers, whether there’s something at work she’s forgotten.
At the same time that she realizes it’s Finn’s phone, he reaches down and flips it so the screen is facing down.
She looks away deliberately. She wasn’t looking for that reason—she doesn’t care who he’s talking to. But in all the years they were dating, he was never secretive about his phone and it makes her wonder—why now? What is it that he doesn’t want her to see?
The timer beeps and Mel grabs the oven gloves as she opens the oven door.
She turns, baking tray in hand, and only just catches herself before she walks straight into Finn.
She swears under her breath, stumbling slightly, and he reaches an arm out to steady her.
She jerks back, away from his hand—but right into his arm.
She swears she hears the hiss as the hot metal tray sears Finn’s bare flesh.
“Shit!” he yelps, pulling his hand back.
“What are you doing?” Mel demands, stepping back away from him. Why is this kitchen so bloody small?
“Stopping you from face-planting!”
She grimaces, looking down at the angry red mark on his skin. “You’re burnt.”
“Only a little.”
Mel puts the tray down on the nearest countertop, then prods Finn’s back to make him move toward the sink. She turns the water on as cold as it will go, grabs his wrist unceremoniously, and thrusts it under the tap.
He tries to pull back gently, but she holds firm.
“It’s fine, Mel.”
Mel only scowls, watching his skin as it seems to get more red, not less. He reaches around her to switch the tap off.
“It’s fine,” he repeats.
He shakes his hand to dry it, then reaches out, brushes his fingers over the side of her face. Her whole body stills, her gaze meeting his. “Flour,” he says, stroking his thumb on her cheek again. She hates the way it makes her shiver.
She’s not supposed to feel like this. Her body is not supposed to melt into his touch, her heart is not supposed to strain, searching for his. Her brain is not supposed to say, as it has done so many times before, Oh, it’s you, in response to the way he is looking at her right now.
She knows she shouldn’t, but her hands are moving, seemingly of their own accord, to run up the front of his chest, feeling the heat beneath his shirt.
She can feel his heartbeat there—steady and solid, unlike hers.
His hand moves to cup her neck, as it has done so many times before.
He is still looking at her, his eyes dark and intense on hers.
She catches herself in time, pulls herself back, and scowls at him for good measure. “Stop it,” she snaps. This kind of touching isn’t allowed—not in private.
“Sorry,” he says, even though it was arguably her fault, not his.
He backs away, giving her space, and she keeps her eyes down as she rolls out the puff pastry, trying to get her insides to settle again.
“Mel?”
“Hmmm?” She decides it’s best to keep focused on the pastry, not him.
“Are you happy?”
Her hands falter on the rolling pin. She doesn’t know how to answer that.
She doesn’t want him to know just how unhappy she was in the aftermath of their breakup—and how incomplete she’s felt since then.
She thinks she’s only realizing the extent of it now—because even though they aren’t exactly getting along, it’s like something has slotted into place, with him near.
She begins rolling the pastry again. “If Lillian Hart comes on board, I’ll be happy.
” She’s not sure she wants to think too deeply about the sinking feeling in her stomach as she says this—or about the fact that she hasn’t thought about work, about Lillian Hart, in any great detail since she got here.
“Are you happy?” The question is out before she can think better of it—and she’s not really sure she wants the answer. She doesn’t want to hear how great he is without her.
“I’m…yeah.” She risks a quick glance over to him, where he’s layering up prosciutto. “I’m happy to be doing something I love again, I guess.”
“I never asked you to stop flipping houses,” she says stiffly. And she hadn’t—he was the one who had decided to give marketing a go, got a job in London so they could be near to one another.
“I know that, Mel.” His voice is quiet. “I wasn’t blaming you.” He shakes his head. “I thought I could learn to love London, my job there. I really wanted to love it. But it just wasn’t working.”
“So you quit.” Her focus is back on the pastry, rolling a bit too hard. “Without telling me.”
“I didn’t mean to do it. It just sort of happened.”
“That’s bullshit. You must have been building up to it. You must have known you were unhappy.”
He hesitates. “I knew we were unhappy.”
“Oh, you’re speaking for me now, are you?” Her voice is sour—and she decides that’s better.
“No, I…” He pulls a hand through his hair. “I’m not explaining this very well. I just wanted to let you know, why I left. I wasn’t…I didn’t mean to just run away.”
But that is what he’d done. He’d ended it with one conversation and then left—his job, their flat, her life.
Abandoning her so that she was left to glue together the jagged pieces.
Only they didn’t fit properly the way they used to—it wasn’t so much that she was missing one piece, but rather that all the pieces had changed, because of him.
Her lips are tight as she brushes the flour off her hands. “You were planning on hanging around, were you? So, what, we could be friends?”
His gaze searches for hers and he smiles, a little sadly. “I could never be your friend, Mel.” Something lurches in her stomach—hurt, maybe. But in some ways she is glad about it. She couldn’t be his friend, either. It would be too damn difficult.
“I don’t want to talk about this,” she says sharply, heading to the fridge.
“Sorry, I know. We’re breaking one of your rules, aren’t we?”
Right. Breaking a second rule, technically. No touching, no talking about the past. She gets out the cooked beef, shuts the fridge door.
“It wasn’t easy, Mel.” She keeps her back to him, one hand on the fridge. “Leaving you. I’d hate for you to think it was.”
“But you did,” she whispers.
He says nothing.