My eyes lock with Mum’s and I’m sure she can see the panic in mine, the worry that everything will implode the second we step foot in the inn.
“We could go to Wild Peets. It was always my favorite when we’d come up here,” she says, and I relax a little. That is a great idea. We could go into town, which would have the added benefit of giving Mum a little more time before she has to confront her own past. Seeing as she and Dad haven’t been here since the summer when Iwas seventeen. They didn’t even come last year when I made the trip with Lennox to settle Grannie and Papa’s estate.
“But if we go to the T&T, you can show me your kitchen.” He gives me a look—eyebrow raised and head cocked—that says there’s no better option than that.
Mum’s expression is stoic, and with a shrug, our fate is sealed. I guess we’re going to the inn.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Jamie – Now
Avi’s avoidance of me has made it pretty clear how she feels about our kiss. We haven’t so much as spoken a word to each other outside of passing pleasantries when other people are around. So, to keep myself from dwelling on it—because Ireallywant to dwell in that moment—I’ve been channeling everything into writingWith Love, From Skye.
It’s been months since I felt this at ease in my writing, words pouring out of me to move this idea from a jumbled mess into something cohesive. Something people might want to read.
Over the soothing sounds emanating from my headphones, a commotion of voices coming from just down the hall has me pushing my laptop aside, drawing me out of my writing cave.
I hear Avi’s voice as soon as I pull the door open, mingling with Gran’s and Grandad’s, along with several others.
I could’ve sworn Avi was going down to Glasgow this weekend.
I slide my hands into my pants pockets as I walk down the hall, but the sound of a bellowing laugh from Avi stops me in my tracks.
I haven’t heard her laugh like that in—well, years.
She hasn’t seen me yet, so I get the chance to watch her for a moment. The smile across her face presses her full cheeks up and the skin around her eyes crinkles. God, she’s gorgeous—stop-my-heart gorgeous.
When I sling my arm around Gran’s shoulders, she startles but then looks up at me with her shimmering green eyes. The smile she gives me rivals the one on Avi’s face. I don’t think I’ve seen that smile since coming back either. She covers it well, but Grandad’s health weighs on her—a constant worry, a niggling fear. But this is the lighthearted woman I remember from my youth.
I pull my gaze away and take in the people around me, noting that the entire group has fallen silent. Like, eerily silent. My gaze lands first on Callum and Fiona, Avi’s parents—who I haven’t seen since I was seventeen—and then on the boy by Avi’s side.
The one I can’t look away from.
He’s tall for a ten-year-old, almost reaching her shoulder, and he looks so much like her with the same blond hair she had at that age, the same nose and chin, and matching freckles too. The most notable difference is their eyes. Lennox’s are a vivid green, but before I can wonder what the chances are that the man from the pub had green eyes like mine, I notice a blooming bruise around his left one.
What on earth happened there?
“Hello, Jamie,” Avi’s mum says, breaking the weird tension that was holding us all in stasis for a moment. She closes the distance between us and wraps me in a warm hug I didn’t expect.
“Mrs. Stewart, it’s wonderful to see you,” I say.
She scoffs. “Goodness, call me Fiona. You’re not a boy anymore.” She steps back, hands on my shoulders, and looks me over. “Nope, you’re most certainly a grown man.”
“Mum!” Avi chastises her, and over Fiona’s head, I watch her roll her eyes in exasperation. I don’t hide my smile.
“What?” Fiona asks defiantly with a pointed look at her daughter.
Her dad is next to step forward, extending his hand toward me. “To keep things simple, why don’t you just call me Callum as well.”
Am I imagining it or is he squeezing my hand a little too hard for a standardlong time no seesort of handshake?
“Thank you, sir. It’s good to see you as well,” I say. I don’t remember him being quite so intimidating when I was a teenager.
“Jamie,” Avi says, drawing my gaze and all of my attention, “this is Lennox. Lennox, this is Jamie. He’s an old friend of mine.”
Her voice is even, but there’s uncertainty beneath it, like an invisible tremor. Something you’d only be aware of if you could actually feel it, and somehow I think I can.
“Hi,” Lennox says with a small smile, a smile that’s familiar but not. I can’t put my finger on it, but it’s not Avi’s smile… Yet I feel like I know it.
