Chapter 3

3

RAE

If my sister were here to boss me around, she’d hustle me away from this three-act drama that I nosily can’t stop watching.

“Rude, Rae,” Mia would say. “Stop minding other people’s business before they mind it for you.”

That was the first rule of flying under the radar where we grew up. Staring at people spelled trouble—attracted attention—and not the good kind, like from that big guy by the chapel who keeps flashing glances my way.

“Stop staring,” she’d warn me. “You’ll only get distracted, or worse.”

Mia would be right about that outcome, which is why I’m here for a second shot at drawing a happy ending. For her. And I might get to do it, if I can complete the illustrations for a children’s book that an agent says is almost but not quite finished. Only here’s the thing about me—I’m the world’s best at starting projects.

Completing them?

Ugh.

I’d rather turn a new page and doodle. Perhaps that’s why the drama playing out beside this chapel is compelling. It’s a perfect distraction from work I have no idea how to finish.

Settle on a hero , that agent told me. One hero, Rae, not several. That’s what this unhappy couple needs too—a hero to save their big day for them, and that ex-goalie could be it.

He’s calling in a favour, and after what he said about making a walk of shame in front of his own sisters, I kinda want this win for him, so I settle in to watch.

Glynn Harber’s art master has other plans, and Sol Trebeck is a persistent fucker. He always has been, even if he looks like Bambi’s wide-eyed, less assertive cousin. “Rae?” He nudges my arm and keeps his voice low. “How about we leave them to it, yeah?”

“How about, no?” I stand my ground. “Wait for two more minutes, Sol. I wanna see how this plays out.”

Sol hooks a hand through my elbow. “How about, yes? Come on. I need to leave soon to get Cameron to London.” He means his nephew, who, in the years since I last saw him, has turned into an adult. That’s wild, when it only seems like five minutes ago that he was a little kid who used to visit us at art college. Now he’s heading there himself, which is wild too. It’s also shitty timing. “Come on,” Sol repeats. “I’ve found somewhere for you to stay until I get back. Someplace where you can plan your next meeting.”

“Meeting?”

For a moment I’m blank, a goldfish complete with a three-second memory, too busy goggling to answer. Not at Sol. It’s a much bigger man with burrs in his beard and bird shit on his shoulders I can’t look away from.

Look away from him?

I’m too busy picturing him in my sketchbook.

What if I drew him wrapped in oak leaves or ivy? Maybe add a few birds peeking out of that shaggy beard and ? —

“Yes,” Sol reminds me. “Your second meeting with that agent on Monday. I looked up her details. Your mentor must have called in one hell of a favour for her to let you pitch your idea to her not once but twice.”

He isn’t wrong. Like that ex-football player trying to help this unlucky couple, my mentor won’t give up on me either. I should feel grateful for this second chance he’s scored for me.

Right now?

Monday’s deadline smothers me like a sand dune, and believe me, once those fuckers start to slide, they don’t stop for anybody. Neither will this weekend countdown on me finally figuring out how to fix a journey I’ve drawn over and over, one I started years ago and still haven’t finished.

Sol still tries to herd me away. “You got some ideas about how to revise your pitch yet?”

“No. Not yet.” And maybe never if I can’t find my focus.

He must see me come to the same conclusion. Sol always was observant, good at noticing my most preoccupied moments when we should have been studying together. Now he nudges me away from another diversion.

“Let’s go plan a strategy, yeah? Break down what the agent wants to see into smaller sections. I only wish I didn’t have to shoot off when you just got here. Come back after your meeting, yeah? So we can catch up properly?”

“I would, only I gotta head back to France.”

“Already?” He’s such a mother hen. Here he goes clucking. “Okay. That’s even more reason to get started.” He steers me further away from this huddle of high drama.

I crane my neck to soak up a not-so-happy couple listening in on a phone call, and I glimpse them both tensing as Hayden says?—

I don’t get to hear. Not when Sol says, “If the sprinkler system in the art building wasn’t being reworked, you could have stayed at my place while I’m away. Luckily, Rowan is staying with his boyfriend for the weekend. He’s okay with you borrowing his room.”

I stop Sol from drawing me away any further, standing my ground again while whispering, “Listen, I don’t want to crash anyone else’s private space. I don’t even need a bed. I can always camp.” Fuck knows I’ve spent months doing just that across the English Channel. For now, I’m more interested in whether that goalie will get to make his save, which doesn’t look too likely. He’s still holding that veil. It’s as white as his knuckles when he ends one call only to make another, all while looking worried.

Atlas.

That’s who I’d draw him as.

Atlas wrapped in ivy, only with a giant football on his shoulders and ? —

“No need to camp,” Sol promises. “There’s room for you at the stables. You’ll have the place almost all to yourself all weekend to work on your pitch revisions. And you’ll get to sleep on a real bed.”

He always did know how to tempt me. I can’t remember the last time I didn’t sleep on a camping mat or air mattress. My spine could weep at the thought. “Some alone time would actually be good, thanks.” Even being almost alone would be amazing. After the hustle and bustle of my last encampment, any peace is hard to imagine. So is a happy ending materialising for the story that Sol hustles me away from.

“Come on. Let’s go, so I’ve got time to take a look at your drawings before I leave. I want to read your story.”

“Not yet, yeah?”

I’m not done listening to another.

Hayden’s, right?

I drag my feet, hoping to hear him solve that bride and groom’s problem. It’s sweet how hard he’s trying. Almost as sweet as when he’d worried about that veil snarled by brambles, and that is what he hands to the bride after ending his second attempt to make a phone call.

White lace is caught by the breeze, billowing in a gauzy cloud between us. He’s out of my sight, but only for an instant, and I have no clue if Sol gives more reasons for us to get moving. I’m rooted to the spot, and so what if I can’t hear what Hayden tells that hopeful bride when she shows him that some kind of clasp or comb on the veil is broken. Sunlight tells its own story, flashing like the blade he unsheathes to slice through willow.

Not through the woman.

Jesus, wouldn’t that paint a different picture?

I mean that he slashes through a tree that shares her name. Or through a few of its whip-thin branches, at least.

She shakes out her veil again, like a cape for a superhero, and fuck knows I’ve drawn enough of those with children who needed protection. Now I watch a Cornish hero twist that weeping willow into a circle. He also takes that veil back before abruptly stopping.

He looks up.

Our eyes meet, and I see?—

Is that fear?

It can’t be. Not from someone his size.

Panic then.

That feels closer to the truth, and I’ve seen plenty from parents on beaches lately, stuck between war and water.

I don’t do politics. Art is my thing, the more playful the better, so using crayons to distract kids while others shielded them from traffickers has kept me busy all summer. Today I get a chance to do more than play at helping. I don’t even know if Sol attempts to stop me from butting in where I’m uninvited. I’m locked in on what is clear as day to me, and so what if my focus can be fickle? Right now, a shaking pair of hands are my sole target, and yeah, I can solve a problem for this big guy who isn’t scared or panicked.

What I see from up close is obvious.

He’s embarrassed.

He’s desperate as well, all while trying to fix the veil to this pretty circlet he’s made for this bride having a bad day.

His fingers won’t let him.

That’s confusing when I just saw him slice those whip-thin willow branches with zero issue. I also saw him hefting a huge chainsaw, and make that look easy. This delicate movement stumps him, the lace too fine for him to wrangle, so I do it for him, or I try to.

He doesn’t let go of the circlet or lace right away. He even backs off.

I match him step for step, my hands over his, and yeah, they’re trembling.

“No one else can see you’re shaking,” I say quietly, not sure if that matters to him.

Perhaps it does—he stops retreating. He still doesn’t let me help him, not until I remember what I glimpsed through branches after joking with him that he could be my wedding plus-one.

He’s got a sense of humour. I saw that between leaves before leaving, and that joke about his chopper changed him—left him grinning—and wasn’t that quite the transformation? Now I aim for more of the same.

“Let me tie the veil onto the circlet for you. I’m good at knots.” I lower my voice even further. “And I’m even better at wriggling out of them.”

“Yeah?” He’s dubious.

“Yes,” I say more firmly. “You wouldn’t believe how many times I’ve been promised a good time, only to be left tied to a bed and waiting.”

A beat too late, I remember Sol on nights out at art college, telling me I’d get mashed and crushed one day by joking with the wrong person, but here’s the thing about me: I’ve got a decent radar. One that pinged earlier at Hayden eyeing me up, if covertly, back in the woods. And here’s the thing about men with overgrown, untamed beards like his. It can’t hide brightness that doesn’t stop at his smile. His eyes gleam too, and I’m surprised into laughter at his murmured answer.

“Handcuffs it is, then.”

This is even quieter.

“And maybe a gag.”

He makes a request while I’m laughing. “Help me?”

I do. I secure that veil to its new leafy circlet and then I return to Sol, only turning one more time to see the bride let Hayden crown her.

Leaves settle, lace floats, and she grins, as pretty as any picture.

I lock that smile away to draw another time. And his. Or I would lock his smile away, only his head is bent, so I’ve missed my moment.

Sol clasps my elbow. “Nice save, Rae.” He tugs. “Come on. Let’s go get your things and a key to the stables.”

I almost get moving, only a ringing phone stops me.

Not mine.

It’s Hayden’s. “Marc?” he says into his handset. “Listen, you know how you don’t run weddings during harvest time? Yeah, how it’s too busy on the farm? Well, I need a favour.”

I don’t hear the rest. Not because Sol pulls me away. Hayden’s voice lowers, so this final act is inaudible. His shit-speckled shoulders bow first as if expecting bad news. The bride’s and groom’s shoulders tense right along with his, and that worry?

I’ve seen too much of it on beaches lately.

Then he straightens, and this blinding smile of triumph? This version of him as a winner?

I’ve got to draw it.