Five missed calls. Twenty unread texts.
Most from Rob.
She opened the message thread, dreading what awaited her.
1.12 p.m.
Pip, I get it. You panicked. Everyone does. Come back and we’ll figure this out.
2.00 p.m.
Still at the church. Please come back. Hope you’re okay. I’m trying to understand how this went so wrong?
2.30 p.m.
We’ve spent two years planning this wedding. You don’t just walk away from that.
4.00 p.m.
Unless you’re insane. Are you actually insane?
6.00 p.m.
You’re a loon, Pippa. A nutter. Your obsession with clocks isn’t healthy. You need help.
12.45 a.m.
Forget it. I’m done trying. Enjoy your life with your cuckoo clocks and whatever loser you’re hiding out with.
She stared at the screen for a long moment, then slowly typed and deleted about seventeen versions of ‘screw you’. This wasn’t about anyone else; it was about finally putting herself first– although, granted, it would have been better for everyone if she had come to that decision a little sooner.
After plugging in her phone to charge, she felt an unexpected sense of relief. It came with the realisation that she was officially untethered. No more Rob. No wedding. No life shaped around being someone else’s polite, manageable future wife. It was just her.
And, of course, Theo, for the short term. She could hear him humming to himself in the room across the narrow landing.
Her brain immediately conjured the layout of the cottage– the small distance between them, the creaky floorboard outside the loo– and then she remembered the way he’d handed herthe wine and clothes last night like he hadn’t been the bane of her academic existence for three years straight. She found herself shaking her head as she remembered his words.
‘Don’t turn right.’
As if she would.
She climbed out of bed, the T-shirt hanging loosely on her frame to mid-thigh, the faded university crest stretched across her chest. She padded over to the window and looked out. Water was running down the lanes in fast streams, and judging by the blackness of the sky it wasn’t going to stop anytime soon.
The rain was loud, but beneath it she could still hear the pocket watch ticking away.
She heard the soft click of a door and caught the tail end of Theo’s humming as it drifted away down the stairs before fading altogether. She pulled on the lounge pants he’d lent her, which were far too long, and cinched them at the waist with the faded drawstring. And there it was again: his scent. A mix of washing powder and Theo. She frowned and gave herself a small shake. It was nothing, she told herself, just mildly distracting.
She rolled up the hems, then padded downstairs towards the kitchen, her bare feet cold against the polished wooden floor. Theo, the man she loved to hate, was standing in front of the hob singing along to his phone while doing a little shimmy. The second she saw him she felt agitated. He shouldn’t be here. It should be another clock-loving freak that she could bond with over their shared interest. Instead, this felt like a ticking time bomb.
He was wearing a shirt and trousers, and much to her own annoyance, she admired him for a second– the shirt stretched along his back highlighting his broad shoulders, which she found sexy in any man. As he turned around, she walked straight up to him and straightened his tie. Theo was thrown for a moment as he would have been expecting some sarcastic quip, but she liked to keep Theo Blake on his toes, because this was the man who had once made her feel small. She refused, absolutely refused, to ever let him think he was more academic, more capable, or more untouchable than she was.
He looked exactly the same as the first time she’d seen him, standing just inside the college courtyard by the porter’s lodge, surrounded by suitcases and nervous parents dropping their kids at university for the first time. Her own nerves had been jangling like loose clock springs, the air buzzing with voices and expectation. She’d noticed him immediately. Sharp cheekbones. Dark, wildly curly hair. Hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans, as if he wasn’t entirely sure what to do with them. Pippa soon looked for him in every room she was in. He’d been quiet at first, almost shy, but when someone asked him a question about clocks, he didn’t try to be impressive. He just was.
She’d fancied him. Absolutely, she had. And there’d been a thrill the first time his eyes had caught hers across the lecture hall, a moment that made her heart give a little skip. She hadn’t been brave enough to admit her feelings back then, and thank God she hadn’t, because Theo Blake might have had it all going for him, but he’d shown his true colours the night he decided she didn’t deserve her place at Cambridge. It had been at a halls dinner party filled with too much cheap wine and too many overconfident first-years, everyone loudly sharing opinions no one had asked for. She hadn’t even been part of the conversation. Sebastian had been, though, and he’d been the one to warn her when he’d noticed her watching Theo a few days later.
‘You don’t want to waste your time on Theo Blake,’ he’d said.
She’d blinked, startled. ‘I wasn’t…’
