Page 86 of You, As You Are

Maisie gaped. “Iain Howell … is that jealousy?”

“Curiosity,” he corrected her, but the truth was in the way he didn’t look at her when he said it, how his jaw rolled under that well-groomed beard as he adamantly stared out to the farthest reaches of sea.

Maisie wasn’t sure how she was supposed to feel about him being jealous over Bash. That sort of thing had never happened to her before.

She hummed doubtfully, her lips willing into a smile. “Yes. Just friends. Bash has only ever had eyes for Faye, and they finally got together at Christmas.”

Was it just her opinion, or did Iain relax to hear so?

She hadn’t properly looked at him tonight. The sprinkling of grey in the cropped sides of his hair was more prominent, the curls on top less defined. His beard was longer, yet everything else about him was the same. The kind crinkles at the corners of his eyes and the stern lines in his brow that she recognised more and more were just because he took the world so seriously. Maisie didn’t know what had happened to make that outlook his default setting.

“Did Bash tell you what he does for work?” she continued, working towards the thought she’d had in the back of her mind all week.

“He mentioned it.”

Good. Because Maisie had figured out the connection between Iain’s job in showroom sales and Bash’s job in designing spaces. There were areas where the two would cross, and since Iain hated the work situation he was currently in, she thought she could do a little prompting.

“He’s an interior designer – a luxury one. His business partner, Bennet, handles the sourcing and installation side of things. If it’s something you’d be interested in, I could talk to him?”

“They’re based in London?” he assumed, an eye creeping to spy at her.

“Yes …”

Iain’s ardent focus snapped forwards again. “I’m not leaving Wales.”

Well that was a little bit of a problem, but nothing that couldn’t be worked around.

“He might know of some jobs going closer to here,” Maisie said in hopes that he might take the bait. She hadn’t spoken to Bash at all about anything, but he was easy enough to wrap around her finger. Failing that, she’d use Faye as his greatest weakness.

“I appreciate the offer, but no, thank you.”

She’d only wanted to help. Offer up an idea that he might not have thought of. Ultimately it was Iain’s decision, but he didn’t seem to be doing much to help himself, and Maisie didn’t want to see him spiral out, fall from the ledge of misery he appeared to be balanced on.

Within a few breaths, the crease in his forehead flattened. “You never answered my question,” he said, another one of his vocal nudges.

Ah – the one about what she was doing out here sitting on the edge of the promenade at seven at night, though the darkenednavy sky looked closer to eight now, since the sun faded fast in the far distance of the Irish Sea.

Stroking her hand over Ted’s wiry back as he sighed in her lap, her shoulders sagged. “I was out here being introspective, if you must know,” Maisie said softly.

“Hm. I got that feeling.”

She didn’t expect for him to ask her what she was ruminating over, exactly, but the gentle air between them tonight left enough space for Maisie to open up anyway.

“Seeing everyone at the weekend …” she began, feeling that heaviness in her chest worm closer to the surface again, “it just made me miss them all. Miss being able to go to each other’s flats so easily, meet up at random hours ... missLondon.”

That was the crux of her troubles, and perhaps the reason that her heart ached, too.

Did she even really exist out here? Both of her jobs kept her within her flat. Only hernain, the hiking group, and her need to buy groceries to live ever really brought her out of her own space. It was a loneliness that Maisie wasn’t used to at all.

Silent for a moment, Iain’s eyes fell to his hands. “Do you want to go back?” His question was weighty like a stone.

“I can’t just yet.”

“But do you want to?” He looked up at her then, his eyes searching far deeper into hers than they had done before.

Caught off guard by the ball of honest disappointment in her throat, Maisie croaked, “I have no idea where I fit in anymore, Iain.”

Wherever she belonged, she’d like for it to be pointed out for her on a map with a giant red pin, because her heart had no idea anymore. Their trip to see her friends at the weekend had only sharpened the tip of that obviousness. She’d made London her home for her entire life, except for when she’d visited Vera and hertaidhere.God,that’d been so much fun. How many childrencould say that they did their homework on a beach? Or learned to swim in these waters right in front of them?

---