Page 10 of Always Be My Pumpkin

‘Maybe next week. We could team up.’ His cheeks crease with a smile as he adds, ‘But only if you promise to wear that cute pumpkin costume. It’s adorable.’

I roll my eyes, and Flynn nods earnestly. ‘I’m serious, you look so cute, I used to rewatch that library Instagram post all the time. The one of you singing “Five Little Pumpkins”.’ He presses his fist to his cheek with a groan. ‘Not all the time. Damn, I sound like a stalker. I only saved it so I could tease you sometime.’

‘Stop digging, you’re already buried.’ I smile, but I feel my face warm at the idea of Flynn watching me, and the fact that he took it for granted we’d meet again sometime.

I have one video of my own that I rewatch now and then, especially when I’m feeling a bit low. The one of Flynn and me singing at Sarah’s seventeenth birthday, the summer before he left and everything changed. Her parents let her have her party at the Corner Bar, as long as we all promised not to drink alcohol. We paid her older brother to buy us a naggin of vodka, and we hid it in Sarah’s bag beneath our table to top up our Cokes. I topped up Flynn’s a bit too generously, and he got tipsy, and I managed to persuade him to join my heartfelt rendition of the theme song from Gilmore Girls.

I’d made him watch the show with me every Sunday the previous autumn, so he knew all the words. But despite holding my hand and staring into my eyes as he sang ‘Where You Lead, I Will Follow’, two months later he was gone. And all I had left was the video Sarah took, of Flynn singing, his voice low and warm, and those gorgeous blue eyes, and the way he looked at me that night that made me wonder if maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t the only one starting to feel differently about our friendship.

Flynn drops the toolbox he’s carrying and turns back to open the gate. ‘Sorry, I forgot to lock the door. I was fixing a loose slat on the porch. Back in a sec.’

I’m fairly sure he told me last night he was staying with Pat, which makes sense seeing as how he’s back to help with the sale of Pat’s property. And I notice there’s no car in the gateway to the side of the cottage where visitors usually park. And if Flynn’s locking the door, that means there’s nobody inside. I wonder.

‘Your parents rent out that cottage, don’t they?’ I ask as he pulls the gate behind him and picks up his toolbox again.

‘Yeah, it was booked solid all summer.’

‘But there’s nobody staying there now?’

‘The last lot just left. I called to pick up the key.’

I’m about to ask if there’s any chance his parents might rent it to me, when Pat’s pickup drives down the lane, and Flynn waves him down. Then I remember that Scott’s office handles the rentals anyway, so there’s no need to ask Flynn and involve him in my latest drama with Jamie.

He leans over and throws his toolbox in the bed of Pat’s truck, and I watch the muscles ripple in his forearm, his shirt stretch across his shoulders. My throat goes dry, my body heats, as he straightens and rubs at the faint golden stubble along his jawline, and too slowly I realise Flynn’s staring at me, studying me, and I blink out of my haze.

‘Catch you later,’ I say lightly, as if I haven’t been caught drooling.

Flynn nods, his eyes fixed on mine. And I have to look away, focus on the murky puddle at our feet. Because his eyes are still that gorgeous cornflower blue, and his face is still as handsome as ever. But I’m still searching for that boy I lost, and this man standing here in front of me feels so familiar, but also out of reach. Like a stranger I’m meeting for the first time, but with this sense that we’ve met before, in another life.

‘That’d be good.’ He gives me an easy smile as he hops into the passenger seat and leans out the window, and Pat waves from behind him. ‘I’m booked up all day today, but if you’re free tomorrow, maybe we could get a coffee, or a walk?’

‘Sure. I’ll text you,’ I say steadily, doing my best impression of a woman who knows what she wants and expects to always get it. Because I need some sense of control over us meeting again. I feel like I’ve been waiting forever for Flynn to come back into my life. And now he’s here, but he keeps disappearing, and deep down, I know I’m already preparing for him to leave me again.

‘I don’t know.’ Scott’s face is tense. ‘Would you not be better off staying here, Gracie?’ He grimaces. ‘Hazel Cottage is expensive.’

Sarah leans her elbows on the kitchen table and scowls across at him. ‘She would be better off staying here, if you hadn’t invited Jamie to take over our spare room.’ She presses her chin into her clenched fists. ‘And you can do her a deal on the rental. It’s off season, and it’s your fault she has to pay rent in the first place.’

Scott dips his head with a muttered, ‘Sorry.’

‘I can’t stay here. You know that.’ I sigh. ‘And you know there’s nothing else going in town. It was pure luck I ran into Flynn and found out his parents’ place is free.’

I’m leaning against their white Shaker cabinets, gripping the chrome handle behind me for support, tapping my foot on their glossy ceramic tiles. Sarah keeps asking me to sit, offering me cups of tea. But I can’t stay still. I’m too agitated with the need to move myself out before Jamie arrives.

‘But Hazel Cottage?’ Scott winces. ‘I don’t know how Jamie will feel about that.’

‘Fuck Jamie,’ Sarah fumes, and I can practically feel the steam coming off her. ‘If he hadn’t spent so much time feeling his assistant, Gracie wouldn’t be homeless right now.’

Scott fiddles with the handle of his coffee mug. ‘Okay, fair point. But I don’t deal with rentals, you know that.’ He gives us both a pleading look. ‘Maeve takes care of those. Gracie can email her on Monday.’

‘You’re the manager, for feck’s sake. You don’t need to wait for Maeve.’ Sarah rolls her eyes. ‘And why isn’t it on the online system anyway, like the rest of your short-term lets?’

‘Because Elaine always loved that cottage,’ I say quietly, as a memory lands of me sitting on the stone wall, watching Flynn help his mother weed the pretty garden at the front. The cottage belonged to Flynn’s grandmother, but it was getting too much for her, and Elaine always took care of it, with Flynn’s help. We were barely thirteen and we’d only known each other a few months. But I was starting to learn how much he loved plants and trees and gardening. And I was discovering how much I loved watching him too.

‘She’d want to be sure anyone who stayed there would take proper care of it.’ I give Scott a steady, determined look as I go on. ‘And I promise I’ll do that. I’m so sorry to put you in this position, I know it’s not fair of me to ask—’

‘Gracie.’ Sarah glares over at her fiancé. ‘Scott made this mess in the first place by telling Jamie he could stay here. This is the least he can do.’

Scott winces, and I can feel him relenting, then he frowns. ‘But why didn’t you just ask Flynn if you could move in? Didn’t you say he had a key?’