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Handing him my whisky glass I run for my room, ignoring the looks from Bri and Ember as I go. I kick my boots off just inside the door, yanking my trainers on before I'm already moving again, back the way I came. Bri's watching me, worry written all over her face, so I call over my shoulder without slowing down, "Just going for a run, back soon."

She smiles, but it doesn't quite reach her eyes.

I catch Saint's arm for half a second on my way past, murmur good luck, and then I'm out the door, Lennie falling into step beside me, and a million questions burning behind my eyes.

We run until the hill flattens into the clearing where Enzo's cottage sits, and it's there we finally stop. Running in jeans isn't exactly comfortable, but it's done its job—my head feels clearer than it has all night. Lennie leans against the low wall, and after a moment, I join him.

“It wasn’t her fault,” he says eventually. I look across, tears are already running down his face, silent and steady. “James conned her.”

The words barely make sense. “James?”

“My oldest friend.” He laughs bitterly. “Or so I thought.”

“What happened?”

“When I saw the money was gone...” His voice breaks. “I thought the cancer had come back.” He presses the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I thought she was hiding it from me. Planning her own funeral while I was away.”

I pull him into a hug and just hold on, letting him have the silence he needs.

When he finally pulls back, he drags his palms across his face like he's trying to scrub the pain away. “Turns out that bastard went to her with a ‘get rich quick’ scheme." His jaw tightens. "He knew Luna felt guilty that I had given up work to care for her and that we’d burned through most of our savings, even though I told her she was being ridiculous. It’s what you do when you love someone, when they’re your whole world.”

"And he used that against her." Something hot and furious sits low in my chest. "Where is he now?"

“I don’t know, son. He made up some story a few months back about going to see his mum in Aberdeen. When Elijah told me what he'd done, I called her, she hasn’t seen him in months.”

"If anyone can find him, it's Elijah," I say. "He has contacts. We'll make sure the law catches up with him, one way or another."

He laughs then. A proper laugh, the sound so sudden I almost jump. “Thanks son. I understand if you no longer want to go ahead with the expansion project…”

“Are you kidding? Sara would kill me if I pulled out now, she loves the idea and Elijah has assured me we can definitely makes this work, if you still want to?”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously,” I say.

His smile is infectious, and we hug again, the kind that says more than either of us has words for right now. When we finally pull back, something in me hesitates—because as good as this moment feels, I can't let him walk back into that lodge not knowing the rest of it.

“Shall we head back, toast to our new adventure?” he asks.

"Actually, there's something you should know before we go back," I tell him, leaning against the wall. I take a breath, because there's no good way to say this. "Aaron is dead."

His face drains of colour. "What?"

"He was already dead, it's… Complicated."

I tell him everything—the crash, Craig, the year of Saint and me carrying it alone, in our own ways—he just listens, silent, until there's nothing left to say. When I finally run out of words, he pulls me into a bear hug, and I let myself cry softly against his shoulder.

Eventually, he lets me go, gives my shoulder one last squeeze, and nods toward the path. Neither of us says anything as we walk, and I'm grateful for it—grateful he doesn't need me to be anything other than exactly this wrung out.

We're most of the way back to the lodge when he looks across at me. "So, that's why you stopped drinking and partying, huh?"

“It messed me up. I kept thinking if I hadn’t gotten so drunk then Craig wouldn’t have had to drive me back to the hotel. We wouldn’t have been on the road that night. I blamed myself for a long time,” I admit.

“There’s no point living in the land of what if, son.” He keeps his eyes on the path ahead. “The army taught me that. When you spend your life rewriting the past, you can’t see the future trying to find you.” I don’t answer. “It sounds to me like that accident would’ve happened whether you were there or not.”

“Saint said the same thing.”

Lennie smiles. “Then perhaps it’s time you started believing him.” We walk a little further in silence. “Funny thing about the universe,” he says eventually. “It has a habit of putting the right people in your path at exactly the moment you’re ready to meet them.” He looks at me. “You and Saint spent a year carrying guilt that never belonged to either of you.” My throat tightens. “Now you’ve given each other permission to put it down. I reckon Aaron would love that.”