Page 71 of Fireworks
Eiley had never felt more lost and more afraid than she did now, in a bustling train station of a city she barely knew. She had no way of escaping quickly, no back-up if something went wrong. She’d booked a hotel because she refused to stay the night in his house, but she hadn’t told him yet. Worried that he might grip tighter if she did.
He must have sensed it, because he allowed Eiley to put distance between them. He squatted down to the kids, and there, something changed. His soft, adoring smile broke through as he tickled Saffron’s chin and earned a giggle.
This. This was all she’d wanted. Someone who loved them as much as she did.
“I’ve missed you, darling,” he whispered. “Do you remember your da, eh?”
“I don’t think she does,” Brook noted obliviously. “She’s only a baby.”
Finlay hid his discomfort, but Eiley still saw it in his tight lips. “Well, she can get to know me, can’t she? We all can. I have so much planned for you all this weekend, starting with ice cream!”
Brook perked up a wee bit, moving further out of Eiley’s shadow. When he looked up for her approval, she offered him a gentle nod, keeping him calm with a soothing hand on his shoulder.
“What flavour?” he asked.
“Whatever you’d like. I know a place that does hundreds of different ones!”
It was all it took for Brook to take his father’s hand, to walk through the station with him instead of her. She watched, wondering if it was right to be this wary. If she couldn’t trust Finlay to even know his children’s ages, should she truly be here?
It was too late to change her mind, so despite her trembling nerves, she pushed Saffron’s pram forward, Sky at her side. When she longed for the feeling of safety, she tried not to wonder why it came to her in the memory of twinkling lights and tartan bedsheets, broad, scarred shoulders and gentle gasps – as though Warren and all of the ways he made her weak could ever offer more security than this.
They decided it better to begin with lunch before filling the kids’ tummies with ice cream. Well, Eiley did. Finlay poutedlike one of them as he drove them to Queen’s Park, a gorgeous green space framed by the spires of the city.
“Here look okay?” he questioned, gesturing to a lacklustre cafe by the boating pond. It would have to do, because Brook had been complaining of hunger for the last several hours despite the snacks eaten on the journey.
The menu was small, although they offered children’s lunchboxes, thankfully with plain cheese sandwiches that Sky would enjoy.
“Still a picky eater, then?” Finlay joked when she ordered.
“If your question is whether he still struggles with certain foods, the answer is yes.”
Finlay grabbed his wallet before she could find her purse, giving her a soft smile. “On me, aye?”
She thanked him quietly. He’d paid for the train tickets, too, which had come as a surprise. Fraser had dubbed him a stingy bastard, never chipping in on clothes or grocery shopping unless Eiley asked him to. She didn’t feel she had a right to comment, being as he was the one who worked all day, even when he’d started lending out money to his mates. Throwing his paycheck on drinks in the pub instead of coming home to spend time with them.
Then again, maybe she’d been impressed too soon. When his card swiped across the reader, the machine droned out a long beep, the one Eiley dreaded hearing in the bookstore because it meant the payment had been declined so she’d probably done something wrong.
Lines etched themselves into Finlay’s forehead as he tried again in vain.
“I’ll pay,” Eiley decided flatly, the machine reading her card perfectly the first time.
Finlay sniffed, jutting his chin out as though it hadn’t affected him. “Probably just have to check with my bank later.”
Eiley hummed in vague agreement, but this was nothing new for her. He’d owed thousands by the end of their relationship – but if he was no longer drinking, what was he spending that money on? This big house he’d bragged about? The one that was supposed to fix everything he’d broken?
She tried to give him the benefit of the doubt. She wasn’t exactly rolling in cash herself. But she was the one feeding three children. Clothing them. Taking them to afterschool activities. In spring, she’d paid forty pounds for Brook’s street dance classes only for him to decide after two lessons that he didn’t like it, despite having begged to go for months.
That mistrust lurked at the back of her mind. Maybe Finlay had lied about sobering up. Maybe he’d lost his job. Maybe this was an act.
The kids, at least, remained happy. After eating their sandwiches on the grass, they played hide and seek, leaving Eiley to pull her knees to her chest and take in the view of the algae-filled pond. Her ham sandwich was left untouched, stomach too unsettled to even think about eating, though she hadn’t had breakfast, either.
Finlay smiled, then slid his phone out to glance at his screen. He frowned, but it was soon washed away when he realised he was being observed. “What do you think, then? It’s not a bad old city, eh?”
She shrugged. It wasn’t Belbarrow. Would Finlay cope with taking care of them alone, if they ever got that far? “It’s nice. Where are you working, now?”
“Just a leccy company over the river. Not a bad place. Pays better than freelance, anyway.” Back in Belbarrow, he’d worked for himself as an electrician, but like her brother, had found it difficult to find enough work in a small community. Before that, he’d flitted between companies often, always finding a reason why it wasn’t the right fit. Too many hours, spiteful bosses, his bad back, which never bothered him when he partied with mates all night.
“How long have you been there?”
