Chapter Eight
They talked until closing time, mainly about travelling. James told Maddie all about the countries he had visited, the people he’d met and the jobs he’d done.
“Honestly, it’s the only time I feel like myself. It’s so freeing, you know? Waking up each day with no real responsibility, nobody to answer to, never knowing who’ll I’ll meet next and where I’ll end up.”
“It sounds like a nightmare to me.” Maddie laughed.
He waited for her to elaborate. “I’m such a homey person.
I always have been. Perhaps it’s because I’m a little shy, I don’t know.
I was so young when Bowie was diagnosed, he was only twenty-one, Bluebell was nineteen, I was barely fourteen.
Pip was so young he hardly remembers a time before Bowie had cancer.
He was five, I think? Six, maybe? Gosh, he was as young as Benjamin.
Bowie was so sick, we were always taking care of him, worrying about him, hoping he would recover soon.
It took so much away from our family. Maybe that’s part of the reason why I like being at home with the people I love close by.
I’d wrap them all in cotton wool and keep them there if I could. ”
“I cannot imagine anything worse than being trapped here,” he said. Maddie felt her face fall. “Not that I think you’re trapped, or anything. Our circumstances are so very different. Home for you is a peaceful place, and I can see why. For me it’s... something else, I don’t know.”
“My therapist would say you’re running away,” Maddie teased.
He grinned. “My therapist would say your therapist is right.”
At one point, Maddie listed everything she had to do around the house before the recovery retreat opened and her new list of things she wanted to do before Autumn and Marley got married in the garden.
James listened without interrupting, but she knew he was paying attention because she could see the tension building in his shoulders.
He really was shouldering some of the burden.
She felt better with every word she spoke. He quite clearly felt worse.
“Jeez,” he said when she’d finished. “You weren’t joking when you said you have a lot going on.”
Maddie nodded despondently.
“Well, I can definitely help with some of this. Just tell me what you want me to do and I’ll do it. I can definitely get more involved in the house renovations and wedding prep,” he said.
Maddie smiled, grateful. But, despite his offer, she still felt she didn’t have enough time. She felt guilty for taking the day off, even though it was Sunday and she’d worked every waking moment for the last few months. She knew she’d have to make the hours up at some point.
“I can work more weekends, too,” James said.
Maddie wished she could turn down his offer, but she was not in a position to. “We’ll pay you,” she said.
“I know you will.” He nodded. “We’ll get it done. I promise.”
Maddie believed him, and it made her feel so much better. It felt great to have someone she could offload to, someone she could burden without worrying about the impact it was having on them because she loved them so much and knew they loved her back.
“Time, kids,” the barman called. “Any later and I’ll lose my licence.”
“Sorry, Oz,” James said.
“Get home safe — it’s really coming down out there,” Oz warned.
Maddie and James each glanced at the window, and then at each other.
Oz was not lying. The snow was falling hard and fast. Maddie knew already the roads would be a nightmare.
Not that she’d drive anyway, given she’d been drinking, but it meant getting a taxi in their tiny village would be nigh on impossible.
There was no way she’d risk their safety by asking her parents to pick her up, or Marley, who lived around the corner, to drive her home. She was stuck.
“I’ll walk you back,” James suggested. Maddie nodded, packing her book in her handbag and climbing into Bowie’s old jacket.
She was sure she got a whiff of him as she did so.
She inhaled deeper, hoping to hold onto him a little bit longer, but the scent was either gone or had been in her imagination.
She was tipsy, so the latter was more likely. James was watching her intently.
“Bowie,” she said, as though that explained it. His eyes were still quizzical, so she elaborated. “This is his jacket and sometimes I feel like I can smell him when I put it on.”
“Fair enough,” he said, gesturing towards the door.
Maddie followed Stevie out onto the street.
The village was covered in a blanket of snow so deep it went right up to Maddie’s shins.
It looked like the front of a Christmas chocolate box.
The streets were empty and quiet, the air thick with the scent of roaring fireplaces.
It was so magical that Maddie couldn’t be irritated, despite the fact her half-hour walk home would likely take double the time.
It was freezing cold and the snow was still falling so fast she could hardly see in front of her face.
“Shit,” James said. “I’ve never seen anything like this, have you?”
Maddie shook her head. The village Christmas tree was coated with such a thick layer of snow she could barely see the lights twinkling between the branches. “I need to get my wellies out of the car.”
“Cool, then we better set off before it gets any worse.” He was slurring his words a little bit, and Maddie realised he too was probably a little bit drunk.
They retrieved her wellies and Maddie put them on.
She gave permission for James to leave his guitar in the car overnight to save him carrying it and then they set off in the direction of her house, kicking at the mound of snow before them with each step.
Stevie loitered in the warmth of the pub doorway, watching them fight their way towards the main road.
When she eventually joined them, she was smart enough to stay behind and let them do the work.
It took them ten minutes to reach the road, a walk that would normally take no longer than three. They stopped, exhausted.
“We’re going to die out here,” James said, dramatically.
He was panting and sweating from the effort, but his nose was red from the cold.
His hair was soaked through and stuck to his head.
Maddie realised she too must have looked disgusting, but was too drunk to care.
James tried to take advantage of the height of the snow and sit back, but he fell further through it than he was expecting and landed with his legs sticking up in the air. Maddie laughed.
“I’m stuck,” he said. “Stevie, help!”
Stevie obligingly started digging. Maddie reached out her hand and grabbed his wrist. She tried in vain to pull him out, but he really was stuck, so when he tried to assist her in assisting him, he pulled her on top of him instead. Maddie screamed.
“For fuck’s sake,” James said. The weight of her had pushed him further into the snow mound and he was now effectively completely horizontal.
They were a tangled mess of arms and legs.
She grappled for balance, searching for something to grab hold of to steady herself, that was not snow or a part of his body, but there was nothing.
In doing so, she touched his chest and thigh.
When her hand brushed his groin she stopped, blushing profusely.
“Wait,” he said, catching his breath. “Can I grab your waist a second?”
“Yes.” She nodded. He tried to bench-press her back onto her feet, but he overshot. Maddie fell backwards, landing with a thump.
“Shit, sorry!” he called out to her. She was laughing so hard she thought she might pee herself. There was a wall of snow between the two of them now, but she could hear him giggling. They lay like that for a minute or so, laughing like children.
“Do you think we’re too drunk to know we’re slowly freezing to death?” he called out.
“Potentially,” Maddie shouted back.
“Then we should make a move,” he said. From her snow ditch, she heard him digging his own way out.
She could see bits of snow flying everywhere as he did so.
Suddenly, his face was above hers. He stood cautiously and held his hands out, pulling her deftly to her feet and holding her close until he was sure she had her balance.
Maddie felt herself blushing again. James either didn’t notice or made a deliberate point of looking away.
Either way, she was grateful he didn’t see.
“We’re not going to get you home in this,” he said.
Maddie agreed. “I’ll call Autumn and ask if I can crash on their couch.” She pulled out her phone and called her sister-in-law, but there was no answer. Maddie found Marley’s number and dialled. This too rang out. She was starting to panic.
“They’re probably exhausted after all the drama last night,” James said.
“You’re probably right.”
“You can stay at mine?” James suggested. Maddie eyed him cautiously. He held his hands up in submission. “In a purely innocent and platonic, friend-like way. I have a spare bed.”
Maddie hardly had a choice, but she still worried it would be a mistake to agree.
They had only just declared their complicated relationship a friendship, and they were drunk.
She enjoyed being close to James a little too much and her lips were still burning from the force of his kiss earlier in the day.
Truthfully, she wasn’t sure she could trust herself, but there was nothing else for it, so she nodded.
“It’s this way.” James pointed back along the route they’d just followed.
* * *