Chapter 35
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
MAISIE
“I’d like the balls to be a little bigger.”
Maisie scrubbed her palm across her forehead. “Having them larger can be overwhelming, visually. I would recommend having more of them sporadically and on the smaller side.”
“What about placing them with the bat?” her client asked.
She didn’t know how she was supposed to politely explain that having a repeating motif which looked too much like genitals on a website for a children’s multi-sport club was inappropriate.
“I’ll see what I can do,” she conceded with every intention of finding a way around making a cricket bat and red balls look like a?—
“Excellent. Now I’d like to talk about …”
Maisie listened as her client listed their other comments about the preliminary design and website layout she’d emailed yesterday, though her mind was anywhere but at this desk.
Despite how it’d come about, her weekend had been magical; her path had taken a turn she’d never been expecting, but if a time machine appeared in front of her she wouldn’t go back and change any of it. Not for anything. She wished so much to be back there again to where it felt like the world had evaporated, instead of here at her desk where reality seemed to crawl at a dreary pace whilst she waited out her workday to see Iain again.
She’d awoken that Sunday morning in his arms just like he’d promised. But after another wobbly moment of emotion before he’d woken up and kissed all her overwhelmed tears away, Maisie had watched an influx of jewellery orders roll in through her emails, and her stress had begun to climb. So, they skipped out early from the campsite and drove home at lunch.
They’d spent time together every day since. Which was only three days, but it was three days they’d chosen to be together without the pretence of interaction being fake or for show. Though since her period arrived unduly early and wreaked havoc as soon as she’d gotten home – not to mention her still very sore knee, which hadn’t been helped by their nightly activities that weekend – the nights Iain spent over had been of the purest kind. The kind that involved food and movies, the pair of them curled up on her sofa with a few tears at her endo pain, and a lot of his warm hands massaging her lower back. When the worst of her cramps had passed on Wednesday, Iain had brought Ted over for dinner and they’d strolled along the oceanfront. He’d made more rarebit and brought her traditional bara brith to try from a town his job had sent him to. Her tastebuds hadn’t wrapped their heads around the tea-soaked fruit loaf, but she hadn’t said no to another buttered slice.
Maisie hadn’t wanted to ask that ‘what are we?’ question in case it broke the peacefulness of the moment. She wasn’t the casual kind of woman and Iain had already made it very clear he couldn’t do commitment, yet the things he’d said to her about waiting for however long it took her to open up contradicted that. She could float along for now and see where things took them, but sooner rather than later she would need an answer.
“I can definitely sort out a page like that for you,” Maisie said down the phone as she chimed back in to the conversation, jotting down the request on her notepad. “It’ll require an extra tab on the navigation bar but that’s simple to sort out.”
“Thank you. I was also wondering if we could?—”
“Moo Moo! Hello?”
Maisie jumped halfway out of her seat at the cooing voice that burst into her living room – her elegant grandma with her freshly permed hair in a bonnet that dripped with rain. Vera waltzed in unannounced and didn’t seem to notice that there was a phone call happening at all.
Ears burning, Maisie snapped her phone back to say, “I’m sorry, Gavin, I’ll call you right back.” Before she could hear what her client said, she put the phone down and exhaled heavily through her nose, counting to ten before she faced her nain .
“Ah, you’re here! How was your weekend away?” Vera unbuttoned her coat and unwrapped her scarf.
The aggravation Maisie felt coursing through her veins for this unplanned visit – in the middle of her workday – doubled for that loaded question.
“ Nain , I don’t appreciate what you all did to us last weekend,” she said sternly.
“Oh, it was just some harmless fun.” Wafting her hand, Vera tittered about over to the sofa and folded her outerwear over the edge. “And you both stayed in the same cabin.” She wiggled her brows. “I called to check.”
Maisie pressed her palms down into her thighs, turning in her office chair. The whole weekend had been a set-up. Never mind the outcome. Forcing her and Iain together wasn’t fair.
“It was embarrassing, Nain . Especially for Iain.”
She’d had this sort of low-level meddling from Vera to contend with for all her life, but those things were more acceptable between family. And Iain wasn’t family. Nain had no right to get to him like that through Maisie and make him a victim of her games.
The cushions made a poof as Vera sat herself down. “You two are dating, what is the issue?”
Clearly, by her la-dee-da tone, she didn’t see it – or was ignoring it on purpose. Both were equally as irritating in that moment.
The issue was that they weren’t actually dating, were they? Not then at least, when this had all come about, but Maisie wasn’t sure about now ; they were friends who had a singular night of amazing benefits, but nothing more since then. Though they were cosy as if they’d known each other for years, and they kissed as if he were fire, and she oil. The plans that she had for herself regarding staying here were murky now that things had changed.
If they had actually been dating instead of faking it, then her fuse wouldn’t be so short. She’d probably even thank the pensioners for pulling this off.
Rigidly, Maisie breathed the furious sigh she’d wanted to have unleashed on the phone last Friday. “It just wasn’t fair to be blindsided like that.”
Vera’s long lashes fluttered in the picture of innocence. “You two had fun together, didn’t you?”
This had happened once too many times now.
Ever since she’d gotten here, Vera and her friends had been interfering with their lives. Being told to join the hiking group, Maisie could live with. But being edged out of Vera’s home after only two weeks and then unsolicitedly pushed towards Iain over and over – and similarly him pushed to her – crossed a line that Maisie never knew she’d needed to set.
Well she was done holding her tongue.
She didn’t want to out the Fake Date Plan just yet, but she could stand her ground about Vera’s pushiness in other ways. She’d asked Iain once for help with this and she guessed that he’d wanted to spare her feelings by being gentle about what was happening, but Maisie knew what she had to do now after this interruption. And she didn’t care how firm she was about it.
“ Nain , I’ve held off from saying this because I didn’t want to be rude, but could you stop asking things of me at the drop of a hat and turning up unannounced like this?”
Leaning back into the sofa like her voice had blown her over, Vera’s eyes flicked side to side. “You work from home,” she pointed out. “I don’t see what the problem?—”
“I work all day, Nain , and then in the evenings and at the weekends I work on my jewellery shop. I need to know in advance when you want to see me so that I can prepare around it.”
“I thought that you could work whenever you liked?”
Agh, that wasn’t the point.
“I can.” Maisie tried to keep some semblance of calm. “But I still have a schedule that makes sure I get everything done which, by the way, had to be tightened when you made me join your hiking group and your lunches and your shopping trips.” She hated her bitter tone. She hated that this was something that had to be said at all.
Vera tipped up her chin, her eyes narrower than before. “What does Iain think of all this work you do?”
Iain wasn’t the point of this either.
Hands steepled, Maisie tried to make herself crystal clear. “Iain understands that things have to be done. Actually, when I wasn’t well, he came and helped do those things for me,” she noted. “And anyway, that doesn’t matter. Nain , you’re the one making things difficult for me every time you turn up here and ask me to take you somewhere or go to lunch with your friends.”
The way words ran from her tongue caught them both off guard, but everything she blurted was the truth.
Vera sniffed primly. “You don’t have to agree, Maisie.”
“But you make me feel guilty whenever I say no, Nain . So I don’t. And I pick up the slack in a rush later on. I can’t keep on doing that.” Maisie watched her grandma’s eyes fall and reined herself in. “Why don’t we organise times for when we can see each other?” she suggested, hoping to ease the tension she’d escalated.
“What is wrong with now?” Vera asked.
“I am trying to work, Nain . I was on a phone call that I had to end because you came in here so loudly.”
“Right …” Vera uttered. She stood and gathered up her coat and bonnet, folding them over her now cast-less arm as she made her way towards the door. “I only came to invite both you and Iain to dinner this Saturday. I have a surprise for you.”
“You’ve given me enough surprises, Nain .” And she’d rather whatever Vera was hiding be the last one.
“This one, you might like.” The words were happy, though Vera looked anything but.
“I can’t,” Maisie said regretfully. Preparing herself to accept the ‘Worst Granddaughter in Wales’ award. “Iain has a rugby game and I’m going to watch. We’ll miss the hike, too.”
“I didn’t think you were interested in sports?”
“Iain never has anyone cheering for him on the sidelines,” she said, “and now he has me.”
“Ah. Well I hope he knows how lucky he is to have you, Moo Moo. We can rearrange to whenever you like. I’ll see myself out. You get back to your call.”
Maisie’s eyes lingered on her front door as it closed.
That wasn’t how she’d wanted to make her feelings known about, well, everything, but doing it gently just wasn’t going to work. She’d done what she’d needed to do for her own boundaries to be met.
So why did she feel such a lead weight moving through her stomach like it sank through tar?
Maisie was supposed to be here to find out what was going on with Vera that had all her family so worried, and all she’d done just now was push her away. She’d hoped that Vera would come out with whatever secret she was keeping to herself naturally, which is why she’d gone along to so many impromptu lunches and shopping trips whilst keeping her worries inside. But none of that had worked.
She was no closer to finding out what Vera was hiding, and it was all her own fault. She’d been distracted – with work, with the hiking group, with feeling so homesick and lost, and now with Iain too. Getting close to him was the one thing she’d promised herself she wouldn’t do. But she’d broken that rule. And now he was the one steady thing that she was sure of.
The outer door that led onto the street closed, and the heavy bang echoed up the stairwell.
She should go after Vera. She shouldn’t leave things so fractured like this.
But her phone began to ring with the client she’d abruptly cut off’s name lighting up the screen, and Maisie had no choice but to spin back to her desk and worry about if she’d just ripped a hole in the relationship she had with her grandma, later.