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‘Plus, at least your lasagne was kick-ass,’ Alfie added.
His stupid little comment broke through my pain. I laughed. A deranged laugh that was half hysteria. But it was a start.
Before long, we were all cackling like a pack of hyenas, tears streaming down our faces.
FORTY
ALFIE
Stars glittered high in the sky as I sat on the back step. Not as brightly as they did back at Rosenhall, but few places were quite as secluded as the Highlands.
I stared at my phone.
It seemed to belong to someone else, a stranger who was no longer me. Harriet had given it back to me when we’d returned to the bunker after getting the files, and I must have spent hours staring at the bloody thing. Turning it on meant stepping out of this mad new world and trying to combine it with my old one. After being gone for nearly three months.
But I needed my friends’ help.
Nerves rattling around my chest, I pressed the power button. Harriet had kept it charged but in airplane mode, and switched off, and it came back to life with a cheery glow. It felt almost alien in my hands, such a huge part of my life, and yet, I’d not missed the thing at all.
Biting my lip, I closed my eyes.
I knew I could return to the bunker and remain hidden, cosied up in my little love bubble. Grieves would understand. But I wanted my friends too. I needed them. I was done with severing connections and keeping myself apart. Never again.
I clicked the little plane symbol and waited.
Then they poured in.
Notification after notification lit up the screen like it was Hogmanay outside Edinburgh Castle. With it came a level of friendship and love I’d never known had existed for me. From concern to jokes to downright annoyance, people cared. There was even a picture of Ewen and Cora on a mountainside, holding champagne. She looked beautiful in her wedding dress, and he was dashing in his kilt. I’d missed so much. It filled me with joy that even without a word from me, they’d kept reaching out. They hadn’t forgotten me.
I pulled up Ewen’s name in my contacts and hit dial.
The ringtone went on and on. About ready to give up, Ewen answered breathlessly.
‘Alfie?’ he said, hesitation in his voice.
‘Did I just interrupt a fuckfest?’ I asked, grinning.
‘Holy fuck, ALFIE!’ Ewen practically screamed down the line. ‘Where the fuck have you been?’
Joy welled in my throat at the sound of his voice.
‘It’s a long story, I need some help.’
‘Name it,’ Ewen said without even pausing for thought.
‘Uh, I need one hell of a clean-up crew. Down in the Borders. I’ll send you the address.’
‘Are we talking sex party clean-up, or dead people?’
Glancing over my shoulder at the cottage, I gave a sigh. ‘Definitely the latter.’
‘Good fucking Lord,’ Ewen said, staring at the scene of absolute destruction in the dining room.
Mac pulled me into a hug, slapping me on the back. ‘Missed you. I’m going to need a full run down.’
When he walked past me into the room, he gave a low whistle. ‘Holy shit. You did this?’
‘Not exactly.’
