Page 44 of You, As You Are

On her other arm, Ronnie chuckled. With bootssquelching in the mud, Maisie let him go catch up to Vera in case she needed his help. Her wrist was still in a cast for another few weeks, and if she fell then Maisie would rather have someone there to catch her, though maybe leaving that task to a seventy-three-year-old might only end in further disaster.

Clearing her throat, she slipped her arm out from being linked with Iain’s too. Her imagination had been right about the bulkiness of his arms. All his jacket did was make them look like they could crush her if they ever came around her. It was hardnotto want to be crushed in an embrace by him – purely for platonic reasons, of course.

“Sorry,” she said meekly. On the first hike he’d said she could hold onto him if she needed to, but she hadn’t exactlyneededhim just then.

“It’s fine.” Iain glanced at her sideways. “That last thing you typed out?—”

“Not yet,” Maisie cut in as gently as she could without making any of the pensioners ten feet ahead turn around. If they were going to talk about how they were definitely caught in some matchmaking scheme, then the OAPs running it didn’t need to know that they knew. She lowered her voice and said, “They can’t overhear us.”

Last Sunday – the day after she’d met with him alone in the café – Maisie had dinner at Vera’s with Ronnie. The innocence they’d attempted to pass off when she dug into questioning justhowshe and Iain had been the onlyones to show at that particular establishment hadn’t been believable at all.

The first hike, Iain helping her to move into her flat, the pub quiz she’d been dragged to, the accidental ‘wrong’ café, and coerced to sit with each other again on the minibus today. There were far too many moments of them colliding to just be simple coincidences.

Iain’s slight glare lasted for another moment before he turned his eyes back to the trail.

Theywerebeing set up; this morning’s drive had solidified that suspicion in Maisie’s mind. And she didn’t know what to do about it.

Half an hour later, they were squeezing through bracken-filled land that made Maisie glad she’d worn extra-long socks, walking around that giant hill on a worn-in trail midway up. Somewhere along the way a rendition of ‘500 Miles’ by The Proclaimers had kicked off, and anyone would think a flock of seagulls had made their way inland. She couldn’t hold back her laugh at the pained look on Iain’s face when the chorus came around for the fourth time.

Since it was still winter, all the browned bracken covering the hillside was low, clearing the view of the patchwork farm fields beneath them and the grassy mountains in the far distance. She shouldn’t have shut down that conversation with Iain whilst they were still under cover of forest dense enough to linger back from the group, because out here their voices would carry.

With Ted wandering along the fence line to their left and sniffing at the grassy knolls of his own accord, Iain had been quiet for a while. More than usual, anyway. Maisie hadn’t forgotten his worn-out appearance that obviously hadn’t been ‘fine’ like he’d grumbled this morning.

“How has the messiness been this week?” she asked, making general conversation to keep her mind off yet another round of blisters she could feel were on their way.

Iain snapped out of his thoughts like a snail might. “Huh?”

Maisie waited for him to answer like he usually did, the few seconds of delay, but he didn’t. He really didn’t understand her this time. “You said at the café that your life was a mess. I was just wondering if anything had tidieditself up this week?”

The look on Iain’s face as he hid behind the windbreak collar of his coat said things had gotten worse. “It’s cluttered alright.”

Maisie nudged him gently, softening her voice. “I’m available to listen.”

“Why do you want to?”

Mentally, she reared back at his tone. “It’s usually a part of making friends, listening when your friend has a problem. And I have a feeling you don’t want to join in on the singing.” The rest of their group had walked several thousand miles at this point of their continuous rendition.

Iain was silent for a minute, the only sound the way he sniffled from the wind. “I had a phone call that didn’t go well,” he eventually told her. “And I’m being fired from my job.”

“Being fired?As in …”

“I have six weeks to improve my sales. If not, I’m getting the boot.”

“I thought you didn’t like your job?” Maisie thought he’d even be a little bit happy to not have to work there anymore.

“I don’t.” Scooping to pick up a stone in the trail, Iain tossed it into the hillside field they’d slowed to a stroll beside. “But I don’t have anything else, either.”

“But you’re nottryingto get fired, are you?”

His chest rumbled. “I can’t get better at that job.”

So he was just going to … what? give up?

Maisie tried to be helpful. “Why not use these weeks to find something you enjoy doing and quit anyway?”

“There’s nothing. I have a mortgage, bills, and Ted to feed.” Iain’s choppy breaths turned more and more into huffs and Maisie checked herself before she overstepped any further.

“Okay. Well, what did you used to do before?”

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