‘Oh, fuck.’
I’d forgotten cutlery. The memory of my elbow disappearing into a cow’s arse was too recent to consider shovelling pasta into my mouth with my fingers.
But there was no way I could go back downstairs.
Blinking against the hot ache behind my eyelids, I carefully tipped the bowl towards my face and bit down on the topmost curls of macaroni. I shouldn’t be sad about messing things up with Kit. There had only ever been the potential to make a friend. I hadn’t lost anything.
I’d sneak to the bathroom after Kit went to bed, and I’d make sure I was up and out before he got up tomorrow morning. Hopefully, with enough time and space, he wouldn’t decide he’d made a monumental mistake in letting me stay here. Maybe, if enough days passed, I’d stop making stupid proclamations each time I saw him. We could become friendly acquaintances.
Life would go on as it had before. I’d kick arse at work and make peace with having one friend. I’d gotten through three months of Aster being hundreds of miles away so I could adjust to a friendship conducted across an island and up some mountains.
If I was lucky, I wouldn’t speak to anyone in a friendly capacity without my best friend present ever again. I clearly couldn’t be trusted to hold a conversation on my own.
CHAPTER SIX
KIT
Anote waited on top of my completed puzzle when I walked downstairs the next morning.
Kit,
Thank you for the pasta yesterday. It waslovelygreattasty. I’m eating at Aster and Callum’s this evening, and I’ll be back late.
Lucasx
The night before, Lucas disappeared into his room before I could extract myself from my blanket and slip my feet from under Kat without incurring vengeance. He’d forgotten cutlery in his haste to escape my presence. I grabbed a fork and I went upstairs fully intending to knock on his door and force him to talk to me.
I’d raised my hand to knock, but froze. An acrid mix of shame and salty sadness snuck through the narrow gaps between the door and its frame. Lucas’s heart beat right on the other side. For long minutes, neither of us moved. And his scent didn’t change.
I’d slunk back downstairs. I had to respect that Lucas didn’t want to be in the same room as me. Judging by his scent, he was embarrassed by what he’d said when he arrived home.
Kat had consented to snuggling in my arms as I sunk onto the sofa. I had no idea how to convey to Lucas that Ilikedeverything he’d said. He wasn’t like everyone else, who either fixated overly on my looks or ignored me in favour of their significant other.
Everything Lucas had said about me had been kind and insightful. He’d picked out parts of me that no one else seemed to notice.
He was right; I had been cosy. I’d purposefully designed a welcome home that I thought would put him at ease. I couldn’t have predicted that it would backfire so spectacularly.
Kat had allowed cuddling, but she drew the line when my tears wet her fluffy fur. She pushed away with her paws on my forehead and claimed my abandoned blanket for herself.
I’d tried to cheer myself up. It was difficult when someone I wanted to know better was literally hiding from me.
I couldn’t decide if it was a good or a bad thing that Lucas had scarpered this morning. Maybe some time for his embarrassment to fade would make him more receptive to my attempts at friendship.
I texted Louisa that I had too much on to walk to work with her. She accepted my excuse, like I accepted hers on the days she didn’t fancy exposing her carefully styled hair to the inclement Scottish weather.
Her easy acceptance compounded the sadness winding through me as I jumped downstairs. I winced when my ankle twisted. I was friends with everyone in the pack, had inserted into a ready-made family when I accepted the bite, but none of them had chosen me as their person.
It didn’t make sense to miss something I’d never had but the hope of being someone Lucas might think of first, at least whileAster was in the mountains and before he found a girlfriend, had apparently bloomed larger than I’d realised.
Hamish didn’t have a shift today. I spent my time working through tasks I usually put off. I made sure the paperwork was in order, did an inventory of the assorted reading-adjacent items like chocolate and tote bags, and flicked through the heavy catalogues sent over by publishers desperate for their books to take a space on my shelves.
I lost myself in efficiency, doing my best to be friendly to customers. I was relieved that most of them wanted selfies with Hamish’s dragon rather than recommendations from me. I closed up the shop late in the afternoon, but couldn’t face returning to the empty space above straight away. I walked across the road, over to the seawall, and sat on the high ledge. Waves crashed into the strong concrete below.
I only realised I was moping when Joshua sat down beside me and the scent of sadness didn’t change but deepened. He nudged my shoulder and the effort of holding myself back from slumping into his side was monumental. I busied myself with checking my scarf, a navy one to complement my grey jumper, was wound securely around my neck.
‘What’s got you down?’ Joshua asked.
‘Things aren’t working out with Lucas the way I’d hoped they would.’ It was easier to admit it to Joshua, rather than anyone else in the pack. He wouldn’t make fun of me like Louisa or Bonnie. ‘I thought we would be friends, but he keeps getting embarrassed and running away.’
