I rest my hands against the tiled wall and close my eyes. This is ridiculous. She has a life. A child. A man. I left this town deliberately. I do not get to walk back in and start entertaining thoughts that should have stayed buried. And yet my body is not interested in logic.
I exhale slowly and shake my head, turning the water hotter, trying to focus on something physical and uncomplicated instead of the fact that my thoughts keep circling back to her.
I can handle this. I have handled far more complicated things than a childhood crush resurfacing.
Downstairs, I grab a coffee and pull up the property listings on my laptop. Three viewings today: A cottage on the outskirts, a new build near the bypass, a semi-detached closer to town with a decent garden and carpets that look like they survived the nineties. We can’t stay here forever. As much as my parents pretend they don’t mind, I need somewhere that is ours. Somewhere Isla can settle without feeling like she is living in someone else’s life.
I close the property listing tab and lean back in the chair, rubbing a hand over my jaw. I thought coming back here would remove the stress and drama from my life but seeing Freya again has caused a truck load of anxiety to creep back in. This town is small. OfcourseI was going to see her. That doesn’t mean it has to mean anything. I have houses to view. Contracts to consider. A daughter who needs stability more than she needs me revisiting old distractions. Whatever this pull is, it will settle. It has to.
CHAPTER SIX
Freya
Four days. That is how long it will be before I see Theo again. It’s James’ turn.
I kneel to brush his hair back from his forehead, even though it never stays where I put it, and there it is, that familiar tug at my heart. Not sadness exactly. Something heavier. It’s like a hollow ache that settles deep in my bones and makes itself at home for the entire time that he’s gone. Four days is all it takes for the silence to start circling.
“Bye, Mum!” he calls, already halfway turned toward his friends. I smile too brightly and wave like everything is perfectly fine. He disappears through the doors, swallowed up by noise and movement and the rest of his little life, and just like that the colour drains from the morning.
I end up sitting on the curb outside the gates, coffee cupped between my hands, grounding me as I lose myself in thought. I hold it tighter than necessary, as if warmth could stand in for the weight of Theo leaning into me. He is my rhythm. My internal clock. Without him, everything feels slightly off-beat.
“What’s up, sunshine?”
I don’t need to turn around. Clara lowers herself beside me with a theatrical sigh. “You’ll get piles sitting on a cold curb like that,” she says. “That’s what my mum always told me anyway. Although I’m fairly sure mine came from squeezing two entire humans out of my vagina.”
She says it far too loudly. I snort into my coffee and nearly choke. “Thank you, Clara. Exactly the imagery I needed at nine in the morning.”
She beams, knees knocking against mine. Clara has never eased into anything gently. She prefers to arrive loudly and make herself comfortable.
“So,” she nudges, “what’s actually wrong?”
“It’s James’ turn,” I say, staring into my cup. “I always feel a bit… lost at the start. Like someone’s picked up my routine and shaken it out without warning.”
She hums in sympathy for approximately three seconds before brightening. “Well. I am gloriously child-free this morning and deeply bored. If you fancy some mischief?”
I narrow my eyes. “Define mischief.”
“Excessive coffee,” she replies immediately, “and gawking shamelessly at the hot rugby player who’s just moved back to town.”
Heat rises to my face before I can stop it.
“Oh,” I say, far too quickly. “Is there a hot rugby player?”
Clara’s grin widens. I focus very intently on my coffee.
We met at baby group, back when Theo and Ollie were tiny and I was barely keeping my head above water. I had walked in desperate for connection, desperate for someone to tell me I was not the only woman who had been left holding everything. Clara clocked me within minutes. Claimed me. Decided I was hers. She has not loosened her grip since and I am not complaining one single bit.
Clara only moved to Oakwood after she met Mark. She never knew the version of this town that held Rory and me like a shared secret. She doesn’t know that I don’t just recognise that rugby player and that he once felt like everything.
“Come on,” she says, bouncing to her feet. “Let’s go and annoy Mark. I need one of Rose’s croissants before I commit an act of violence.”
We wander down the meandering streets toward the café, and thankfully she leaves the rugby player alone for now. Instead, she fills me in on Eleanor’s divorce. Apparently, her husband cheated with a supermodel. Oakwood may be small, but the drama reaches impressive heights.
Rose’s Café smells exactly as it always has, buttery and warm and faintly sweet with almonds. I knew Rose before she passed. She had that rare ability to make you feel important without trying too hard. The café still carries her imprint. Old mouldings. Soft colours. Mismatched chairs that should not work but do. It feels like stepping into something safe.
Until you spot certain local celebrity rugby players near the till and suddenly the feeling of safety is gone.
He’s standing there all tall and easy and entirely too at home in the middle of a small cluster of people. He is laughing at something someone says, head tipped back slightly. My stomach knots and I can’t tell if it’s nerves, fear or butterflies.
