Chapter Twelve #2
“Plus I’m funding half of it,” Hattie announces. Mel remembers Finn saying at one point that he was pretty sure Hattie was the richest of the lot of them—but because none of them totally understand what, exactly, she does, none of them can really fathom it.
“Well, you mustn’t feel you have to pay for everyone’s rooms,” Susan says. “I’m sure people will love just being there with you to celebrate.”
Mel makes sure she’s smiling at the right moments, but is grateful for the massive meal in front of her, giving her a legitimate reason not to be contributing much.
Because all this talk on weddings is only reminding her that she’s not going to have one.
She tells herself it doesn’t matter, that she’s happy single—or that she’ll learn to be, at least. That she has time, that plenty of people don’t get married—but it does nothing for the pit in her stomach that all the beef Wellington in the world doesn’t seem able to fill.
A good thing about big families, Mel has learned since meeting Finn, is that you can get away with not saying very much if you don’t want to.
“Anyway, I have to give the caterers answers in January,” Hattie continues, “which feels ridiculously early, but there we go. And I’m stuck.
The beef option is filet mignon with a red-wine reduction, then there’s this sea bass option, which sounds amazing, but there’s also a black cod thing, which Dylan likes, don’t you?
And they are always less good on the veggie options, but they have this eggplant thing, which sounds nice, or cauliflower steak, which I’m pretty sure is just cauliflower and then actually this is reminding me of vegetable Wellington.
” Mel has always admired Hattie’s ability to talk without breathing, one word merging into the next.
She gestures around with her wineglass when no one immediately answers.
“We’ll obviously have late-night grilled cheese for everyone, and there’s the cake, which is going to be—”
“Epic?” Finn suggests.
“Exactly. But I’m stuck on the mains—I have to get it down to three. What does everyone reckon?”
“Ah…” Mel is struggling to remember everything she listed. “Sea bass is usually a winner?”
“Exactly,” Hattie says again, nudging Dylan in the side in an “I told you so” gesture.
“I suppose Wellington might be dry,” Finn muses. “Not that ours is, of course,” he says quickly when Mel raises her eyebrows at him. “But a mate had a dodgy one in a pub once…”
“Can’t go wrong with steak,” Mark says approvingly. He wrinkles his nose. “Not sure about cauliflower steak, though—what even is that?”
“It’s actually really nice,” Kristen says. Mark shrugs in a way that clearly means if you say so.
“Mum?” Hattie looks over at Susan, who is sitting at the head of the table. “What do you think?”
Susan smiles at Hattie. “I think whatever you want will be lovely, love.”
Hattie looks a bit disappointed at the lack of engagement, and for a moment no one says anything more, with just the sound of cutlery scraping the last of the meal.
“So, Finn,” Mark says, his voice booming across the table in a way that clearly means business. Finn straightens at the sound of it and Mel finds herself doing the same automatically. “Have you thought any more about my suggestion?”
“What suggestion is that, exactly?” Finn asks mildly.
“Conveyancing. I could get you an internship, remember? We talked about it a couple of months ago.”
Had they? Mel can hardly imagine Finn as the conveyancing type—and didn’t you have to get a law degree for that?
Finn snorts, proving her suspicions right. “I didn’t realize that was a serious suggestion.”
“I’m just saying, if you like working in property, it could be the way to go. I mean, the redecorating thing is fun, but it can’t be forever, right? What if you and Mel want to settle down properly, have kids?”
Mel swears she can feel tension ripple around the table—or is that just her?
She finds herself gripping her fork a bit too tightly, and makes herself put it down.
She’s not sure where to look. Finn, it seems, is also trying carefully not to look at her.
She picks up her napkin, refolds it. Sincerely hopes no one is looking at her.
They used to talk about this, before he moved to London—how they could make it work, where they’d want to go if Finn carried on flipping houses.
Then Finn had decided he had to, indeed, settle down—and look how that had worked out.
“I don’t think conveyancing is the answer,” Finn says, and though his tone is mild, Mel catches the tension underneath. Not only her, then.
“I’m only saying—”
“Leave him alone, Mark,” Kristen says sharply.
“Yeah,” pipes up Hattie. “Besides, not everyone wants kids, do they?” Mel glances over at her at that, catches the way Dylan looks at Hattie too.
But, thankfully, the whole subject is dropped at that point, as Susan moves the conversation on to the film Dylan is currently shooting and what role he’s playing.
They all clear the plates together, then Hattie brings out their dessert—homemade Yule log with little icing snowflakes, topped off with sparklers stuck in it.
“Wait for it,” Hattie says, and holds her hand out to Dylan, who produces a lighter for the sparkler. Hattie grins. “Ta-da!”
Although she’s not sure how she’s going to fit any more food in, Mel takes a forkful of cake. She sighs. “I don’t know if it’s because I’m more drunk than I was at the beginning of the meal but this is amazing. Ten out of ten.” Hattie grins at her.
“We really do have to get Freya to bed now,” Kristen says as dessert is finished. She shakes her head. “I can’t believe I’ve let her stay up this late. I’m a terrible mother.”
“Oh, absolutely,” Finn says. “Someone call child services immediately.”
Mark—who has clearly had one glass of wine too many— snorts quietly as he squeezes Kristen’s shoulders in reassurance, though she moves out from under his touch a little too pointedly.
“You’re a brilliant mother,” Dylan says gallantly. “An inspiration. Isn’t she, Hattie?”
“Sure. Whatever you say, babe.” She looks pointedly at Finn and Mel. “And that is how you pull off a pet name.”
“It’s been a brilliant evening,” Kristen says, getting to her feet. She moves to kiss Susan good night on the cheek.
Susan pats Kristen’s hand. “It really has, hasn’t it?”
“Please leave the clearing up,” Kristen says. “I can help with it all tomorrow.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” Susan says. “I don’t think any of us can be bothered to do that this evening.
In fact, I am going to retire too—I’m so full I don’t think I can do anything but lie down.
” Susan beams around at all of them. “Thank you all for this wonderful evening, and for getting so involved. You all outdid yourselves.”
As Susan heads upstairs, and Kristen and Mark usher Freya out through the front door, shouting out last goodbyes, Hattie calls out, “Mum! You didn’t tell us who won!”
“You all did,” comes the reply from up the stairs.
Finn shakes his head at Hattie. “You are such a child.”
She shrugs. “Of course. Life’s more fun that way. Although that may also be the several glasses of wine—hard to be totally sure.” She rests her head on Dylan’s shoulder and yawns.
“Bedtime?” he asks, squeezing her shoulder. She nods and he pulls her to her feet. Which means that Finn and Mel are left alone at the table.
The music is still playing in the background.
Candlelight still flickers between them.
Mel twirls the stem of her wineglass in her fingers.
She should go up—there is no one to pretend for anymore.
Instead, probably because she’s had too much alcohol, she sighs and murmurs, “I’ve missed this.
” Missed hanging out with them all, missed being a part of it, the chaos and the teasing and the general love between all of them.
He doesn’t ask what she means. Instead, he smiles, a little sadly. In the dim lighting, shadows dance across his face. “I’ve missed it too.”
“Why? They’re your family.” There is a touch of bitterness in the way she says it. She loves her mum and dad, wouldn’t change them for the world. But she’d allowed herself to think of Finn’s family as hers too—and when he’d broken up with her, she’d realized just how fickle that was.
He hesitates. “Since I left London, I’ve kept my distance a bit—things just haven’t felt right.
” He blows out a breath. “I haven’t known what to say to them all, to be honest.” She doesn’t know how to answer that.
She wonders if Susan has been like her mum has—tiptoeing around, not wanting to ask the wrong questions.
Only the difference is that her own mum had gotten angry too—after the disbelief faded.
She’d been sure they would stick, from the very first time they’d met him, on a skiing holiday in the Alps.
So she was livid that Finn had not only broken her daughter’s heart, but that she hadn’t seen it coming.
“You think you’ll keep doing it?” she asks, thinking of what Mark said. “Moving around, flipping houses?”
“I don’t know,” he says, seeming to consider the words carefully. “You remember when we had our first date, in Paris?” She nods—the Paris story had been the envy of all her friends. “I told you about this house I loved, in Devon.”
“I remember,” she says quietly, surprised that he can remember it in that detail too.
“Well, if I found somewhere like that, out in the countryside, maybe I’d stay put.
” He pulls a hand through his hair. “I’m not sure what I’d do for work.
” He shakes his head, like he’s shaking the thought away.
Like the idea of being tethered to one place is too much—and if he can’t manage one place, how is he supposed to manage one person?
“For now, though, it works. I still love it.”
She nods, pressing her lips together. “Well, then, I’m happy for you.”
He grins, slow and wicked. “Liar.”
She laughs a little. “Okay, well, I want to be happy for you. In the future. One day, I’m sure I’ll want to be happy for you.
” She realizes it’s probably true. You don’t love someone that much and want them to be in eternal torment, despite what some of her conversations with Priya over the last six months would suggest.
And with that revelation she figures it’s time to go to bed. She gets to her feet, but he reaches out, gently taking her wrist to stop her moving way. The feel of his fingers on her skin is like a shot of endorphins coursing straight through her.
“I know I’ve already said this,” he says, eyes holding hers, “but thank you for coming here, for doing this.” His thumb circles the sensitive underside of her wrist lightly and a tingle spreads all the way up her arm.
His thumb circles again, and all her attention goes to that one point of contact between them, somehow more intimate than if they were tearing each other’s clothes off.
It’s the wine, Melanie. Nothing more. It’s lowering her inhibitions and making her body more sensitive, reminding her that she hasn’t had sex in months.
It’s a physical craving, something that would be bad to act on, but she can’t help remembering the last time she wore this dress and exactly how that evening had ended.
“I have my own reasons for doing it, remember?” she says it firmly, to remind both of them. Something in his eyes shutters as he nods, drops her wrist. She lets out a slow breath. “I’m going to go up.”
“Okay.” His voice is carefully neutral. “I’ll doze down here for a bit now that everyone’s gone to bed.”
She knows he’s giving her the chance to fall asleep first, to change for bed without him there.
It doesn’t matter, though. Because long after she settles under the duvet, she can’t stop thinking of his thumb, circling her wrist. It keeps her awake until after he comes upstairs, and long afterward.
And, if the sound of his breathing is anything to go by, she is not the only one lying awake.
She wonders what he’s thinking about. If he, too, can’t help the memories storming through his mind.
If he, too, is remembering not the horrible end to their relationship, or the sticky few months before that, but the moments she used to replay in her mind, just because it made her happy to do it.
Their first weekend away together. Decorating one of the houses he was flipping for Christmas, hanging tinsel on the rubble. The first time he met her parents.
Stop it, Melanie. But it still doesn’t get any easier to fall asleep.