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“Me and Finn will follow. Kristen’s right—go and get warmed up.”

They all head inside to get out of their skates, Kristen insisting Susan walk very slowly, just as Finn reappears with a tray of hot drinks from the on-site café. He raises his eyebrows at the lack of people. “Way to clear a crowd.”

“They’re taking your mum home,” she explains. “She’s fine,” she adds quickly.

“Course she is. She’s tough.”

He moves to sit on the bench next to Mel, handing her a cup of tea and putting the tray with the other drinks on the floor next to their feet. “Good thing I ordered all of these, then. Now we’ll have to drink up just the two of us.”

“I think, even for me, six cups of tea back to back might be too much.”

“Ah, well.”

His phone buzzes and he reaches into his coat pocket to retrieve it. The screen is alight with someone calling, but Mel looks deliberately away. It is not her business, she tells herself firmly. They are broken up. They are faking it, for his family.

“Mel?”

“Hmmm?”

“You’re not listening, are you?” His hand is empty—no phone in sight.

“Sorry. What did you say?”

His gaze flicks over her face, considering. “Is everything okay?”

“Of course.”

He shakes his head. “Not buying it. I know you, remember.”

She wrinkles her nose. If he knows her so well, he wouldn’t have broken up with her, thinking it was for the good of them both, would he?

“Come on.” He nudges her lightly in the ribs with his elbow. “Tell me. Is it work?”

“No.” Although, come to think of it, shouldn’t she be due an email from Lillian soon? Maybe the agent will wait until the new year to give her their verdict.

“Well, then what?”

She hesitates briefly. She could just brush him off, tell him it’s not his job to care about what’s wrong with her anymore. Instead, she jerks her head toward his now-empty hand. “Who was that?”

His turn to hesitate—long enough that she has to bite her tongue to stop speculating out loud. “It was my dad, actually.”

“Your dad?” She stares at him. “Seriously?”

He raises his eyebrows. “Yes. Seriously.”

“Your dad,” she repeats again. “Just your dad?”

“Yes,” he says, his voice on the edge of a laugh. “My dad. Why, Mel, who did you think it was?”

She feels a lightness travel up to her chest. His dad. Not another girl. She wants to laugh with the relief of it—that he hadn’t been kissing her last night, then texting someone else. That he hasn’t been here, pretending to still be attracted to her, to care about her, while there is another woman waiting for him.

“But why are you being so secretive about it if it’s just your dad?”

He sighs. “Hattie…She still hasn’t spoken to him. Still hasn’t told him about the wedding. She wouldn’t like it if I was speaking to him while we’re all on holiday together. And also because…” He hesitates. “Well. I haven’t been speaking to him over the last few months either, in all honesty, so it feels weird to own up to it now.”

She cocks her head. It’s not as if he spoke to Andrew all that much anyway, but the way he said it makes it sound as if it’s a deliberate decision. “How come?”

He shrugs. “Partly because I didn’t want to speak to anyone. I didn’t even speak to Hattie that much after we broke up. I was working a lot, I guess, but it felt easier to, I don’t know, be alone?” He says it like a question and she finds herself nodding—because she knows exactly what he means. “But also…I guess I didn’t want to see the look on his face, you know. Or the tone in his voice, whatever. The kind of ‘I told you so’ look. The ‘oh, well, we all knew you were like me, really—it was only a matter of time’ look.” At his sides, his fingers flex into a fist, then relax again as he breathes out.