Eiley froze, eyeing the basket again. Harper nudged the cake to the side to reveal three folded red T-shirts that readBelbarrow Firehouse. When she took them out, she saw that each had been printed with her children’s names followed bythe Firefighter. Even a tiny one for Saff.
She welled up at all the time and thought that must have gone into all this. He owed her nothing, and they hadn’t talked in over a week, but he was still thinking of her family.
It wasn’t the grandest of gestures by romance novel standards, but … it was to her, especially when she’d spent years with a man who didn’t even remember birthdays.
“Mum, is that a fireman’s helmet?” Brook zoomed over to take the stack from Eiley’s hand. He put the biggest helmet on immediately, and then gasped at the sight of the T-shirts. “It saysBrook the Firefighter! That’s me!”
A smile cracked over Eiley’s unsure features. She was falling in love all over again, and also getting her heart broken all over again. “Aren’t you lucky?”
“Who’s it from?”
She couldn’t lie. Didn’t want to. “It’s from Warren, munchkin. Isn’t that thoughtful of him?”
Brook nodded so furiously his head almost fell off his shoulders. “Can we put them on now?”
“Go ahead. Do you want to help Sky with his, too?”
The lads raced into the kitchen, earning a “Slow your roll!” from Mum inside. Eiley didn’t know what to say or do in the face of Harper’s pointed expectance. She took the basket, imagining Warren driving around in his van to hunt down the treats. It must have taken ages to prepare all this.
“You okay?” Harper prodded, squinting as she finally lifted her sunglasses onto her head. When Eiley said nothing, she asked, “Shall we swing about it?”, motioning to the swing set. It was absolutely too small for two grown women, but it wouldn’t be the first time Eiley had sought comfort on the tiny seat. They perched, poles sinking further into the damp ground and knees knocking uncomfortably. She kept the basket in her lap as though it might disappear if she let go.
“I remember when you fell for Fraser,” Eiley said quietly, digging her heels into the mud. “You were both terrified, eh?”
“Yup. So terrified that we almost didn’t risk it.”
Eiley remembered Harper leaving Belbarrow, and how sad she’d felt to know her new friend might never return. Fraser had been inconsolable, moping around and unable to focus on anything. He’d been so distracted that he’d made a silly mistake at work and nearly lost a finger. It was how Eiley had known they weren’t meant to be apart. Fraser had never let anyone affect him that way before.
Until now, she’d never wondered how they’d managed to make it work in the first place. How they’d mustered enough bravery to get together, in spite of their fears and reservations. It had felt easier to tell them to go for it as a bystander,ignoring the fact that Harper hadn’t long had her heart broken by an ex, and Fraser had burdened himself so much with the care of others that he was afraid to make more room in his life for someone he could lose.
A situation that suddenly sounded quite familiar.
“How did you decide you were ready to come back and try?”
Harper’s fingers looped around the chain of the swing, head tilting to the moody sky as she drifted into memory. “Well, he was holding my laptop hostage. Sort of needed it back to edit my book.”
Eiley laughed. “Right.”
“And I’d never met anyone like him before,” she continued, all tenderness now. “I think the idea of not giving him a chance, of losing the potential relationship wecouldhave, was scarier than the idea of getting my heart broken again. I already felt this …” She tapped her heart. “I don’t know. This knowing, I suppose. Not that we were supposed to be together, because I don’t think it’s ever that simple, but I could imagine what my future might look like with him, and the option was to go home and never get a taste of it, or justtryto have what I’d always dreamt of. I thought I could hide away in my pyjamas until it all went away, but being away from him, even in my parents’ house, the place I’d always been safe before, just didn’t feel right anymore. So I had to come back. Mind you, I thought the plan was to get closure and say goodbye to you lot. He managed to change my mind.”
“Are you still scared now?”
Harper shook her head. “I trust him. And even if I do put my Debbie Downer hat on to acknowledge that people change and relationships fail all the time, I wouldn’t want to take any of it back. He’s given me so much in the long run, including you and the niblings” – she dipped down to snuggle Bernard as he trailed past – “and wee Bernie Boo. In the end, I just had to accept that maybe my heartishis to break, but I wouldn’t want it to belong to anyone else anyway.”
“And that’s why you’re a writer,” Eiley commented wryly. Still, it wasn’t what she wanted to hear. She’d hoped for something … tangible. Some empirical proof that she was doing the right thing, because surely she and Warren were nothing like Harper and Fraser. Surely, the future success of a relationship could be measured by something that made sense, rather than the tangled heap of emotions and wonderings tormenting Eiley.
And surely, she couldn’t change her mind because of a basket.
Harper swung closer to nudge Eiley. “What are you thinking about?”
She stretched out her legs. “I’m thinking …” Slumped as the truth of it all finally broke free. “I’m thinking that Warren is in my mind every waking second and then some, and I never gave this thing between us a chance. In fact, that’sallI’ve been thinking about since we ended things. I thought I was doing the right thing for me, and for him, being smart. That’s what all the strong independent women do, aye? They say empowering things like ‘I need to focus on me’.”
“But when there’s an illegally handsome guy willing to worship the ground you walk on, that feels pretty empowering too, doesn’t it?” Harper replied knowingly. “Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.”
Eiley nodded, jaw straining at the effort it took not to go and search him out right now. To thank him. To tell him all the ways he’d changed her for the better. To kiss him again, because that was the only time she felt like she could stop pretending.
Before Eiley could contemplate her next move, the children returned in their helmets and T-shirts, Sky singingnee-nawlike a fire engine around the garden. Happy. Because of Warren.
The decision started as a light, subtle thing, just as their connection had: a thin blanket draped over her shoulders. Acknowledging it made it tighten with a certainty that left her stronger, determined.
