Chapter Thirteen
Landon was sick with himself for admitting it, but Graham’s roast was some of the best food he’d had in years.
It was the kind of meal that makes good on the clichéd promise to warm you from the inside.
Halfway through, he’d broken down and asked Graham for one of his incredible gin fizzes, which regrettably tasted exactly as good as it looked.
Landon wasn’t sure what the man couldn’t do.
The strength of the cocktail softened the blow enough that he’d lingered all the way through dessert—an undeniably delicious tiramisu. But as the buzz faded, so did he.
Most of the crew dispersed to the living room.
Fox and Maria announced their intention to smoke cigarettes on the roof, which they all seemed to understand was code for some sort of semi-public sexual encounter.
Dave, apparently not one to overstay a welcome, said his goodbyes, hitting the J in Jamie a little harder than he needed to when he asked if Landon would like to walk back to the hostel with him.
Landon wasn’t sure that he should stay, but he wasn’t quite ready to leave.
“You go on,” he said. “I’ll see you in the morning. ”
“You’ll stay and play charades, won’t you, Jamie?” Rose asked, her pupils large enough to swim in. “It was Isolde’s turn to pick the game, but truthfully, no matter who’s picking, it’s almost always charades.”
“Sure,” he said, second-guessing himself almost immediately. “Mind if I excuse myself for a minute?” Lights twinkled on Graham’s balcony, calling to him. “I just need to make a quick phone call.”
“Take your time. We’ll go on and start without you, but it’s easy to jump in.”
“Perfect,” he said. “That’s just what I’ll do.” She flashed him a smile so pure his heart splintered. Landon slid the glass door to the balcony open and shut it behind him. It took her one ring to pick up.
“Oh my God, Landon,” Jess said. “Are you okay, are you—”
“I’m fine,” he said softly, though he knew behind the glass door they weren’t listening, already absorbed in the act.
“Why didn’t you call, why didn’t you—”
“I’m sorry,” Landon said, because there was no way he would be able to find the words and it seemed the most appropriate substitute.
“We were so worried.” Her voice broke. “So fucking worried.”
“Hey, hey,” he said, “I’m okay. I’m fine. I should have called, but I’m calling now.”
“Will you please just let me help you? Mom cleared out the pool house for you—you can stay as long as you want, and no one will bother you. We would just feel better if you were close by. I don’t want to make this about me, or Mom, or Dad, but we’re just so worried.
Please, Landon. Please, would you let us help? ”
“I’m traveling, actually,” he said, trying his best to sound buoyant.
“Traveling? Are you kidding me?”
“I’m not kidding.” But giving his sister proof of life—while something he should have done weeks ago—was not the reason that he’d called, nor was giving up his location. “Can I ask you something?”
Jess sighed. “Seems you’re going to.”
“When you first met Rose, what did you think of her?”
Jess didn’t respond immediately. He could hear her short, sharp breaths, and knew they would be in through her nose and out through her mouth, the way her yoga teacher preached.
He was certain she was trying her hardest not to say the wrong thing.
When she finally spoke, she said, “I thought she was beautiful. And warm, and gentle. Funny, but not in an obvious way. Not the way you’re funny. ”
“That’s it?” Landon asked. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but knew it was more than adjectives you could use to describe just about anyone.
“You want the truth?”
“I wouldn’t have called otherwise.”
“Okay. I thought she seemed defiant.”
Landon ran a hand through the stubble that was just starting to sprout on his chin. “What on earth does that mean?”
“Listen, I know her dad had just died, so it probably wasn’t fair of me to think at the time, but it was like I could read on her face how many times she’d been knocked down and chosen to get back up again.”
The balcony door slid open, and even though he knew she would worry, Landon ended the call without saying goodbye.
“I found I couldn’t stand the idea of you being out here all alone.
” Rose held a half-full bottle of merlot in one hand and balanced two wineglasses effortlessly in the other. “What was it that was so important?”
“Oh, nothing,” he said, tilting his head.
Defiant was not a word on the tip of his tongue when he thought of his Rose.
It certainly wasn’t a word that had featured in his wedding vows.
But now that Jess had named it, he realized the missed opportunity.
“All Graham’s talk about his other’s obsession with liability insurance reminded me that I really meant to insure my trip.
Figured there’s no time like the present. ”
“That’s absolutely right.” Rose passed him a glass and placed the wine bottle on the wide railing. “Thanks again for coming tonight,” she said. “I knew you would be a great addition. I just had a feeling, when I met you.”
Landon wanted to ask her why: What was it about him that had made her so sure he would fit in with them, with her?
But instead, he said, “I had a great time. Honored to be among the cast of characters.” Landon reached for the bottle at the same time Rose did.
Their fingers met on the smooth glass. Rose froze, just for a second, then laughed and smoothed back a few wisps of hair.
“That was weird,” she said.
“Makes you wonder what the body remembers.” It was too much. But she smiled, like someone who had never been knocked down might.
“Yeah,” she said, “it does.”
“Can I ask you something?” Landon was pushing his luck at every turn.
Rose poured a few fingers of wine into each of their glasses. “Of course.”
“Why here?”
“As in, why Edinburgh?”
“Yes.”
Rose twirled the wine in her glass. “To be honest, it was a bit random at the start. I didn’t throw a dart at a board or anything like that, but I thought, ‘Okay, my other wants to forget, so I should go somewhere that she can.’ And the more I read about this city, the more it seemed the perfect place.
It’s old, which of course a lot of cities are, but its streets are layered and stacked above these hidden closes, like some sort of modern-day labyrinth.
It felt comforting—the idea that I could exist among all this history without needing any myself.
Even just from the photographs, Edinburgh seemed like a city that wouldn’t care whether I remembered it or not. ”
“Spoken like a true artist,” he said, caught off guard by how touched he was by her explanation.
She laughed. “There were also less cerebral reasons. There’s a thriving arts scene here.
Some of my first memories are just feelings, not thoughts.
It’s hard to describe. I felt like if I didn’t create something, then what was the point of any of it?
Like I would jump right out of my skin if I didn’t begin my new life authentically. ”
“I felt like that, too,” Landon said, because he felt he had to.
“And then there’s the fact that Edinburgh has the most incredible natural landscape. I mean, the crags, Arthur’s Seat, the North Sea.”
“I’ve heard Arthur’s Seat is amazing.”
Rose all but threw her hands in the air. “Are you telling me you haven’t been?”
“I haven’t been in town long,” Landon countered.
“This is why you asked, ‘why here,’” Rose said. “You haven’t felt it in your bones yet.”
It wasn’t at all why. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“What are you doing tomorrow?”
Nothing tomorrow, the next day, or the next until his visa was up in six months. “Oh, just a few errands.”
“You’ll want to leave right now and get in bed as soon as you can.”
“Are you kicking me out?”
Rose laughed. “You’re going to catch your first sunrise from the top of Arthur’s Seat. You know your way around Old Town, yeah?”
He did not. “Pretty much.”
“Good. Meet me at the Tesco’s on Holyrood at six a.m. If you get lost, just walk toward the enormous hill. You can see it from almost any second-story window.”
Holyrood. The letter. Rose’s flat: 39 Holyrood Road.
He wondered whether she would head back there that evening, and realized in the same heartbeat that she wouldn’t.
She and Graham would do what he and Rose used to do at the end of long dinner parties and lose themselves in each other.
The thought was enough to guarantee he wouldn’t sleep a wink. “Okay,” he said. “That sounds great.”
“This city is going to win you over,” Rose said, then drained the rest of her wine in one long sip.
“Sure,” he said. He searched her eyes a moment longer than he should have for that grit that had grown in his Rose with every setback, disappointment, and redirection she’d faced.
All he saw were two remarkably bloodshot eyes—whites that he could have sworn were clear only minutes ago now cracked red.
He wondered if she was feeling well. Perhaps she’d had too much to drink.
He thought about asking her, but instead, he said, “I trust you.”
Landon pulled the scratchy wool covers up to his neck and tried to heed Rose’s advice to get as much sleep as possible.
But, as he’d predicted, the image of Rose’s hand on Graham’s shoulder was burned into his retinas with such clarity it was all but impossible.
He’d resorted to counting breaths when an angry pair of hands pounded on his door.
Someone had stumbled home drunk, he figured, and didn’t realize they had the wrong room.
It was an easy mistake to make at Kick Ass Greyfriars, where the upstairs was as nondescript as the downstairs was eclectic.
“Wrong room!” he yelled, pulling the covers a touch higher.
The hands banged again. Now he was annoyed. Landon pulled on his slippers and ambled to the door. He opened the door a crack. “Wrong—”
“What were you thinking!” Poppy yelled, eyes blazing.