Page 12 of You, As You Are

“I’m starting to thinkNainmade me join the group just to embarrass me.” With a roll of her eyes, Maisie hitched her backpack with a bounce in her step. “She thinks I need to make friends. Not that—Ihavefriends. They’re just not here, obviously …”

Iain didn’t say anything, thankfully.

Moving on from her blabbering, they strolled past a block of public toilets, opening up Maisie’s view to the boat park and the ocean and?—

“Oh no—no.Please tell methat’snot where we’re going.” She whipped a pointed finger at the grassy cliff jutting out from behind the farthest edge of town. She didn’t know Iain, but she wasn’t short of begging him for a different route.

He looked at her oddly, his stern brows drawn together tight. “Can’t do the Ceredigion Coastal Path without following the coast.”

As if the clouded grey sky didn’t put a downer on Maisie’s morning, this was worse. Cold wind caught in her ears, and she tugged down the fuzzy headband she had to make do with since no beanie could ever contain her mane of curls. She hadn’t had time to prepare them today, other than slinging them in a ponytail.

She didn’t want to sound miserable, but she didn’t evenwantto be hiking. Maybe she could turn around and ask the balding man who’d driven the van to take her back to Aberystwyth with him but—yep, okay, he’d already gone. The back of his white minibus sped away in the opposite direction down the high street.

“It’s not that bad.” Iain must have read the desperation in her eyes when she stared at the cliff, not short of whining sounds she was entirely tooadultto make.

“Look at me,” Maisie demanded before she could think better of it. When had they stopped walking?

“I am.” He was.

She wafted her hands in a wild gesture at her body. “Do you not see this?”

Normally, Maisie didn’t let her size put her off from doing anything. Wearing big, bold colours every day?Done.A two piece at a pool in the south of France?Completed. She liked walking in a totally normal, sane, respectable amount. What shedidn’tlike were hills or cliffs or the chance that she could slip down one to her death. A drop ofteahad already almost felled her today.

Iain barely passed her a more thorough glance. “Is there some medical reason why you can’t walk for a couple of hours?”

Well, not today. Today was a ‘good’ day. “No. But thehills?—”

“Then we’ll take it slow. The inclines are only every now and then. You can do it.”

Maisie let out a strangled groan. The last thing she expected to come from a man who looked permanently pissed off with the world was reassurances. But Iain –in all his six-foot-something, built-like-he’d-grown-up-in-the-wild musculature – overestimated the ability of her knees to combat a cliff.

Her nose scrunched prissily for a split second before she wiped the expression from her features. Iain didn’t need to deal with childish reluctance any more than she wanted to end the day with aching knees.

“Look, Ted is excited to walk,” he said, switching tactics in a way Maisie didn’t miss the blaring obviousness of as his wiry dog glared at her to move along. “This is his first hike of the year, would you want to disappoint him?”

“That’s not fair.” She dug her nails into the straps on either side of her breasts like it was the parachute pack she’d definitely need after one gust of wind on that cliff. “You can’t use your dog to manipulate me, especially since he stole my breakfast.”

As if Ted knew exactly what his owner tried to do, he sat himself down at her feet and cocked his head. Maisie wasn’t entirely sure that he hadn’t just heard the word ‘breakfast’ and assumed she was going to give him seconds.

The elders had stopped up ahead, apparently noticing the absence of two of their members. They watched this interaction from afar with glinting, curious eyes.

Knowing she wasn’t going to win this fight, especially since she had no way home except to walk, Maisie breathed out one word. “Okay.”

“Brilliant.” Iain’s accent rolled through all of the syllables as he set off again along the pavement.

Eventually, they caught up to the group. It took five minutes of walking the steady incline to reach where an earthen footpath began up the cliffside, peeling off the road. Taking a second to breathe, Maisie stopped and looked back at the bay, at the low, white, foamy waves being blown against the rocks.

“Maisie?” A lone voice called her. It was the first time Iain had said her name, and she unfortunately loved the sound of it from his lips.

“Coming.”

She caught up, which she feared would evolve into the theme of the morning, and followed Iain where the trail narrowed between hedgerows on either side of a wooden gate. A small blue and yellow marker signposted the Welsh Coast Path. Maisie didn’t completely see the purpose for the gate, given that there was a section next to it which had no barrier at all.

Iain slipped through and let Ted off his lead as soon as they were on the other side, looping the orange rope around a strap of his backpack. Now, Maisie wasn’t an expert at this, but by the look of the sheer drop only a few paces to her right to a rock-solid landing below, she wouldn’t personally have let Ted go free.

“Won’t this trail get a bit close to the edge?” she asked Iain as she wiggled around the gate.

“Huh?”

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