CHAPTER EIGHT
Avonlea – Now
Iclimb the ladder to the roof—a place I haven’t been in years but could navigate with my eyes closed. A place that might be able to hold all the feelings I’m having about being back in Cluaran… with Jamie.
Who’s Lennox? he’d asked, and I’d nearly choked. To hear Lennox’s name on Jamie’s lips was a shock I wasn’t prepared for, and I’m not sure I covered it well.
This whole situation is a mess.
I need to think, to breathe, and I can’t do that inside the inn.
It’s dark now, but the light of the full moon makes it so I can somewhat see as I clamber up the last rung. Only I’m brought up short by a figure already sitting against the chimney.
“You shouldn’t be up here,” Jamie says, his icy tone freezing me in my tracks.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were up here. I’ll just—”
“Why are you here?” he asks, and there’s so little of the boy I remember in his voice. His accent has dulled from years spent in the States, and the harshness of it affects me more than it probably should.
“I needed some air.” I shrug, though I’m not sure he can see it. “Thought maybe I’d find it up here… maybe some perspective too.”
He snorts a derisive laugh. “Well, I haven’t found any, so I doubt you will either. And that’s not what I meant. What are you doing here, Avonlea? In Cluaran.”
It cuts to the quick that I’m “Avonlea” to him now. I guess the days of me being his Avi are well and truly behind us. Of course they are. They have to be. We aren’t the same people we were back then.
“I came for Angus. Just like you.” My eyes adjust to the low light and I can see him better now as he scrubs a hand across his bearded chin. “I didn’t know you’d be here, Jamie.”
“Yeah? And, what? If you’d known, you wouldn’t have come?” he bites, and I shake off the instinct to flinch, locking my shoulders instead. He has no idea how right he is. I probably wouldn’t have, but not just for my sake… for his too, and for Lennox’s.
“And what, you’re saying you would’ve come if you’d known I was going to be here?” I snap, my nerves too raw to keep my tongue in check.
“He’s my fucking Grandad, Avonlea.” His words hit like a whip crack. “I’ve already missed out on enough time with him because of you. So, yeah, I still would’ve come, but you don’t need to be here. I do.”
That stings. A lot. It also makes zero sense.
“I never stopped you coming back to Scotland.” My hands shake and my voice trembles with the anger I have leashed just under the surface. “You were the one who wanted to stay in America. Don’t put your choices on me, Jameson.”
He throws his hands in the air and shouts, “Forget it. I’m not doing this with you. I’m not here for you.”
“Noted. And just so we’re clear, I’m not here for you either. If Angus didn’t want me here, I’d leave. But he does. And I don’t walk away from the people who actually want me.”
He rears back like I slapped him. Without another word I’m back on the ladder and my feet hit the grass without even registering the climb down. That wasn’t the perspective I was looking for, but I got it just the same.
He doesn’t want anything to do with me… which would be fine, if he wasn’t going to be here for a year.
A year. I still don’t know what to do with the news Angus shared earlier.
How can he leave his life behind so easily? If he hadn’t wanted that life more than he wanted me, we might not be in this situation.
And how dare he blame me for going so long without seeing his grandparents? Fucking prick. He has no right to even be mad in the first place. He’s the one who walked away. He’s the one who didn’t want me, at least not the way I wanted him.
I squeeze my eyes shut and lean against the inn’s cool stone exterior. What the hell am I supposed to do now?
I could ignore him for the next two months… but that won’t do me any good once Lennox arrives. He may be a miniature replica of me in almost every way, but it was his eyes that made Angus ask the question in the first place, seeing as he once fell in love with those same eyes. Aileen’s eyes.
Even if they aren’t enough to have Jamie questioning who Lennox’s father is, can I really keep this from him? Keep this from Lennox? What right do I have to ask Angus and Aileen to keep this secret now that the circumstances have changed?
“Fuck,” I mutter under my breath. I’m more confused than I was when I came out here.
What am I going to do?