Page 19 of Always Be My Pumpkin

I’m still dazed when I reach Hazel Cottage. Did Gertrude seriously just defend me? I need to sit down, and I need a mug of strong tea with two spoons of sugar for the shock. I switch on the kettle and make my way upstairs to fetch my folder.

I’m standing on the landing about to open the bedroom door when Flynn strolls out of the bathroom, earbuds in, hair dripping, wearing nothing but a white fluffy towel around his hips. And belting out the lyrics from ‘Good Luck, Babe!’ as though he’s feeling every word. I clutch my stomach and shake with laughter and sheer relief that I caught him singing along to Chappell Roan, and for once his cheeks are pinker than mine, and I’m laughing, not drooling, for a change.

‘Good luck to you too, babe,’ I manage to choke out between giggles.

‘I’d flick you with this wet towel, babe, if I didn’t need it so much right now.’

He grins and my eyes drop to said towel, and then his hip bones, and my core clenches. I almost lose all control as my gaze sneaks up his stomach to his broad chest and shoulders, before it glides along his throat to those lips, full and pink, and twisting in a crooked smile as, on cue, my face heats like a furnace, and I’m right back to drooling again.

‘Get yourself a girlie magazine, Sullivan. I’m not here to be ogled.’ He laughs and sweeps past me to jog down the stairs, and I’m still standing mortified on the landing when he arrives back a few minutes later wearing a T-shirt and jeans.

‘I’m kidding.’ He dips his head and peers into my eyes, and I gulp and drop my gaze to the floor. I’m searching for a witty comeback, when he lifts his hand to the side of my jaw and tucks my hair behind my ear. Then he puts his fingers beneath my chin and tips up my face. ‘Gracie, it’s me. I’m only messing with you. I know you don’t look at me that way.’

Then he smiles that soft smile that melts my heart, and the rest of me. ‘You haven’t changed a bit, you know. You were always way too easy to tease.’ He laughs and tweaks my nose. ‘Seriously, Sullivan, you gotta toughen up.’

I’m tempted to give him a dig or at least a little pinch, but I’m half afraid of what I might start if I do. And I’m already fizzing like a can of apple cider that he’s shaken way too hard. So, I scrunch my nose and say, ‘Noted, Anderson. Thank you for that pearl of wisdom.’ Then I smirk. ‘And maybe you could throw some clothes on and stop running around in the nip in the middle of the day.’

I dash past him and grab my folder from the bedside locker and he’s still leaning against the wall of the landing when I emerge a few seconds later, as though he’s waiting to check up on me and make sure I really am okay. He looks so at ease and unruffled, and damn, Moll Stringer has a point. I close my eyes for a second and wish hard that I could wipe the last ten years, and Flynn and I could go back to before life got so complicated. Back to the way we were.

I land home that evening with my folder packed with notes and lists, and my phone jammed with messages and emails that I need to read through again. Flynn’s on the couch with a pencil in his hand and a notebook open on his lap, and the whole room is filled with a hearty, mouth-watering smell.

‘Hey you.’ He smiles up at me. ‘Busy day?’

‘It’s always a busy day,’ I say lightly. ‘But I don’t mind, it keeps my mind off other things.’

He frowns and it feels like he’s about to ask me what I mean, but then he sits up and points to my folder. ‘Are you surgically attached to that?’

‘I think so.’ I set my folder on the table and grab my laptop from the shelf by the window. ‘I have to type up the festival report this evening. I didn’t have time at work. And my lunch hours have been spent listening to ideas and opinions about Halloween.’

I pull out a chair and flop down, propping my chin on one hand. ‘Most people have been really helpful, but then you get the odd one who just wants to rant about how everyone else’s suggestions are rubbish, and theirs are the only ones worth listening to. Moll. But I still have to work through them and come up with an acceptable compromise.’

Flynn hops up from the couch and goes straight to the oven. ‘Well, at least have some dinner first.’

It’s only when he opens the oven door that I realise I’m so hungry. I managed an apple and a packet of crisps for lunch while I listened to the knit and crochet group fill me in on their Halloween costumes, and then I gulped a quick cup of tea at the counter this afternoon when Gertrude came back from her break. She hates anyone eating or drinking at the desk, so I’m in her bad books again after this morning’s reprieve. But Ella had a dental appointment, and there was after-school homework club, and a queue all afternoon. I didn’t want to leave Gertrude to deal with that all on her own, so I barely had time to draw breath.

I gasp as Flynn sets the dish on a placeholder in front of me. ‘Oh wow, that smells delicious. What’s in there?’

He grabs a plate from the shelf overhead. ‘All kinds of root veggies, lentils, tomatoes, herbs. You okay with oregano?’

‘Love it.’

‘Great, and there’s some paprika, and lots of garlic.’ He grins as he sets a heaped plateful in front of me. ‘Hope you don’t have a hot date later.’

I hold up my folder and wave it at him. ‘This is the only hot date I’ll be having for a while. And I’ll cook at the weekend, I promise. You’ve been feeding me all week.’

‘I like feeding you. And you need to sit down and take a breath.’ He pours me a glass of water and sets it down by my plate, then takes the seat opposite. ‘I was thinking we could get takeout on Saturday. Remember how we always used to watch a movie on Saturday evenings, and your mom would get us pizza. It was my favourite night of the week.’

‘Really?’ I assumed he’d forgotten those evenings, even though I haven’t. I think about them every time I watch When Harry Met Sally, or our favourite small-town series, Gilmore Girls. Well, my favourite series, but Flynn always humoured me, back then.

‘Yeah, really.’ He chuckles. ‘Apart from the bit where I’d have to run to the bathroom for loo roll because you’d used up all the tissues, and then I’d have to get the mop—’

‘Shut uuup!’ I throw the tea towel that he used to lift the casserole dish at his head, and he leans over and ruffles my hair.

‘I’m only messing with you; you know that was my favourite part. Now eat your dinner.’ He gives me that soft smile again, but I catch the glint in his eye as he adds, ‘Good girl.’

I manage to recover from almost choking on a carrot cube, and I give a reasonable impression of being unbothered and unruffled, as I organise my notes into cosy and creepy piles, and a small bundle in the middle that could go either way.

Flynn has his back to me loading the dishwasher and I’m trying not to stare, but damn, he doesn’t make it easy. I love that he feels relaxed enough to tease me again, and I want us to be friends the way we used to be. But I can’t seem to control the effect he has on me now. And yes, he was already starting to have an effect all those years ago, but I was late to the whole boy/girl stuff, and even with Flynn it was more a romantic teenage fantasy, the idea of him holding my hand and kissing me . . . that’s about as far as I had pictured before he upped and moved away.