Page 55 of Scotch on the Rocks

Seconds ticked by, measured by the pulse in his jaw. “If I believed you, you would of course be welcome to bring this …hypotheticaldate along.”

“You’re coming to the game tonight?” April breezed into the room, Malcolm, Heather and the twins right on her heels. I turned, swiping the paintbrush across the wall before any of them could read it.

“Oh, I’m not—”

“You have to go,” Heather cut in as the girls dashed across the room, long braids trailing as they threw themselves at their uncle. Callum scooped one up in each arm, mimicking a vampire snapping his jaw. They both giggled and squealed.

“Again, again,” Ava shouted and he spun on the spot.

Something in my gut whooshed and I forced my attention back to Heather. She gave me a bright smile that made my heart swell and said, “I’m dropping the girls off at a sleepover and promised I’d hang around for a while. This way April won’t have to stand alone.”

“As if. People are tripping over themselves to chat withMiss Skye 2008,” Callum chipped in, slightly sweaty but smiling as he referenced the out-of-date pageant still held at the summer fete every year.

April practically preened at the compliment. Picking up a spare paintbrush, she drew a big heart on the wall, adding a stylised M in the centre. “Y’know, out of all the awards I’ve won, that might be my greatest accomplishment yet.”

“How did I not know about this?” Mal asked.

It was Heather who answered. “It happened during your comic book phase, you were probably sketching in your bedroom.”

True to form, April’s features melted, as though it were the most adorable thing she’d ever heard, and she threw her boyfriend a flirtatious wink. “I still have the tiara and sash, I’ll dig them out later.”

He came up behind her, stealing the paintbrush and adding an A right beside the M, so close the edges touched.

“A princess in truth, you kept that one quiet.”

April’s answering giggle and the loaded look that passed between them hiked the temperature in the room another degree.

The twins let out a joint chorus of “Eww.”

Heather coughed, “Children present.”

And Mal startled, red-cheeked and grinning.

“How about we actually get some work done?” Callum suggested. “Before Mal pulls a bloody tiara from his pocket and crowns the lass on the spot?”

That earned another round of laughs and a middle finger from Mal. The lightness even getting to meas my friends grouped around, bickering over brush sizes and paint rollers while the brothers withdrew to the bathroom. Amused grunts crept around the door when Mal fitted the sink tapsthe wrong way around, affixing them so tightly, it took them twenty minutes to correct the mistake.

We drank copious cups of sugary tea and belted out old pop songs that even the twins knew the lyrics to. And much later in the afternoon, when the sun had begun to dip, we stepped back, tired and paint-splattered, to admire our handiwork.

“Don’t you like it?” Heather asked after my long silence.

Throat narrow and eyes burning, I could only nod.

“It’s perfect,” I finally managed. Heather’s arm swept around my shoulders, squeezing me like she used to. And itwasperfect. Not because the green perfectly matched the dark herringbone floor, or because it opened the room upjust right,but because we’d done it together. Without a word from me, my friends had been here, no questions asked.

And just like that, I understood why my mum had been so hesitant to change a thing.

15

Callum

First rule of shinty: if you didn’t bleed, did you even play?

Blood spilled from my nose, the metallic taste filling my mouth and dripping down my chin. I spat, staining the white-painted boundary line red.

“Fuck, Callum – I’m sorry, I didn’t see you—” Mal raced to my side on the final whistle, panic staining his sweat-slicked face.

I ran the back of my hand under my chin, catching the flow. “It wasn’t your fault.”

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