Page 4 of Yours for the Season

“Okay.” He leans against the doorway, shoulders relaxed under his big black winter coat—like he can see how pissed off she is and doesn’t give a flying fuck. God, she hates him. She hates the way he can lean there, so unaffected, whereas her heart is beating as if she’s sprinted for the train. She feels hot and cold at the same time, her nervous system all over the bloody place. This was not supposed to happen. He was not supposed to show up unannounced when she’s tired and has a hole in her tights and is completely unable to control her reactions. If she ever did see him again, she was supposed to be prepared, and looking hot as hell, and she was supposed to have no reaction to him whatsoever. Not this, whatever her body is doing right now.

He is watching her, waiting for her next move. She hates that too—the way he’s always been able to hold his nerve like this. Downstairs, the sound of “Merry Christmas, Everyone” rises up louder—a party, maybe? And, God, she doesn’t want someone to come by, see them—what if someone stops to talk, the way people always seem inclined to do at Christmas?

“Fine,” she says, turning on her heel and leaving Finn at the door. She knows what he’s like—he will just stay there if she doesn’t relent, until he gets his own way.

She heads to the little kitchen area, picks her wine up off the counter. “You look like you could do with a glass,” she says.

He looks a little taken aback. “Ah, that would be great, if you’re offering.”

“I’m not. I finished the bottle.”

His lips twitch, almost a smile, and she turns from him, wine in hand. They’d shared this flat together. She’d brought it thinking it would be for the both of them—a place to call home for a couple of years, a way to get out of the rental they were living in. Then, after a few years, maybe they’d move somewhere else together, maybe out of London. But he’d been in it all of six months—and now she’s aware of how empty it looks, with only her things to fill the shelves. And how un-Christmassy. She put no decorations up at all this year—she hadn’t been able to conjure up the Christmas spirit. If she’d known he was coming, she could have prepared—she’d have had a whole damn spread out, waiting for an imaginary party to arrive.

“How are you, Mel?” His eyes are traveling up the length of her, as if he’s reminding himself what she looks like.

She holds up a hand. “Either explain what you’re here for or get out.” She doesn’t want the small talk, doesn’t want to hear how well he’s doing—or hear him pretend to care about how she is.

He nods, opens his mouth, hesitates, then frowns, a number of different expressions flickering over his face. Then he blows out a breath. And she senses, for the first time, that he is nervous. “Okay, so you know my mum.”

“I remember Susan, yes.” She says it tightly—because there was a time when his family was her family too. Three years. They’d been together three years and then, in the space of one conversation, it was over. She was cut from his life, and the people who had been her people, too, were taken from her, just like that.

“Well, the thing is, she’s booked a cottage in the Highlands for Christmas this year.”

Mel frowns. “Right.” She’s not really sure where he’s going with this.

He clears his throat. “Yeah, so, I may have accidentally told her you and I were back together.”

She feels the wineglass spasm in her hand. “What? Are you serious? Why on earth would you do that?” Although, come to think of it, this explains the missed call she had from Susan a few weeks ago—one she hasn’t returned, because she hasn’t been able to figure out what to say. And because she hadn’t wanted the heartache she knew the call would bring.

Finn rakes a hand through his hair, making it stick up at odd angles, the way it used to after they’d—

No. She’s not thinking of that. She does not want to think of that.

“She was just so upset about the breakup.” He can’t quite look at her as he says it.

“So you thought you’d lie to her?” She almost spits it, and forces herself to take a sip of her wine, hoping it might help calm her.

He grimaces. “It sort of…slipped out. I thought it might cheer her up, and after enough time had passed I could…I don’t know…” He trails off.

Mel arches one eyebrow. Finn used to tell her it was sexy, the way she could do that. “Break up with me again?”

He raises his hands, palms up. “It was stupid, okay? It was a ridiculous thing to do, and I didn’t think it through—”

“Such a shock,” she says acidly.

He ignores the jibe. “But now she thinks we’re together, and she thinks you’ll be coming to the cottage this Christmas because we always used to spend Christmas together.”

And they had—starting when they’d been together less than a year. In their three years together, they’d spent one with his family, one with hers, and one alone. It’s her first Christmas without him this year and she’d been trying very hard to forget that fact. Of course he’d show up and remind her.

“I don’t get what you want from me here. You want me to call her, tell her I can’t make it? Because no way am I doing that.”

“No,” he says slowly. “I was thinking…” His gaze flicks to her, then away again. “Well, I was thinking maybe you could come.”

“Come. Come where?”

“To Scotland. To the cottage. For Christmas.”

She stares at him. This has got to be a joke. But his face is dead serious.