Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
IAIN
“I feel like that went well … ‘Project: Fake Date’ I mean,” Maisie said as they wandered down the hill of Ms Vera’s road.
Iain rolled his eyes forwards to the uneven paving slabs barely illuminated by the sporadic streetlamps. “Of course you named it.”
“It needed a name. ‘Project: Get All The Elders Off Of Our Backs’ is too long.”
The words might’ve been jovial, but Maisie’s voice sounded forced into it. She hugged an envelope to her body which must’ve been what Vera had wanted to show her. And even though she smiled and made her little jokes, Iain knew it’d been a tear she wiped away when she’d met him at the foot of the stairs.
He couldn’t understand it or put shape to the feeling, but he needed to know what had upset her.
He walked with enough space between them to not feel too invasive as he asked, “Would you like to tell me why you cried?”
Maisie’s eyes shot across to him, wide at first, then settling with the acceptance that he’d noticed her tear. “Vera found this.” She held out the envelope in offering and explained whilst Iain opened it, taking care for his rough hands not to rip anything. “My taid painted it for me, and I’ve never seen it before. It’s at least fifteen years old.”
“Twenty,” he said.
“Twenty?” Her curls whipped off her shoulders.
Iain lifted the postcard, though there wasn’t much in the way of streetlight to see. “There’s a date on the reverse.”
“Oh. I didn’t see it.”
He didn’t know anything about art. Unsurprisingly, culture wasn’t very important on the list of things he was taught growing up. But her taid’s painting of what was clearly the pier here was nice. Simple. Clearly meaningful if it’d stirred emotion in her.
“So he was an artist like you?” he presumed.
Maisie folded herself within her coat. “Sort of. I don’t remember him painting much. Nain always says that my brothers all have different parts of our family in them, but I’ve never known who I took after. Maybe it’s him.”
The longing in her voice to feel connected that way un-shrivelled something within Iain. He hadn’t had that growing up. All he’d inherited from his family was his temper and size to match it, but he wasn’t so bitter to not be glad when other people had what he didn’t.
“I’d say so.” He gave back the painting in its envelope. “You have brothers?”
“Three.” Maisie’s voice changed to the vibrant tone he liked so much, even at the rate at which she talked. “I think you’d like them. You could form your own starting line in a rugby team. What about you?”
Iain’s stomach soured as quickly as Maisie’s features had brightened. This he didn’t talk about. To talk about his family meant letting someone inside, and he didn’t want Maisie to see the train wreck that was in there. She didn’t know the nerves that she prodded; that wasn’t her fault; the open ends firing off warnings to retreat.
Feeling it was only fair to tell the truth, he took a moment to answer.
“Two brothers,” he said, feeling a weight in his chest tugging down. “We aren’t close.”
“Oh … I’m sorry. You don’t have to tell me why. I don’t need to know.”
Maisie didn’t ask him anything more along that line while they walked another few minutes into town, following the silent streets. The route to her flat was easy, a couple of turns and one straight stretch of deserted road through the middle of Aber. It was a different kind of walk to what they were used to. He wasn’t in a rush to reach an end or climb up a hill, he simply strolled with a woman through the streets to the distant sound of the ocean lapping in the bay.
“Isn’t this going the wrong way for you?” Maisie asked before they crossed the road onto hers.
It is. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Iain.”
God, he liked it when she said his name with purpose like that. He liked it when she grew fiery with him, full stop. “It’s dark,” he said. “I’d rather walk you home.”
Maisie flicked her palm to the air. “This town isn’t exactly a hub for criminal activity.”
Iain turned his head and hoped that his stare burned enough into her eyes that she’d never question his intention again when he firmly stated, “I don’t care.”
Something had clicked within him. Something that couldn’t stand the thought of her being hurt again, especially if something were to happen in the dark. Maisie was right, nothing would happen to her between here and her front door, but Iain would walk her home. End of story.
Her eyes gave in first, then her smile. “Five fake-boyfriend points to Howell for being a gentleman.”
Iain rolled his eyes away – his standard when it came to her – his lips twitching fondly under his beard. “Ta.”
“I’m sure Ted is missing you. You should get back to him.”
“He’ll survive.” At this rate anyway, his dog would probably be happier if she was the one who walked through his front door instead of him.
Maisie tucked her smile towards her chest. Though a few steps before they reached a crossing, she stopped dead on the pavement. “Do you hear music?”
“My head is still ringing with it,” Iain offhanded, wondering how he somehow couldn’t keep up with a bunch of pensioners at a party. Half of them had drunk him under the table, and he wasn’t even tipsy.
Maisie’s head whipped in the wrong direction, and she began striding up the side road.
“Maisie—” Iain hissed at her as if she were Ted wandering off because he’d followed his nose.
The woman moved quickly when she wanted to, all the way along to the next main road over. Iain almost ran into her when she stopped abruptly yet again, this time outside a black and white fronted pub.
She stepped right up to one of the windows. “They’re playing jazz.”
Iain knew this pub well enough. “First Wednesday of the month,” he said. “Jazz night.”
He caught the wistful look in Maisie’s eyes that appeared a brighter shade of hazel in the dim lights from inside, peering through the foggy window at the amateur band gathered in the room’s corner. It was almost ten-thirty and still a decent number of people hung around to listen.
“Do you want to go in?” Iain asked, certain it was the music she was drawn to and not the pints being poured.
Her mouth twisted undecidedly. “I shouldn’t, I have a lot of work to do tomorrow.” Maisie drew back, adjusting her coat around herself. As lovely as her dress was, her outfit had no chance of providing much warmth on a February night like this. Iain’s fingers went to the closed zip on his coat, but Maisie stepped back again and pivoted to cross the empty street without him.
He followed and fell in at her side. If they kept this pace, then they’d reach her flat in a minute.
“Hearing that … it makes me miss London even more.” Maisie’s eyes turned down. “My friends and I, we all go to this jazz bar in London called Samuel’s . It’s a hot ticket to get your hands on when they do special shows, but we try to go once a month.”
It wasn’t the first time she’d mentioned her friends with such despondence in her voice.
“You miss them.”
She shrugged. “They’re my people. We all live our own lives, but at the end of the day there’s no tearing us apart. Except …”
“Except for how you’ve moved out here.”
“As soon as I’m sure that my nain is okay, then I’ll be going home. There’s not much here for me other than her.”
Iain pushed back at the slight sting. Fake dating aside, there was camaraderie between them now that felt … natural . It might just be her personality and him going along with her whims, but he’d have thought that that would count for something .
How she wanted to leave was as plain for all to see as the ocean’s horizon on a clear day. Maisie put up a front, but Iain knew too well how it felt to want to be anywhere else. She missed her friends, and she missed her old life. She’d said it herself that she would go as soon as what she’d come for was done, and he couldn’t afford to get attached to another woman who would leave again.
They found themselves at her stairwell door soon enough, Iain pushing his hands into his front trouser pockets as he hunched with the cold.
Retrieving her keys from her purse, Maisie turned to him, holding her taid’s painting by her stomach. “Well, thank you for walking me home,” she said, soft as cotton.
His chest rumbled in acknowledgement. “I’ll wait until you’re inside.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Go on.” He cut off her protest, watching her lips close and roll. “Nos da. ? * ”
Iain was acutely aware of her mouth when it briefly scrunched to one side, as if she wanted to say something other than, “Goodnight, Iain.”
His eyes never left her all the way up the narrow staircase, her dress swaying from those wide hips as she took each step. He couldn’t deny that half of his reasons for staying where he was were just for watching her go.
* ? Goodnight