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“And we’re mighty glad to have you,” Lachlan says with a smile. “We don’t see much of our Fraser these days,” he adds to me. “He’s too busy down in London, keeping those corporate fat cats honest.”
“I was here last month,” Fraser rolls his eyes, but it’s good-natured. “You make it sound like I went to sea.”
“So, JJ, are you working on this movie with Fraser?” Eddie’s wife, Juno, speaks up. She’s in her early twenties, a full-on hippie in dungarees and trailing headscarf, with the toddler, Archilles, balanced on her knee merrily smearing carrots all over his face. “It sounds exciting. Is that how the two of you met?”
The others exchange another loaded look. Clearly, Juno’s the only one who doesn’t know about our fraught history.
“We met in college, actually,” I reply brightly. “While I was in London on a semester abroad. Can someone pass the peas?”
Kittie hands the dish over. “Remind me to dig out the photos of Fraser from Year Ten,” she says, thankfully changing the subject. “He went through a whole goth phase, you have to see it.”
“Really?” I gasp, delighted.
Fraser groans. “Don’t you dare,” he scowls at Kittie but she just grins.
“He looked a right numpty, too, scowling around all in black. You could hear him coming, too, with that massive wallet chain clanging.”
“And that studded collar,” Kyle hoots. “I think he bought it at the pet shop.”
“This I have to see!” I laugh in glee.
“Oh, and then there was the time he was trying to impress—what was her name?” Eddie pitches in. “Clara something…”
“Clara O’Hara!” the others chorus.
“That’s the one! Well, she had a thing for that Leo DiCaprio,” Eddie explains. “So our Fraser went and bleached his hair.”
“No,” I gasp.
“Yup. Except, he did it at home over the kitchen sink, and his whole head turned orange. Glowed like a pumpkin for months, and she went out with Kevin Kittredge instead.”
Fraser glowers at them all. “That’s enough,” he warns, but they merrily ignore him, and spend the rest of dinner regaling me with embarrassing stories. I laugh along, charmed. There’s an easy, good-natured vibe to their bickering, and Fraser shoots back with some humiliating anecdotes of his own, giving his siblings as good as he gets.
Still, I can’t help noticing the differences between him and the others, how he sits back, more reserved, apart from the chaos that banters around him. Kittie chatters nonstop about her hair styling career, and the vintage clothes she updates; Kyle pitches in, with his tales of the gay clubbing scene in Edinburgh, and his latest boyfriend, and his sideline in metalwork sculptures. Eddie and Juno are full of wild stories, too: They live in a caravan, and are raising their kids off the grid, picking up shifts at an organic farm nearby. Even Lachlan goes off on esoteric ramblings about his next book, and the minutiae of algae.
They’re all creative, pursuing their passions, and having fun along the way. Only Fraser has followed a traditional path in life, working a 9-5 in his designer suits and corporate office. The adult in the room.
I’m studying him across the table, wondering how things turned such a 180 for him, when he looks up, catching my eye.
Something pulses, electric in the air between us, so loaded that I have to look away.
Was I thinking a cozy B&B would be the dangerous way to spend another night together? Turns out, this is far more ruinous to my resolve.
We finish up dinner. Eddie disappears to put Achilles to bed, and I start helping the others clear. “You’re on wash duty, son,” Lachlan says, tossing a tea towel at Fraser. He catches it one hand, despite his niece hanging off the front of him.
“You hear that?” Fraser asks Flora. “Time to dunk you in the sink.”
“No!” she play-screams, delighted.
“You heard Granddad!” he says. “Wash duty. Time to scrub this little grub.”
I reach to clear some plates, but Lachlan shoos me away. “Not you, lass. Guests don’t clean around here.”
“I’ll take her over to the cottage,” Kittie volunteers. Fraser looks like he wants to argue, but Flora is already scrambling into his arms.
“Wa’th Fazer,” she beams, and dammit, he beams right back at her. It’s enough to make my ovaries jolt awake.
“I’m really wiped,” I blurt, before the sight of Fraser with a kid in his arms can do any more damage to my hormones. “Where are we sleeping, again? I mean,me.” I correct myself quickly. “Where am I sleeping? In a room of my own. Alone.”
