Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
IAIN
Iain never should’ve tried to sleep on the bus this morning; his neck was bloody sore. He’d only managed half a night’s sleep because his father had attempted contacting him again. After the conversation he’d had with Maisie, he’d already spared enough thought for that man for one day so he hadn’t answered the phone, which somehow equated to not being able to stop thinking for hours about what could’ve been said. Coupled with Ted scratching on their front door to be let out at seven o’clock and the early start to meet the group, he’d been shattered. Though one glimpse of Maisie waiting near the minibus in the same spot he’d found her last night made him forget about everything that’d happened after she’d left.
“I sat with a pretty woman on the seafront last night, telling her my darkest secrets.”
It didn’t make rational sense. Nothing about how she was the first person he looked for did .
He’d revealed so much to her. It must’ve been the waxing moonlight or her unshed tears that’d bewitched him to do so, because he never would’ve told anyone else those things about his life, yet somehow with her they fell straight off his tongue. A few details from his past to let her know she wasn’t alone in how she felt were no sacrifice if it meant she stopped those tears.
Like he’d alluded at the café today, he really did feel lighter for unloading some of his troubles to Maisie, knowing that they were actually heard. Not just listened to but understood . Taking them out of his head had somehow taken Iain out of it too.
It was strange after so many months to willingly want to share, so perhaps it was just the effect of her ? Maisie felt like a person who people would open up to. Iain was trying not to overthink how he’d taken her hand. Her soft, gentle, comforting hand. It was just another moment of enchantment fuelled by the sad shimmer in her eyes he couldn’t stand to see. He could no longer ignore, as well, how he couldn’t seem to stop reaching for her whenever her anxieties showed.
She’d sucked him in, and Iain found that he enjoyed being suspended in her orbit.
Finally, after two hours of being cramped within his minibus seat, Iain opened his eyes and saw home. Between slate-roofed houses, Constitution Hill with its funicular railway stood tall, and he knew that just below it was the ocean. The sand and pebbles and shore. The constant rhythm of the back-and-forth tide.
He’d been constant for so long that he and the waves were companions of a sort.
The bus drove the narrow roads in from the edge of town, where no home was the same and flowers started to bloom on garden walls for spring. Some would say that the town was run-down, but to Iain it was just as it should be: full of character and tranquillity. It’s why, when his whole world had fallen apart, he’d chosen here to place his feet and hoped that roots might take form.
They turned one corner and there, through the windshield, where edges of four-story hotels didn’t meet, was the endless stretch of blue Iain always returned to now. Typical for a Saturday with half decent weather, the stretching seafront was busy. Their driver pulled up where he could, which might not have entirely been legal, and they hopped down out of the van as quickly as thirteen over-sixties could hop.
“Home again, everybody!” one of the women cheered.
The weather had begun warming up as well as the Welsh coast usually could in February, and young families braced the salty breeze off Cardigan Bay to let their children play amongst the pebbles and sand. Iain couldn’t ever picture himself being amongst them – he liked his solitude and peace too much. Keeping Ted alive was enough of a responsibility and even that felt too taxing some days.
His dog shook himself out and stretched all four of his legs, whereas Iain tried not to get too close to the woman-shaped ball of fire beside him. Their thighs and hips had been pressed together as they squished within their seats for two hours, and that only kept the buzzing in Iain’s veins flowing.
Like a nerve continually pressed, he couldn’t settle. Except, that nerve wasn’t signalling pain, but wanting . Far too much wanting . And what he wanted was a who, and that was Maisie. The unending reminder of her soft, full body flushed chest to toes with his, her breasts up against him, his mouth soft and hard and soft again on hers.
Spending time with her made him feel as though he wasn’t just alone anymore, but lonely . Because he’d missed being connected like that.
Stood on the sandy stone promenade as seagulls circled the skies, Maisie was a fuse burning down inch by inch on a bomb that’d been lit two hours ago. How she would explode though was the question. He couldn’t tell if she was irritated or something else entirely. Not when their entire acquaintance so far had consisted of winding one another up.
She’d given her consent to be kissed, and he’d given her ample covert warning beforehand that he was going to. And yeah, maybe the caveman fraction of his brain had listened to those three women who’d ambushed him, disregarding Maisie as if she wasn’t worthy of his attention, and then decided to tell them to fuck off in the best way possible.
The minibus disappeared along Marine Terrace and the group hung around, chatting and saying their goodbyes. Iain wasn’t so sure how to extricate himself and Ted from this situation but was saved from the awkwardness when Maisie grabbed his arm.
“We’re just going to go and … get a chippy to have for tea!” she announced, far chirpier than her silent treatment had been on the bus as she’d sunk her attention into her book – one of those ones with half naked men on the front. He’d peeked down at the pages once or twice and learned a few details about just what kind of man Maisie enjoyed reading about.
Heads of pensioners spun, and Iain tensed, concerned about that one-eighty in Maisie’s mood. “We are?”
Maisie’s surety made up for his lack thereof. “Yes. Come on. Bye guys!”
So much for awkward-less.
He let Maisie strong-arm him and Ted along the promenade, far enough out of range of Vera and her friends. Then she switched direction and diverted them around the north side of the bandstand.
“Daffy, what the hell are you doing?” Iain’s backpack cushioned his backward stumble against the circular building, earning himself a few looks from beach-goers.
“You kissed me in front of everyone!” Maisie’s hands flew to her hips as she glowered up at him. How could someone manage to both shout and hiss at the same time whilst looking like a girl guide explorer?
“Because those women you saw were trying to tell me you weren’t good enough for me,” was Iain’s only excuse. Not because he’d thought about kissing her since last night when she’d hit the most accurate mark and called him a lost kingdom. It wouldn’t make sense to anyone else, but to know in the depths of his bones that he’d been heard meant more to him than he could explain.
Her nose made a huff. “So you kissed me? That was your plan?”
That exclamation earned a few sterner looks from the tourists enjoying their ocean views.
Wrapping his fist around Ted’s lead, Iain pushed air down into his lungs. “I wasn’t going to stand around doing nothing while those women talked about you like they did,” he said. And he would’ve done so much more than just kiss her if they hadn’t been stood in a bloody tearoom.
“You didn’t have to do anything. I know my value, and it has nothing to do with whether or not some strangers think I am or am not worthy of being with you.” Maisie folded her arms, which only served to push her breasts up on a shelf for attention. “We’re not together,” she said with as much flustered indignance as he’d ever seen. “You don’t get to kiss me like that.”
Iain didn’t need reminding what they were and were not doing.
What they were was pretending, and what they weren’t was very good at it.
He couldn’t stop his gaze from falling to her lips. “Like what, exactly?” he asked as he cocked his head, because to him it looked like she had more of a problem with the way he’d kissed her rather than the why .
“Like …” Maisie stumbled over her tongue, her breaths laboured and telling. So Iain took the opening and stepped up closer, hoping to remind her exactly of what she’d retaliated in that tearoom.
He lowered his voice, his body thrumming with restraint to not do something reckless in plain sight. “Did you think I’d just peck you on the lips?”
Maisie inhaled as the gap closed between them, and Iain pushed his luck, putting himself as near to her as he indecently dared. His gaze dropped to her lower lip being pulled between her teeth. He wasn’t pretending when he said, “Do you think something chaste would’ve shown those women how obsessed I am with you?”
Talking with her wasn’t enough. Being in her space wasn’t enough anymore. By this point, he should probably tell her that the feelings that had crept up on him and then slammed into motion weren’t fake at all. None of who he was or what he did around her was.
“I …” Her lashes fluttered, the air mixing hotly between them as he stood over her.
“If I’m going to kiss you, Daffy,” he said, watching the column of her throat rise in a flush bob as she gulped, “even to make a point – you can be damn sure that I’m doing it right.”
Appearing to get his message, Maisie nodded shallowly, her brows high and her eyes like saucers. If Iain didn’t know any better, he’d say she was flustered.
He wasn’t supposed to wish that he could undo her like this every day, which is why he took a step back and gave himself a reality check. This thing between them, whatever it was becoming, was too dangerous to play with. Not when he had no chance of ever giving her what she deserved.
Iain sobered up fast. “I hope you know how amazing you are, Maisie.”
Her features scrunched and softened, as off guard by the change in direction as he was. “Why?”
“What you just said about knowing your value – I saw that in you the first day that we met. Don’t ever lose it.”
Hazel eyes went glossy as they blinked up at him. A tiny crease formed between her brows, and for the sake of his heart, Iain wished she wouldn’t look at him like that – like it was the first time she’d been told such a thing – because it made him want to tell her a million other ways in which she was incredible just so that endearing look wouldn’t go away.
Ted slammed his head into his knee, a good enough signal that it was time to go.
“Come on,” Iain said with a cock of his head towards town, digging his hands far down into the pockets of his walking trousers. “I’m buying chips, apparently.”
“Oh … I was just saying that as an excuse to go.” Maisie gave a hollow laugh. “I was ready to bite your head off, Iain.”
“I would’ve let you. Let’s go.”