5
‘No way! Not happening!’
‘But what else can I do?’ Scott’s voice is high-pitched and pleading. ‘I promised.’
I pause at the top of the stairs. I’m barefoot and wrapped in a towel and on my way to grab a glass of water.
Scott and Sarah usually go for a jog around the lake on Saturday mornings and I get the house to myself for a few hours.
I’m surprised they’re back so early and even more surprised to hear them arguing.
They’re generally in great form after a run, high on dopamine and fresh forest air.
But this sounds serious, and none of my business, so I turn to pad as silently as possible along the landing to my room.
‘And what about Gracie?’ Sarah yells. ‘She’s my best friend. And after what Jamie did, you expect me to tell her that you’ve invited the bastard to stay with us.’
Her words hit like serum freezing the blood in my veins.
‘But Jamie’s my best friend. And he’s family. His new place isn’t ready yet, and he says he needs to be in Oakwood, and there is nowhere else.’
That’s exactly what Jamie would say. Even though his parents have a mansion, and his father manages almost every rental property in the county. And Jamie always worked out of their head office in Abbeyville, so there’s no reason for him to base himself in Oakwood, apart from me.
My hands shake as I sit on the bed and try to pull on my jeans.
I should have seen this coming. London was only meant to be for a couple of years.
Then we were supposed to come back together and crash with Scott and Sarah until we found a place of our own.
Or until Jamie persuaded me to move even further.
I hoped we’d stay in Oakwood, but Jamie had his sights on Australia long before we broke up.
After everything that happened, I assumed he’d stay in London. Or go on to Australia without me. And it’s been almost a month since the incident. Why is he only contacting me now? Was he really too upset? Scott did tell Sarah Jamie was devastated when we finished.
We’ve broken up before, when I told him I didn’t want to move to London because he ‘felt like a change of scene’. But as far as I know, he never cheated on me while we were together. At least, that’s what I believed until I saw the smug look on Olivia’s face.
Olivia worked in their head office in Abbeyville as a trainee estate agent. She’d only been with them a year when Jamie’s dad told him he was opening a branch in London, and Jamie decided it was the perfect opportunity to make his mark.
Then Olivia asked if she could go too, to work as his assistant. I was surprised when he agreed. I thought he’d want someone with more experience, but he said she was keen and that was the most important thing. She was keen all right, and looking back, I don’t know how I missed the signs.
Okay, maybe I was caught up in trying to make the best of my new job, and make new friends too, so London would start to feel more like home.
Then I could convince myself I had made the right choice when I decided to move.
And maybe I had let myself and Jamie drift apart.
But that doesn’t mean I can forgive him for sleeping with Olivia. Can I?
Oh God, I can’t stay here another minute. Jamie’s already in my head. And he’s not even home yet. I have to find a bed somewhere else, before I let him persuade me, yet again, to share his.
I lace up my runners, pull on a hoodie, and tiptoe down the stairs.
The door to the kitchen is closed and their voices are muffled, but it’s clear Scott and Sarah are still arguing, and I feel so guilty that I’m the cause.
I open the front door quietly and make my way down the street.
I need a walk to clear my head and figure out what I’m going to do, where I’m going to live now that I’m soon to be homeless.
I can’t let Sarah and Scott fall out over me, and I can’t blame Scott for backing Jamie.
He usually goes along with whatever Sarah wants and he’s been really kind to me since I moved in with them.
But Jamie and Scott have been joined at the hip since they were born, and Scott will always take Jamie’s side.
I cross the road and pass the library, between Pat’s house and his plant shop on the corner and then take the turning onto the trail that leads to the woods and the lake.
And to Oakwood House and Gardens if you keep going far enough.
Green leafy trees, calm water, and lots of deep breathing, that’s all I need, I tell myself, as I trudge along the grassy bank, avoiding the squelchy mud that passes for road after the early-morning rain.
It’s clearing now and as I look up to take in the hazy sunshine, I spot Flynn coming down the path from the pretty stone-faced cottage that belongs to his parents.
It’s set in the middle of a small garden filled with pink roses and bright purple asters and cordoned off from the fields that surround it by a wild hazel hedge.
I think the field between the cottage and the shop belongs to Pat, but I’m not sure.
I never asked Flynn about it as I know his dad and his mam’s brother, Pat, don’t like each other much.
And I always got the impression that all this property, which used to belong to Flynn’s grandparents, is a sore subject, and Flynn does his best not to take sides.
‘Hey, I thought you’d be at the library,’ he calls out to me.
‘I was about to drop in and see how you’re doing.
’ He doesn’t mention Jamie, or last night’s phone call, and I’m grateful.
I need to put Jamie out of my mind and focus on my main concern right now, finding myself a bed for next week.
One that I don’t have to share with my ex.
‘I only work every second Saturday,’ I say when I reach the cottage. ‘Gertrude’s on today, with our library assistant, Ella. They should be settling in for story time now, if you fancy it?’
‘Maybe next week. We could team up.’ His cheeks crease with a smile as he adds, ‘But only if you promise to wear that cute pumpkin costume. It’s adorable.’
I roll my eyes, and Flynn nods earnestly.
‘I’m serious, you look so cute, I used to rewatch that library Instagram post all the time.
The one of you singing “Five Little Pumpkins”.
’ He presses his fist to his cheek with a groan.
‘Not all the time. Damn, I sound like a stalker. I only saved it so I could tease you sometime.’
‘Stop digging, you’re already buried.’ I smile, but I feel my face warm at the idea of Flynn watching me, and the fact that he took it for granted we’d meet again sometime.
I have one video of my own that I rewatch now and then, especially when I’m feeling a bit low.
The one of Flynn and me singing at Sarah’s seventeenth birthday, the summer before he left and everything changed.
Her parents let her have her party at the Corner Bar, as long as we all promised not to drink alcohol.
We paid her older brother to buy us a naggin of vodka, and we hid it in Sarah’s bag beneath our table to top up our Cokes.
I topped up Flynn’s a bit too generously, and he got tipsy, and I managed to persuade him to join my heartfelt rendition of the theme song from Gilmore Girls.
I’d made him watch the show with me every Sunday the previous autumn, so he knew all the words.
But despite holding my hand and staring into my eyes as he sang ‘Where You Lead, I Will Follow’, two months later he was gone.
And all I had left was the video Sarah took, of Flynn singing, his voice low and warm, and those gorgeous blue eyes, and the way he looked at me that night that made me wonder if maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t the only one starting to feel differently about our friendship.
Flynn drops the toolbox he’s carrying and turns back to open the gate. ‘Sorry, I forgot to lock the door. I was fixing a loose slat on the porch. Back in a sec.’
I’m fairly sure he told me last night he was staying with Pat, which makes sense seeing as how he’s back to help with the sale of Pat’s property.
And I notice there’s no car in the gateway to the side of the cottage where visitors usually park.
And if Flynn’s locking the door, that means there’s nobody inside. I wonder.
‘Your parents rent out that cottage, don’t they?’ I ask as he pulls the gate behind him and picks up his toolbox again.
‘Yeah, it was booked solid all summer.’
‘But there’s nobody staying there now?’
‘The last lot just left. I called to pick up the key.’
I’m about to ask if there’s any chance his parents might rent it to me, when Pat’s pickup drives down the lane, and Flynn waves him down. Then I remember that Scott’s office handles the rentals anyway, so there’s no need to ask Flynn and involve him in my latest drama with Jamie.
He leans over and throws his toolbox in the bed of Pat’s truck, and I watch the muscles ripple in his forearm, his shirt stretch across his shoulders.
My throat goes dry, my body heats, as he straightens and rubs at the faint golden stubble along his jawline, and too slowly I realise Flynn’s staring at me, studying me, and I blink out of my haze.
‘Catch you later,’ I say lightly, as if I haven’t been caught drooling.
Flynn nods, his eyes fixed on mine. And I have to look away, focus on the murky puddle at our feet.
Because his eyes are still that gorgeous cornflower blue, and his face is still as handsome as ever.
But I’m still searching for that boy I lost, and this man standing here in front of me feels so familiar, but also out of reach.
Like a stranger I’m meeting for the first time, but with this sense that we’ve met before, in another life.
‘That’d be good.’ He gives me an easy smile as he hops into the passenger seat and leans out the window, and Pat waves from behind him. ‘I’m booked up all day today, but if you’re free tomorrow, maybe we could get a coffee, or a walk?’
‘Sure. I’ll text you,’ I say steadily, doing my best impression of a woman who knows what she wants and expects to always get it.
Because I need some sense of control over us meeting again.
I feel like I’ve been waiting forever for Flynn to come back into my life.
And now he’s here, but he keeps disappearing, and deep down, I know I’m already preparing for him to leave me again.
‘I don’t know.’ Scott’s face is tense. ‘Would you not be better off staying here, Gracie?’ He grimaces. ‘Hazel Cottage is expensive.’
Sarah leans her elbows on the kitchen table and scowls across at him.
‘She would be better off staying here, if you hadn’t invited Jamie to take over our spare room.
’ She presses her chin into her clenched fists.
‘And you can do her a deal on the rental. It’s off season, and it’s your fault she has to pay rent in the first place. ’
Scott dips his head with a muttered, ‘Sorry.’
‘I can’t stay here. You know that.’ I sigh. ‘And you know there’s nothing else going in town. It was pure luck I ran into Flynn and found out his parents’ place is free.’
I’m leaning against their white Shaker cabinets, gripping the chrome handle behind me for support, tapping my foot on their glossy ceramic tiles. Sarah keeps asking me to sit, offering me cups of tea. But I can’t stay still. I’m too agitated with the need to move myself out before Jamie arrives.
‘But Hazel Cottage?’ Scott winces. ‘I don’t know how Jamie will feel about that.’
‘Fuck Jamie,’ Sarah fumes, and I can practically feel the steam coming off her. ‘If he hadn’t spent so much time feeling his assistant, Gracie wouldn’t be homeless right now.’
Scott fiddles with the handle of his coffee mug. ‘Okay, fair point. But I don’t deal with rentals, you know that.’ He gives us both a pleading look. ‘Maeve takes care of those. Gracie can email her on Monday.’
‘You’re the manager, for feck’s sake. You don’t need to wait for Maeve.’ Sarah rolls her eyes. ‘And why isn’t it on the online system anyway, like the rest of your short-term lets?’
‘Because Elaine always loved that cottage,’ I say quietly, as a memory lands of me sitting on the stone wall, watching Flynn help his mother weed the pretty garden at the front.
The cottage belonged to Flynn’s grandmother, but it was getting too much for her, and Elaine always took care of it, with Flynn’s help.
We were barely thirteen and we’d only known each other a few months.
But I was starting to learn how much he loved plants and trees and gardening.
And I was discovering how much I loved watching him too.
‘She’d want to be sure anyone who stayed there would take proper care of it.’ I give Scott a steady, determined look as I go on. ‘And I promise I’ll do that. I’m so sorry to put you in this position, I know it’s not fair of me to ask—’
‘Gracie.’ Sarah glares over at her fiancé. ‘Scott made this mess in the first place by telling Jamie he could stay here. This is the least he can do.’
Scott winces, and I can feel him relenting, then he frowns. ‘But why didn’t you just ask Flynn if you could move in? Didn’t you say he had a key?’
I press my fingers to my forehead and sigh.
‘Because I didn’t want to involve him in my relationship problems. And I don’t think Jamie would want him involved either.
It will be easier for everyone if you help me sort things.
And I’ll let Flynn know when I see him.’ I close my eyes for a beat as I picture him.
‘I doubt he’ll care anyway, it’s been rented all summer, what’s another few weeks? ’
‘I suppose it would make things easier.’ Scott rubs at his neck, clearly still conflicted, but then he nods. ‘Okay, I’ll go and get you that key. And I’ll let Maeve know on Monday.’
Sarah leaps up and kisses his cheek as he adds, ‘When do you want to move in?’
‘This afternoon, please.’ I give him a grateful smile.