Chapter Fourteen #2
“How about I help you with yours?” Mel says.
“We can do it together.” She coaxes Freya back into picking up a paintbrush, notices the way Kristen is watching, and feels a bit self-conscious.
What if that’s against some kind of rule—are you supposed to let children figure it out themselves when they throw a tantrum like this? She wouldn’t have a clue.
There’s quiet as they all put the finishing touches on their baubles, Mel sacrificing the perfect blue hue in favor of helping Freya with her stars.
“Ta-da!” Hattie announces, holding up her bauble. It’s a mass of color—green and red and gold and silver.
“It’s…lovely.” Susan says. She stems a laugh as she looks at Mark’s. “My children, such undiscovered painters.”
“I was thinking abstract,” Hattie says with a shrug.
“What does abstract mean?” asks Freya.
“Terrible,” Finn pipes up.
Hattie scoffs. “It’s better than yours.” She looks pointedly down at Finn’s, where he’s tried to do some kind of border situation.
Mel grins, her loyalty firmly with Hattie in this situation. “Agreed.”
“Oi.” He nudges her in the ribs. “My stripes could take your snowflakes any day.”
She’s trying to think of a clever retort when Finn’s phone buzzes, and he brings it out of his coat jacket underneath the bench. And, okay, Mel might deliberately glance at the screen. She catches the incoming call from “D.” Deidre? Daphne?
“I’ve got to take this,” he says, and gets up from the bench, moving through the room and climbing the stairs.
Mel’s heart tightens as her brain jumps several steps ahead.
Surely there’s only one reason he’d go outside to take a call, one reason not to want it overheard.
Because he can’t talk to a new girl in front of them all, can he?
Not when he is playing at being back with Mel.
“Let’s have a look at yours, then, Freya,” Susan says, leaning over to inspect the bauble—which looks pretty damn good, Mel has to say.
She did the outline of the stars and helped Freya paint them in a glittery gold, several layers thick so it shows up after going in the kiln—and Freya had opted for a night sky, the midnight blue making the stars stand out.
“And look,” Freya exclaims, turning the bauble to show Susan the shooting star that Mel had painted her—only to catch Susan’s hand with the paintbrush she’s still holding, getting dark blue across Susan’s index finger.
Freya bites her little lip. “Oops.” She says it almost like she’s expecting to be told off.
Susan only laughs, takes her own paintbrush, and paints a dot of red paint on the back of Freya’s hand. Freya squeals, delighted, and one-ups Susan by drawing a large squiggle that extends up her forearm.
“Freya,” Kristen says warningly.
Susan waves a hand in the air. “Don’t worry. It’ll wash off.”
Mel glances at the stairs—Finn still isn’t back. She distracts herself by tidying the paint, washing the brushes—but she can’t help feeling a little sick, wondering if he’s talking to another woman outside when she’s here with his family, inside.
Hattie comes over to join her at the sink. She can see the dark circles still under Hattie’s eyes, and her blond curls don’t seem to have quite as much bounce as usual.
“Everything okay, Hattie?”
“Hmmm? Oh, I’m fine. Just ate and drank too much last night is all—the usual Christmas problem.”
Mel nods, wondering whether to believe her. She’s probably just projecting—not everyone has a reason to feel as stressed as her, do they?
Finn comes back just as they are all getting their coats on.
“Who was that?” Mel asks as casually as she can.
He won’t quite meet her eye. “Oh, no one.”
She wants to press. If he’s seeing someone, even casually, she wants to know.
But she can’t ask in front of his family and, really, she doesn’t want to ask, because she doesn’t want to let on how much she cares.
How much she hopes it’s not true. It would be too one-sided—her devastated, him totally fine.
Given she’s still got four days to get through, maybe ignorance is best?
Four days. Only four more days, until she fake breaks up with him. It should be “thank God it’s only,” but instead she feels a little sad. She turns her back, uses the excuse of taking the last paintbrush from the bench over to the sink to hide her face from them all.
She feels Finn come up behind her, turns just as he reaches down, puts his hands on either side of her waist. Even beneath her coat, her skin flares with heat. She immediately goes to move his hands away, but he holds her firm, glancing at the bench pointedly.
We have an audience, remember? his eyes seem to say.
She narrows her eyes. “What are you doing?”
“Testing a theory. One I’ve been thinking about all night.” His voice is low, and she feels a long, liquid pull at the way he says night. “I couldn’t sleep. I don’t think you could, either.”
She lifts her chin in the air. “So what?” She can’t deny it, not when he’s looking at her like that.
His lips quirk into a smile—a smile that looks so satisfied it makes her teeth clench.
But do you know what? Fine. If he wants to do this, then so be it—he might have some girl on the end of the phone, might be trying to hide it from her, but she can make him regret that, can’t she?
And a part of her wants to prove it to herself too—that he might not love her anymore, but that he’s still attracted to her.
It’ll make her feel more vindicated come the Boxing Day Breakup.
So she moves her own hands, tracing them up his solid arms, linking them behind the bare skin at his neck. His eyes widen a little as she leans in, stretching on tiptoes—like he didn’t think she’d call his bluff.
“If you’ve got a theory to test, Finn, then here and now is hardly the place to do it.” She hears the hitch in his breathing, a dead giveaway, and feels a sense of satisfaction as she eases away from him, then saunters back to the bench.
She notices the way Susan is watching the two of them, and feels her cheeks heat a little, wondering how it looked from the outside.
“You know what you all need,” Susan says thoughtfully, “is to let off a bit of steam. You work too hard, the lot of you.”
“I don’t,” Kristen says with a shrug.
“Yes, you do,” Susan says firmly. “Being a mother is very hard work—I should know.”
“Cheers, Mum,” Mark says with a grin.
She waves a hand at him. “You know I say that with only the greatest affection.”
“What did you have in mind, Mum?” Finn asks.
“Oh, not me. I’m pooped.” Freya giggles delightedly at the word and Susan winks at her. “How about I take Freya home, wash the paint off the both of us, and the rest of you can have a nice night at the pub, hmmm?”
“Oh, I don’t think that’s—”
Susan waves Kristen away. “Nonsense. I want to spend some time with my granddaughter.” She gives Kristen a firm look. “We can make hot chocolate and watch The Grinch, can’t we, Freya?”
“Yes!” Freya affirms.
“She might get scared of the Grinch,” Mark says.
“I will not.”
“We can hide at the scary parts—I don’t like scary things, either.”
“Well, looks like that’s settled, then,” Hattie says, before anyone can argue. She comes up beside Mel, links their arms. “To the pub!”