The stubborn bastard wouldn’t give up. ‘I don’t believe you. You can’t be with someone for that long if you don’t love them.’
I threw my hands up in the air in exasperation and laughed without humour. ‘I don’t care if you don’t believe me. It’s the truth.’ There was no turning back. ‘I’ve doneeverythingI can to make you proud of me, Dad. I followedyourdreams for my career, I got engaged to Elise, I moved into an apartmentyouchose. But I can’t be that person now. I need to stand on my own two feet.’
My words fell on deaf ears. ‘The embarrassment you’ve—’
‘Are you evenlisteningto me? Do youeverlisten to me? I can’t do this any more, Dad. I can’t deal with hearing over and over what a failure I am because of this situation. I can’t.’
My father stood slowly and leaned on his desk. ‘Then you had better leave.’
‘Fine! I’ll take the rest of the day off and—’
He slammed his hands down again, and I almost jumped out of my skin. ‘No! Finlay, you’re fired.’ And there it was. The sentence my brother hadalmostprepared me for but I had still, naïvely, believed wouldn’t be uttered.
My heart stuttered in my chest and my eyebrows rose before scrunching. ‘What? Y-you can’tfireme. I’ve done nothing wrong! This is a personal matter, not a work issue.’
‘You clearly feel that working for the family business is beneath you. You don’t want to be a part of this family any more. Your actions of late have proved that. So you may leave. And you had better find somewhere to live too. I’m terminating the lease on your apartment.’
What the hell?My heart sank. ‘I don’t believe you. Ireallydon’t believe you.’ I ran my hands through my short hair and rested them atop my head as I stared briefly up at the oak panelled ceiling.
The energy had been sapped along with the colour that I felt drain from my face, and the next time I spoke, all the fight had left my body.
Despite my attempt at strength, my lip trembled. ‘All I ever wanted was for you to be proud of me, Dad. All I needed was your reassurance that I wasn’t a complete disappointment. Do you know that when I graduated from uni, all you said was, ‘‘Here are your car keys. You start work at the firm on Monday.’’ Were you aware of that?’ My voice began to waver, and I hated myself for showing any kind of weakness in front of him. ‘I just wanted you to love me, Dad. I just needed a little praise and some of your time. That’s all. But I gotthings.’ I clenched my jaw in a bid to fend off the emotion fighting for release. ‘Thingsinstead of the love a son needs from his father. I worshipped you, Dad. I would’ve givenanything to have you love me back. But I guess when it really came down to it, I just wasn’t good enough.’
I waited for him to speak. For him to tell me he loved me and that I wasn’t a disappointment at all. Forone wordthat would make me feel I hadn’t just been disowned.
But he remained stoic.
And so with a heaviness in my heart that almost floored me, I gathered my remaining shred of dignity, turned, and left.
8
Star
I was eager to know what had happened to Mr McYummy, but weeks had passed and we were heading full pelt towards summer. I hated that I hadn’t seen him at all. He stopped calling into the coffee shop altogether—even though my hope of seeing him again had sparked anew with the events of my birthday night. Seeing him up on that stage had really affected me. I kept dragging Alec back to the club at every given opportunity, just in case there was aslightchance there would be a repeat performance.
But, of course, there wasn’t.
In between pining for something that never was and could never be, I had been spending my time wandering round the graveyards of Edinburgh with only the ghosts of lives past to keep me company. As crazy as it sounds, it was wonderful visiting forgotten resting places I had read about in one of my favourite books, and I could imagine being one of Miss Jean Brodie’s girls, learning about the history of the great city I now called home. But I also gained a strange sense of peace knowing I was keeping the memories of the deceased alive—if only for myself—when the ancestors of most were clearly long gone. Most people consider graveyards to be sad or depressing places to visit, but not me. I found them fascinating and beautiful; filled with stories, either true or those of my own imagination.
Just over a month after my birthday, Alec and I met up with our friends at DeBasement once again, and I was on edge. Alec kept slapping my arm to get my attention when I was too busy scanning the room for blonde-haired, suit-wearing men. It was stupid. He wasn’t going to be there, but it didn’t stop me trawling the place every five seconds. An uneasy tension stiffened my spine and I couldn’t shake off the feeling that things were awry.
Alec had far too many vodkas, as usual, and put his name down to sing a Bon Jovi hit. As he belted out a very camp version of ‘Livin’ on a Prayer’ the rest of our group of friends sang along with him, completely out of tune, but my eyes were still busy searching the room. Alec’s terrible rendition finished and he re-joined us to raucous applause from the alcohol-fuelled members of our crew.
I’d just about given up all hope of everseeing the hunky blonde from my fantasies again when I heard the intro to ‘Here I Go Again’ by Whitesnake, and for some reason, my heart leapt and a cold shiver travelled down my spine. My gaze swivelled to the stage so quickly I almost gave myself whiplash. It was a real blast from the past but that wasn’t the only reason I turned. I could sense him before I even saw him.
I widened my eyes and froze. I didn’t dare move a muscle in case he turned out to be a figment of my imagination and disappeared into the ether. He gripped the mic where it stood in the stand and closed his eyes. His hair was messier than usual—and the clean-shaven man of a month ago was gone. Stubble now graced his angular jaw, but this made him all the more delicious to me.
He wore a white T-shirt that sat tight across his pecs, a black leather jacket, and black jeans that had seen better days. He strutted around the stage, and my heart ached at his unique, emotion-filled delivery of the lyrics. It was usually an uplifting song about starting over but this was different. There was something very wrong. It was evident in his last performance too. My gut instinct was right. I was never surer of anything. His eyes were no longer bright, smiling, and sexy, but instead they were circled with dark shadows, and a line creased his forehead as he displayed the sentiment of the song in his body language.
I was mesmerised once again.
Alec nudged me. ‘Hey, isn’t that the guy you were drooling over on your birthday?’
I nodded slowly. ‘Um... yeah. Yeah, it’s him.’
He huffed and pursed his lips with disdain. ‘He looks different. Could do with a haircut and a shave.’
Alec favoured cleaner cut men usually, although there had been some guys in his life who broke the mould. Personally, I thought Mr McYummy looked perfect. And my skipping heart was in agreement.
