‘Howdy.’
‘You gone American cowboy already?’
James smiled and settled in on his rock for their chat.
Twenty
Cassie
Cassie smiled and snuggled herself into her duvet to listen to James’s gorgeous voice telling her about views and the Vermont scenery and ranting about his lunch. She’d have been asleep half an hour ago if she hadn’t carried on reading in the hope that he might call. They’d fallen into the habit of one of them calling the other at this sort of time pretty much every day, before his evening started and just as hers ended. They talked about all sorts. Big stuff, small stuff.
It had probably been her turn to call him today but she didn’t know if it’d seem strange. He was on his road trip now, so the swap was pretty much over. But he’d called her and now she was feeling warm inside.
‘So what are you going to do this evening?’ she asked.
‘I’m going to drive on for another hour or two until I hit Montreal proper. I’ve got a hotel room booked. I’m going to have dinner and walk round the city this evening.’
‘Sounds like the road trip was definitely a good decision.’
‘Yeah, it really was.’
‘I booked a little trip of my own today. My Glasgow weekend.’
‘Wow, congratulations.’
‘Thank you. I’m feeling good about myself just for booking it. Demon slaying’s the way forward.’
‘Yeah, I think you’re right. I’m genuinely looking forward to seeing my sister and her family when I get back.’
It was nice to feel like they were confiding in each other.
* * *
Cassie shivered. She should have brought a thicker coat. Glasgow was not warm in the summer. She should have remembered.
‘How does it feel to be back?’ her cousin Meg asked her as they drove away from the station. Strange how when you grew up somewhere you didn’t really clock much about it on a daily basis. Now, after having been away for four years, Cassie was really noticing the imposing height and darkness of the stone buildings lining the city centre streets.
‘A bit weird, but good, actually. Like, it’s just a place of which I have mainly good memories, and I’m very unlikely to bump into Simon but if I do, whatever. He’s firmly in my past. The main thing is that I’m seeing you and everyone else.’
‘Good. Fecking taxis.’ Meg honked and middle-fingered a Toyota Prius driver who’d just cut her up. ‘Your mum and dad are arriving this evening.’ Meg’s husband was a vicar – Cassie adored the fact that the sweariest person she knew had married a very sweet and mild-mannered man of the cloth – and they lived in a large (and cold and ramshackle) vicarage in Hillhead, which was able to accommodate a lot of guests. ‘Your mum’s going to freeze.’ Very true. Cassie’s mum had spent the entire time she lived in Glasgow mentioning the cold at least once a day. She was a lot happier weather-wise in France.
To be fair to Cassie’s mother, Glasgow was a lot colder than London. And a lot rainier. It had been moderately sunny when they’d left the station but now the sky was grey and the car windows were splattered in large rain drops.
‘The sodding central heating’s broken down again.’ Meg turned right into busy traffic, causing several cars to slam their brakes on. ‘I’m wondering whether we should stop in town now, have lunch and then buy some extra blankets.’
‘Good plan. We should probably also buy my mum a couple of jumpers. She won’t have brought enough warm clothes.’
So this was okay. Cassie and Meg were sitting in a hidden-gem-style little Chinese restaurant in the city centre eating dim sum. It was better than okay. Cassie should have come back to Glasgow before now.
‘I did an unsuccessful round of IVF with a sperm donor this summer,’ she told Meg. If there was one thing she’d learned over the past few months it was that you felt a lot better when you were open with the people you were closest to.
‘I’m so, so sorry that it didn’t work out,’ Meg said when Cassie had finished telling her the details, succeeding in only sniffling a bit. ‘But two things. One, you’re only young still. Plenty of people have babies well into their forties. And two, I’msopleased that you’re finally over that bastard.’
‘I think I was over him almost immediately. I mean, once someone’s behaved like that you really don’t like them any more.’
‘Not the same as being over them, though. Not necessarily overhim, but over how he behaved. He’s such a shit.’
Cassie nodded. ‘Yep, you’re right. I honestly think I could see him now and feel nothing.’ A lot of which was due to her stay in London. And maybe a little to do with getting to know James.
