Tristan had said he would be taking Holly into the village to show her around, so maybe he could bring the boys home. It probably wasn’t ideal if he was trying to impress Holly, but a good review for the campsite was still right at the bottom of her list of priorities, so she decided to text him anyway.
Bex
Sorry Triss, can I ask a big favour? I need to speak to Rowan about the situation with Mum and she wants me to meet her at the hospital. I won’t get back in time to meet the boys from school. Is there any chance you could grab them for me please? Matt will be home from the accountants by four at the latest xx
She’d barely had time to set her phone down on the table again before a reply came through.
Tristan
Of course I can. You know I aways welcome the opportunity to work on winning my uncle of the year award by taking those two for ice cream! Xx
He wasn’t technically the boys’ uncle, but they’d always called him Uncle Triss, and he couldn’t have been a better one even if he had been Matt’s brother. Bex was grateful her sons had him in their lives, otherwise they’d have had no aunts or uncles on either side, with Matt being an only child and her being… well, she might as well have been an only child too.
Bex
Thank you so much, you’re a star and they’ll love that xx
Having sent the response to Tristan, she texted Rowan back to let her know she’d meet her at one of the tables outside theFriends of St Piran’s Hospital Shop, where they could catch up for a coffee and news about the baby. Maybe Rowan might even be able to come up with a new idea for contacting Briony that Bex hadn’t thought of yet. In fact, she was counting on it.
‘Oh my God, these pasties are every bit as good as you said they’d be.’ Holly had been certain that she wouldn’t be able to eat the whole pasty, which had been as huge as it was delicious, but once she’d started, she didn’t seem able to stop.
‘Mehenick’s pasties are the one guarantee I’ve got not to disappoint when I promise to show a girl a good time.’ Tristan laughed, the gentle flirting still evident in his tone, but it was probably just the way he was. He’d paused while they’d been eating to reply to texts from someone who he clearly didn’t want to make wait, so she’d have been very surprised if there wasn’t someone on the scene. Although what he said next made her wonder if he could read minds. ‘Sorry about all the texting by the way.’
‘It’s no problem at all.’ Holly was desperate to ask what was so urgent, but she didn’t want him to know quite how interested she was. Instead, she left enough space in the conversation hoping he’d elaborate.
‘I hate it when people are texting while they’re with someone else, especially when they’re eating together.’
‘Honestly, don’t worry. It’s not like we were having a formal sit-down meal, and in my job I probably look at my phone far more often than you’d consider polite.’
‘Ah but work is different. I’m talking about people doomscrolling instead of actually having a conversation, and I like talking to you, so it definitely wasn’t anything to do with notenjoying your company.’ She still couldn’t tell if he was flirting or just being nice. ‘A bit of a family emergency has come up, that’s all, and I’m going to have to pop up to the primary school to pick up my nephews.’
‘Your nephews?’ She knew Tristan ran the farm with his cousin, but he hadn’t mentioned having any siblings, but then again why would he. It wasn’t like she ever mentioned her sibling. Not to anyone. She didn’t talk about family online at all; as far as her followers were concerned Merlin was the only family she had. It was easier that way and a lot of people found van life appealing because they were looking to escape from something. Whether that was a financial burden, the treadmill of working just to live, or the breakdown of a relationship. Taking on the kind of nomadic lifestyle she’d become known for was an alternative to the norm, and so was not having the kind of family relationships most people took for granted.
‘Yes, Ollie and Tom.’ Tristan beamed at the mention of their names and Holly’s stomach tightened in recognition. The chances of anyone else having boys with the same names as her sister’s children in a place the size of this was almost impossible. Especially given how close the links between Tristan and her sister’s family were. She’d been glad that her parents hadn’t been able to stop themselves from mentioning the boys and had seized on those snippets of information like they were diamonds in the dirt. It meant Holly knew the boys were the children of his cousin, not his sibling, but she couldn’t tell him that, otherwise he’d want to know how she knew so much about them and then everything would be out in the open. ‘They’re brilliant, you’re going to love them and they’ll definitely love you. I might even get some cool uncle points when they hear how many followers you’ve got.’
‘Oh no, I couldn’t gatecrash your time with your nephews.’Even as she said it, knowing that she should get as far away from Tristan as she could, before he went to meet the boys, the urge to see them up close was already winning the war. Ollie and Tom might not really be Tristan’s nephews, but they were hers. If they knew they had an auntie at all, they’d have been told her name was Briony. But whatever name they knew her by, she doubted very much they’d been told anything positive about her. Meeting the boys was a ridiculous idea, yet it was what she wanted more than anything else in the world.
‘Of course you can. We can take them for ice cream at Molina’s and they’ll definitely have recommendations about the best flavours, because they’ve tried them all.’ Tristan’s smiled broadened every time he spoke about the boys, and that just made her like him more. ‘We might even be able to persuade their older brother, Henry, to meet us after he gets off the bus back from secondary school.’
‘Are you sure they won’t think it’s weird, me tagging along?’ Holly shouldn’t be doing this. Her heart was thudding in her ears at the thought of finally meeting her sister’s children and all the drama that could end up unleashing, but she just couldn’t turn down the opportunity she might never get again.
‘Of course not. It’ll be far more fun than just hanging out with boring old Uncle Triss.’
‘I doubt you could ever be boring.’ Once again, the words were out of Holly’s mouth before she could stop them. She seemed to be incapable of preventing herself from doing and saying things she shouldn’t, if she wanted to leave Port Agnes without a trace of ever having been back. It would all be okay, as long as Bex didn’t discover the truth. However much she might wish she could stay longer, she knew she had to leave before that became inevitable.
Tom was waiting for Holly’s response to his question, his eyes that were so unnervingly like hers, never leaving her face. She hadn’t been able to remove her sunglasses, even when they’d been inside the ice cream shop, because if Tristan had looked at her and Tom, sat side by side, it would have been a dead giveaway. They both had the same shape and colour of eyes as Bex did, it was the one thing that had marked the two of them out as sisters, when they were so different in many other ways. They probably looked more alike now that she had dyed her hair a darker shade, similar to Bex’s, but it was the eyes that could risk revealing everything. Tom had the same sort of effervescent personality as Holly had shared at his age, when she’d oozed confidence and had been certain that one day she’d win an Oscar, or at the very least have her own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The world had been filled with endless possibilities back then and she’d been enthusiastic about almost everything, just like Tom seemed to be. Although right now his passions were all pretty much focused on her verdict about the ice cream he’d recommended to her.
‘You were absolutely right, Tom. Pecan and salted caramel ice cream is the very best thing ever to have been invented.’ She returned his delighted grin, wishing she could push her sunglasses off her face and look him in the eyes, as they stood outside the ice cream shop. She wanted this moment to be as memorable for the boys as it was for her, but it never could be. She was just their Uncle Triss’s friend, not even that really, tagging along for an ice cream after school on an ordinary Tuesday afternoon. They’d never know that she was their aunt and that she’d dreamt of this moment for years; the aching void she felt about missing out on so much of their lives both heightened and relieved by finally getting to meet them. She wanted towrap her arms around them both and tell them that, even though she didn’t know them, she loved them, and that she had done from the moment she knew they existed. But she couldn’t do any of those things.
‘I knew you’d love it. Ollie always tries to make out that rum and raisin is the best, but that’s just because he thinks it’s actually got alcohol in it, what a chicken nugget!’ Tom roared with laughter, earning him an elbow in the ribs from his older brother.
‘I like mango and passionfruit best, fart face!’
‘Hey, hey, there’s no need for insults, boys.’ Tristan looked as if he was having to suppress a smile despite his intervention in the boys’ heated debate, and so was she. She remembered this kind of sibling rivalry, where the lines between love and hate were so blurred it was almost impossible to differentiate, and things could move between the two in an instant. As she and Bex had got older, the love aspect had grown far stronger and the flashes of conflict of their childhood seemed to be over. In truth, there’d never been that many issues and they’d never lasted long, because they’d both looked out for one another, and Bex had been like a second mum whenever Briony had needed one. But then Liam had come into her sister’s life, and she’d known from the outset that it was going to cause trouble, except it had turned out to be far more catastrophic than she’d ever imagined. She didn’t want to think about any of that right now though. She just wanted to soak up these moments with her nephews, even if they’d never know the relationship they shared.
‘I think mango and passionfruit sounds amazing too. So I might need to try that one next time. Or maybe I’ll even go back and get some later.’
‘Two ice creams in one day? That would be so good!’ Tom was looking at her with newfound admiration.
