Page 52 of You, As You Are

“She’s with our Maisie in the kitchen. Grabbing more drinks, I think.”

“Right …” Iain didn’t expect that he might have to chaperone a room full of people twice his age tonight, half of which he was sure were already two sheets to the wind, inhibitions seemingly having flown out of the window.

Ronnie threw him a smirk. “I hear congratulations are in order.”

“How’s that?” he asked, making sure his boots were dry on the welcome mat.

“You and Maisie.” Ronnie mimed punching his shoulder, and Iain blew out a scrap of a chuckle.

Ah shit.Was that what Maisie’s cryptic text at lunch had been about?

He glanced around the packed-out room to search for her, recognising several of the hiking troupe and their husbands and wives as plus ones instead. “Thanks,” he said for the sake of saying something. “I’m going to go find her.”

“Right on.” Ronnie patted him on the back, leaning in to say, “And heads up, I think you’ll be impressed tonight.” Yet more code for Iain to decipher.

He moved through towards the kitchen, saying hello to everyone who stopped him on the way, before coming to a dead stop in the doorway.

“Fuck me,” he muttered to himself, gaze zeroed in on Maisie arranging drinking glasses on the counter.

“Oh, you’re here!”

Iain swallowed down the lump clamming his vocal cords that reminded him he was a hot-blooded man who’d had little company besides his dog for months on end.

Maisie drifted through the kitchen and threw his system out of whack with a simple kiss on his cheek in greeting.That was new – one of her plays in this fake dating situation, maybe. He’d neatened up his beard specially for tonight, which meant he felt that press of her full lips so much more distinctly.

The voice of Tom Jones, a great Welsh legend, sang from the speakers in the living room, but his attention was only on Maisie.She’s a Lady, indeed.Her yellow dress wrapped around her flawlessly, showing off her legs below the knee and some thick, freckled thigh where the skirt split.

Jesus Christ.He’d been certain that he could do this, play the fake-dating game to get the pensioners off their tails, but one breath of Maisie’s perfume tonight and Iain wasn’t so sure. He was so used to the sweaty, post-hike scent of her that his perception of the world tilted. He didn’t know what scent it was, but he wouldn’t ever forget it.

“Where’s Vera?” his dumb tongue asked instead of greeting her.

Maisie blinked, her big eyes made even bigger by that black stuff women brush onto their lashes, body still for a moment until her mouth lifted into a welcoming smile. “She’s getting another wine bottle from outside. She called the weather tonight ‘nature’s chiller cabinet’.”

“She’s right.”

Iain was sure that if his cheeks weren’t at least a little pink from how so much of Maisie’s chest, painted with thousands of light freckles like stars, was framed perfectly by the amber fabricin a perfect ‘V’, then they would be from the bite in the wind outside. He’d worn a dusty blue shacket over a cream speckled jumper, but the layers hadn’t been enough on his walk.

His blood didn’t need the insulation anymore.

“Who hosts a birthday party on a Wednesday?” Maisie chuckled, her focus wandering to his clothes instead of his flustered reaction, to Iain’s relief.

“Retirees who don’t have to get up to work at seven a.m.?”

The door to the courtyard burst open.

Maisie spun. “Jesus,Nain, how many bottles?”

“It’s aparty,Moo Moo,” Vera countered. “We may be old, but we’ve been cutting rugs since before you were even a thought in your father’s wandering bits and pieces.”

This woman.Iain laughed, which drew Vera’s eyes up to him and broke out a grin on her face. He wished that when he was old, he could be just like her in the way she didn’t give two fucks about her age. She offhanded the three bottles of wine she’d cradled with the use of her cast to Maisie, who managed to catch them, and dashed across the kitchen for him instead.

“Iain dear! I’m so glad you’re here with us.”

“Pen-blwydd hapus,Vera,?*” he said.

“Diolch yn fawr iawn,Iain.?*”

“Croeso.?*” Iain offered out the gift bag that hung from his fingertips and caught Maisie peeking around hernain’sshoulder. It’d have been rude not to have brought something when for his last birthday he’d been given a far too generous voucher for an outdoor clothing shop.

---