7. Seven

7

PRESENT

I ’d be lying if I said I hadn’t imagined this scenario a few times in the years since I last saw Elliot Sinclair.

Not this exact scenario, obviously. No, any time I’ve allowed myself to imagine what it would be like to bump into him again, I’ve been poised and elegant, and really quite jaw-droppingly beautiful; not staggering around on the cobbles like a very drunk baby elephant, like I am now.

“Holly?” says Elliot, making it sound like a statement of disappointed fact, rather than a question.

This, of course, isn’t right either. The Elliot of my imaginings is always pathetically grateful to be in my presence once more; desperately begging my forgiveness as soon as he lays eyes on me. This Elliot, however, lets go of my arm as soon as I’m upright again, looking like he’s already planning his exit.

Which he probably is, knowing him.

He’s good at planning exits, after all.

Still, at least he didn’t say ‘It’s you’. That would’ve been too much, even for him.

“I knew it,” I gasp, wincing with pain as I put my weight onto the foot I’ve just released from the pavement. “I knew it was you outside the cafe this morning. And yesterday, in the square! I thought I was going mad at first, but I wasn’t. You’re … you’re really here.”

The look on Elliot’s face confirms that I’m babbling. I close my mouth quickly, before I can depart any further from the imaginary script in which Elliot and I meet for the first time in a decade, and I pretend not to recognize him.

“ Why are you here, though?” I burst out, instantly failing in my resolve to be cool and distant, and not to say anything else. “Why now?”

Elliot looks down at me, as if I’m a problem he’s trying to figure out how to solve. The lights of the Christmas tree illuminate his face, which is sharper and more angular than I remember. He’s not wearing his glasses. His hair is shorter and neater, although still with that slight curl to it that suggests it might spring back into its familiar, slightly disheveled state at any second.

He looks older, of course — I expect I do too — but the biggest difference is in his eyes.

There’s no twinkle in those dark navy eyes now; just wariness and distrust — two emotions I can’t help but think he has absolutely no right to direct at me , when he’s the one who’s well and truly proven he can’t be trusted.

How dare he act like he’s the one who got ghosted, when we both know it was me ?

“My publishers asked me to come,” he says in a ‘stating the obvious tone’. “It wasn’t my choice, trust me.”

Trust me.

Famous last words.

“Right,” I say, with as much dignity as I can muster, given that my ankle feels like it’s on fire, and my most significant ex is looking at me as if he only barely recognizes me. “Your publisher. Of course.”

I’m not going to ask why his publishers wanted him to come to Bramblebury.

I’m definitely not going to ask if it’s got anything to do with the sequel to The Snow Globe he’s permanently rumored to be writing.

I’m not going to ask him anything at all, actually. This is the new Holly Hart he’s looking at. The one with the fresh new start, and a publishing deal of her own, albeit as a ghostwriter, rather than a ‘real’ author, like Elliot.

“So, why’s that, then?” I blurt out, proving once again that my willpower is less than stellar. “Why’d your publisher want you to come here? You’re not writing another book, are you?”

Elliot’s cheeks darken slightly, as if he’s embarrassed .

Well, good. He should be embarrassed if he really has come to my hometown to celebrate the publication of the book he wrote about our relationship; the one that broke my heart all over again. He should be begging my forgiveness, just like he does in my imagination.

Instead, he just shuffles his feet awkwardly, then reaches up to adjust his glasses, remembering at the last second that he’s not actually wearing them anymore.

“I’m here for the book festival, actually,” he replies at last. “The publishers have booked a stall at it. Like I say, it wasn’t my idea, I promise.”

My eyes narrow with suspicion. We have the book festival in Bramblebury every year; it’s been more popular than ever since The Snow Globe put the village on the literary map. Elliot’s never felt the need to come to it before, though; which makes it strange that he’d decide to rock up here after all this time, even if his publisher was putting pressure on him. Unless…

“I’m not just here for the festival,” he adds, confirming my suspicions. “There’s… well, some other stuff, too.”

“Right,” I say, biting back the urge to ask what the ‘other stuff’ might be, and if it has anything to do with me. I feel like I’ve used up my daily quota of stupid questions now — and some of tomorrow’s too, for good measure. “Well. I guess I’ll be going, then.”

I can’t quite figure out how to end this interaction gracefully. I’m not going to lie and say it was nice to see him, and I really hope I don’t see him around, so I stand there for a moment, before turning on my heel in an attempt at walking away, with my head held high; the way I should have walked away from him years ago, when we met.

Instead, though, I find myself stumbling yet again, the ankle of the foot that got trapped between the cobblestones buckling under me, and almost tripping me up for a second time.

Shit. This is the last thing I need when I’m trying to pull off a suitably dramatic exit.

“Holly, wait.”

Before I can figure out what to do, Elliot’s beside me, his arm around my waist this time, a whiff of the cologne he always used to wear sending me whizzing back through the years, like some kind of lovelorn time-traveler.

“Is it your ankle?” he asks, apparently oblivious to the cocktail of conflicting emotions that’s making me feel dizzy. “Can you stand on it?”

“Yup,” I reply brightly, almost shrieking in pain when I put my weight on my foot to test this theory. “I’ll be absolutely fine. You can let me go now.”

I look pointedly down at his arm, and he springs back as if he’s been stung. I immediately wobble dangerously on my one reliable leg, like an Edwardian lady having an attack of the vapors. Or a very drunk person.

No, this is definitely not how I pictured our first meeting going.

Elliot looks at me doubtfully.

“Look,” he says, after what appears to be a short but spirited internal tussle. “I’ll just help you into the shop. We’re almost there, anyway. I can’t leave you like this.”

He looks over my shoulder, to where the light above the door is illuminating the Hart Books sign just across the square. The shop itself, though, is in darkness; everyone’s gone home for the night, and now a new problem has just occurred to me.

“I don’t live above the shop anymore,” I tell him, wishing briefly that I did; it would be much easier to hobble across the square on one leg than to make it all the way to the cottage, on the very outskirts of the village.

“You don’t?” His tone is surprised, and a tiny jolt of indignation joins the other ingredients of my emotion cocktail.

“No, Elliot,” I reply shortly. “I haven’t lived there for years. Dad doesn’t, either. Did you seriously think nothing would’ve changed since you were last here? That I’d still be living with my dad and working in a shop, while you were off being a famous author, and … whatever else you’ve been doing. I wouldn’t know, obviously. You didn’t exactly stay in touch.”

“No. No, of course I didn’t think everything would be the same,” he’s saying now, a small crease of annoyance appearing between his lowered brows. “Of course I didn’t.”

He doesn’t bother trying to explain what he did think, though. Or if he even thought about me at all . Instead, he just stands there, as if he doesn’t know what to do next.

Well, I guess that makes two of us.

“Holly?”

Another voice suddenly breaks the strained silence that’s fallen between me and Elliot, and I look up to see my ex-boyfriend — my other ex-boyfriend, I mean — Martin coming towards us through the crowd, clutching a particularly large churro he’s just bought from one of the food trucks.

I’ve never been so pleased to see him in my life.

“Everything okay here?” Martin asks, stopping next to me, and looking at Elliot with suspicion. “Oh.” His face falls as he recognizes the man beside me. “It’s you.”

Elliot and I both visibly flinch at this casual use of that line. Martin, however, appears to be completely unaware of the significance of what he’s just said. I’m sure he’s heard the line — it’s too ingrained in popular culture at this point for him not to have heard it. But, then again, Martin takes great pride in being one of the few people in Bramblebury never to have read or watched The Snow Globe . It’s like a badge of honor for him; and one of the main reasons I finally agreed to go out with him, after years of turning him down. (The fact that not liking The Snow Globe is the most interesting thing about him, meanwhile, is one of the main reasons we broke up…)

Elliot nods stiffly in Martin’s direction, in a manner that makes it impossible to tell whether he’s recognized him or not. To be fair, Martin has gained some weight and lost some hair since they last met; plus, there’s a thin crust of sugar around his lips from the churro he’s been eating. But his sandy hair and affable expression are unchanged, so I’m certain he must know he’s face-to-face with his onetime rival.

I’m just not sure he cares.

“Um, Elliot was just leaving,” I say, somehow managing to resist adding the words he’s good at that, even though I desperately want to. “Martin, I don’t suppose you’d walk me home, would you? I’ve hurt my ankle.”

I hold it aloft to show him, regretting this morning’s decision to wear the high-heeled leather boots which looked fabulous in the mirror, but which just seem frivolous and silly now they’ve quite literally been my downfall. You can’t even see my ankle underneath them, obviously, but Martin makes some appropriately concerned noises, before straightening up and offering me his arm, which is reassuringly steady. Leaning on it feels a bit like pulling on a favorite old sweater, and makes me feel briefly guilty for having spent the last few weeks desperately trying to avoid him.

He might not be the most exciting man I’ve ever dated, but at least he’s always been there when I needed him. And he’s never tried to write a book about me, either.

There’s that, too.

“Come on,” he says, clearly relishing the opportunity to take charge of a situation. Martin is very good at taking charge of situations.. “Let’s get you home. I left the car parked just around the corner. You know that place on Morrison Street? It was the closest I could get it; I can’t believe how many people turned out to see the lights.”

I squeeze his arm gently to get him to stop talking; the difficulty of finding a parking space in Bramblebury at Christmas time is one of Martin’s favorite topics, and once he gets started on it, we could be here all night.

“Well, nice seeing you again,” he says politely, turning to Elliot, who hasn’t spoken since Martin arrived on the scene, like a churro-weilding knight in a shining puffer coat. “We’d, er, best be getting off home, then.”

He says this in a way that strongly implies that the ‘home’ we’re going to belongs to both of us, and I don’t bother to correct him. Why shouldn’t Elliot think I’ve moved on? I mean, I have , haven’t I? And, okay, it’s not actually with Martin — right now it’s not with anyone — but that doesn’t mean I’m some kind of modern-day Miss Havisham, still sitting among the ruins of my youth, in my Dad’s dusty old bookshop, does it? There have been other men since Elliot. I’ve done things with my life. I’ve even written books; and, okay, they might not be bestsellers, like his book, but at least they’re true. (Well, most of them are. I still have doubts about the usefulness of How to Manifest Your Dreams Using Your Moon Sign , but that doesn’t mean the information in it wasn’t meticulously researched, to the best of my ability.)

“What’s he doing here, then?” Martin asks, as I hobble on his arm towards the street he’s parked his car in (“A real gift of a space, Holly; I couldn’t believe it when I saw it was empty!”). “It’s not something to do with this book he’s supposed to be writing, is it?”

I glance up at him, surprised. Martin is one of the few non-bookish people in my life. In fact, other than Lord of the Rings ( Which is a given, really), and A Game of Thrones (Which he claims to have read, having only seen the TV show), I’m not sure he’s finished an entire book in his life. He’s the last person in the world to have his finger on the pulse of the publishing industry; which means he’s either been talking to the Poole sisters, or this rumor about Elliot and a new book really has grown legs.

“Where did you hear about that?” I ask casually. “Did Elsie tell you?”

“No, Levi did,” Martin replies, holding onto me a little tighter than is necessary. “When I popped into the bookstore earlier, looking for you. He was all excited about it — more than usual, I mean. Said he’d seen something about it on TikTok, so he was sure it must be really happening this time.”

“Oh. Right.”

We walk on — or hop on, in my case — and I try to ignore the creeping sensation of doom that’s prickling the back of my neck. I often feel a sensation of doom. It’s one of my defining characteristics; the way I always anticipate the worst, as if expecting bad things to happen will somehow rob them of their power to hurt me.

But this is different. This feeling of doom is very real; and I’m 100% sure it’s connected to Elliot Sinclair. Well, who else has the ability to make me feel like my world’s been turned upside down with just a few short-sentences? Not Martin, that’s for sure. Not anyone , actually.

Only Elliot.

“So, is he?” says Martin, blissfully unaware of my uncharitable thoughts about him. “Is he here to write another book? Is that what you were talking about just now? Or did he want to talk about something else?”

His hand tightens on my elbow, and I feel a flicker of sympathy for him. It can’t have been much fun for him, either, living in the shadow of The Snow Globe , and constantly having to field questions about a decade-ago relationship his girlfriend had with someone else. And I may be his ex-girlfriend now, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care how he feels.

“No,” I tell him truthfully. “No, he didn’t mention a new book. We didn’t really talk much at all, really. I just tripped right in front of him, and he stopped to help me. That was it.”

And that was it. Someone tripped. Someone else caught them. End of story. Not even Elliot Sinclair could turn that briefest of interactions into the opening scenes of his sequel.

But what if he does ?

Or tries to, at least?

The thought rolls around my head all the way back to the car (Which is, as Martin promised, parked in a really great space). And, by the time we pull up outside the gate of my house, and Martin finally accepts my assurances that no, I don’t need him to come in and ‘look after me’, the bouncing thought is creating so much noise in there that the only way to silence it is to pull out my phone and open up the email from the agency.

“ Hi Harper, ” I type, collapsing onto the sofa and propping my foot up on the coffee table in front of me. “ Hope you’re well. Just wanted to thank you again for the ghostwriting offer, and let you know that I’m happy to accept. Let me know when you’d like me to start! ”

Then I hit send.

If Elliot can write a book, then so can I. But if he thinks he can use me as material for his plot this time… well, let’s just say he has another think coming.