Page 66 of Fireworks
Eiley tried to fix her blundering quickly. “I just mean, I hope you have a nice date on your time.” She facepalmed. “I mean … nicetimeon yourdate.”
If Blair saw the jealousy behind her verbal diarrhoea, she didn’t show it. “Thank you, Eiley. I’m sure the right person will come along for you, too. Until then, there are always books!” She pointed at a cover in the romance display that simply showed a man’s muscled torso and toned arms, then waggled her brows. “I might actually pick that up after I’ve done my farm shop. Can you save it for me?”
“Aye, of course.” Eiley grabbed the paperback, glad when Blair thanked her and finally wandered off.
She cleared her throat, hiding her stinging eyes behind the man’s oiled-up body. She hated herself for taking it this far with Warren. She should have known that any amount of intimacy would only lead to hurt, especially when she’d realised too late that he was actually … well,good. He’d gone out of his way to help her on multiple occasions. Had been kind to her when she hadn’t to him. He’d set his own needs aside to worship her in bed, and hadn’t pushed her away when she’d blown hot and cold.
And she’d been able to say things – shout things – she’d never been able to before. It wasn’t just about the extremely wonderful sex, she realised, but about that bizarre connection forming between them. The one that had allowed her to be herself with him, instead of the diluted version she offered everyone else.
“That bad, is it?” a woman grumbled at her as Eiley wiped her cheeks and returned her focus to the customers. Sheheld two Agatha Christie books in her hands and cast a scathing look at the hockey romance she clutched. “I despise those childish stories full of sex and whatnot! I’ve no respect for women who indulge in them. Should be banned, if you ask me!”
Any other day, Eiley would have smiled and nodded, afraid to chase off a customer or trigger a confrontation. Today, she held strong, her patience at its limit.
“There’s nothing wrong with wanting sex or happy endings, especially when most men in real life only treat us like rubbish. God forbid we write our own remedies for that, create ourownjoy!”
Taken aback, the woman stamped her foot. “Well, there’s no need to get snippy with me, Missus. I’ll knownotto buy my books from you.” She threw the murder mysteries down and marched off.
“Good!” shouted Eiley to her back. “Books are supposed to be for open-minded people anyway, not miserable purists like you. Miss Marple probablylovedsome late night sex after a long hard day of solving crimes!”
A few customers flashed mortified glances, some of them scuttling away.
Eiley ignored them, rounding on her heel – and only then did she notice Harper and Brook juggling approximately eight pumpkins of all shapes and sizes. Brook was wide-eyed as he asked, “Mum, what’s sex?”
Harper hid herself behind a large orange pumpkin and started tittering.
“Oh my god.” Eiley cringed, ushering him away from the thickening crowd of shoppers. The easy option would be to distract him, brush him off, but she’d always wanted her children to know they could talk about anything – when they werereadyto. “It’s something that adults do when they like each other,” felt like the best way to evade the very uncomfortable subject.
“Like what Harper writes about in her kissing books?”
Harper snorted. “Yep, like that.”
“Are you ready to put those pumpkins in the van?” Eiley opened the passenger door quickly, helping Brook with his overflowing collection of gourds.
With his back turned, Harper nudged Eiley, muttering, “You’ve got some explaining to do later.”
Eiley didn’t doubt it.
29
That evening, the kids sat on an old picnic mat in the garden while Eiley, Cam, Harper, and Mum helped them carve pumpkins, which was actually mostly just doing it for them because the child-friendly tools were quick to bend and blunt. Saffron and Archie had emptied the entire contents of the toy box out onto the grass while Brook, Isla, and Sky groaned at the orange gloop sticking to their fingers. It was, supposedly, very fun, although past experience proved Eiley would only start enjoying herself in about two hours, when the pumpkins were lit, her pyjamas were on, andHocus Pocuswas playing on the telly.
“That’s an interesting design, Sky.” Cam raised a brow at Sky’s … triangle. Just one tiny misshapen hole, right in the middle of his pumpkin. “Is it a nose?”
Sky threw up his arms as though to say, “Done!”, crawled out of Eiley’s lap, and went to play with the toddlers by Mum’s leafy bucket of potato plants.
“Yep, we’ve lost him,” Eiley commented.
It didn’t take long for Isla and Brook to follow, though they at least managed to carve full, albeit wonky, faces intotheirs. Their smaller pumpkin had been painted and was currently drying on the doorstep – a round peach face wearing a yellow helmet and red clothes made by Brook. A fireman. He’d also asked when he would next get to read to Warren, and she’d stuttered out a, “Soon,” with a heaviness in her chest. She hated lying, but especially to them.
“All right.” Harper raised her phone high in the air. “Everybody say cheese. Or pumpkins.”
Eiley mumbled out a mix of the two, “chumpkins”, absently. There was only so much longer she could keep Finlay’s visit and her upcoming plans to see his place in Glasgow to herself.
“You’re not even looking at the camera!”
“I, erm, need to tell you something,” she blurted.
Cam paused from cutting, rather violently, into her green pumpkin. She’d never been one for Harper’s Insta snaps, either. “Oh, god. What have you done?”
