Page 21 of One Night in Edinburgh

Connor takes what appears to be a therapeutic glug of coffee. ‘OK, so I’ve shared. Now you go.’

I smile at him. ‘You know, this isn’t nearly as weird as I thought it would be. It’s just you and me, enjoying spending time together as we always do – but without the physical stuff.’

‘To be fair, there hasn’t been much of that for quite a while.’

‘True. All right, it’s basically the same, apart from the fact we’re talking about our love lives – with other people.’

I clear my throat, still a little uncomfortable about sharing my own story, but now it’s because my night went stupendously well compared to Connor’s.

‘So, I went to the street party as planned, and met up with Anna. We got talking to this cute guy at the Christmas market, which initially didn’t go so well…’

I fill Connor in on the whole story, including my recurring ‘whitey’ moments and Jamie ending up sleeping in our bed and legging it out the door seconds before Connor arrived.

‘That’s brilliant.’ He gives me a very genuine congratulatory high five. ‘Funny the way things work out. I end our relationship to be with someone else, and you’re the one who gets the big score. I kind of like that. Makes me feel a whole lot better about how I handled things.’

‘Good, I’m glad.’

‘When are you seeing him again then?’

‘I’m… eh… oh, shit.’ I blanch as the realisation hits me. ‘We were in such a panic trying to avoid you seeing him that we didn’t swap numbers. I’ve no idea how to reach him.’

Chapter 7

At around six p.m., I pull into the frost-covered driveway of my childhood home in Colinton, and open the boot of the car to get my overnight bag. Still feeling rough from the Hogmanay shenanigans, this family dinner is the last thing I want to be doing this evening, but it’s a tradition of my parents’; neither my brother nor sister or I have been brave enough to rebel as yet.

Having worked some stuff out with Connor earlier, we’ve agreed that we’ll keep living together, but he’ll take the spare room, once it’s emptied of the items for the auction in a few days. In the meantime, he’s going to stay with his mum, and spend some time with her once he’s told her his news. He was hopeful that it wouldn’t be too difficult a conversation as his mum’s very liberal and laidback – and in her words, Connor, her only child, is her single reason for living. We have also agreed that I’ll let my family know we’ve split up, but that I won’t disclose the reason why, not until Connor’s told the most important people in his life, and he’s feeling more comfortable about things.

I’m stalling for time, unnecessarily rummaging through the stuff in the boot, when the front door to the house is hauled open and my dad emerges.

‘Sweetheart, what are you doing? You’ve been out here for more than five minutes.’

‘Not that anyone’s counting.’ I grimace at him, as he reaches me and hauls my luggage out of my hand, insistent as always that he delivers it to my room like he’s a hotel concierge. ‘Happy New Year, Dad.’

‘Of course. Happy New Year to you, too.’ He gives me a quick kiss on the cheek. ‘You’re in the single room tonight.’

‘No change there then. You know, I may be the youngest, but surely that doesn’t mean I should always be relegated to the smallest room and given the last say on everything. What if Connor was with me? We couldn’t have slept in a single bed together.’

‘He’s not coming then?’ My dad ignores my protestation, and instead adopts an irritating tone of we-thought-as-much.

Instead of pleading Connor’s case as I normally do, I keep quiet because I’m not yet ready to break the news of our expired relationship. Dad seems to notice this uncharacteristic silence, and gives me a curious look. To avoid his scrutiny, I pretend I’m interested in the evening ahead.

‘What kind of roast did Mum land on in the end?’ I tramp along behind him into the house, which is bursting with all the wonderful smells of a banquet-style dinner. ‘I’m hoping for lamb.’

‘Your mother’s outdone herself this year with a duo. We’re having a leg of lamb and roast duck!’

‘Ooh, that sounds good. Have Kayleigh and Mikey arrived yet?’

I’m sincerely hoping so, mainly so that I can get a bit of banter going with my brother, but also so that I’m not under the microscope with my parents. I’m more lukewarm about my sister, who’s a wannabe socialite, and extremely snotty and annoying. The extent of her ‘banter’ is boasting about how many new followers she’s acquired on Instagram, and bleating on about the latest mishaps of some celebrity or another that the rest of us have never heard of. Real world-changing stuff.

‘They’re both here,’ says my dad. ‘They arrived earlier this afternoon. Kayleigh’s been busy helping your mum in the kitchen.’

This is a pointed comment to highlight the fact that I’ve arrived later than expected; his assumption being that I’m trying to dodge helping with the dinner preparations. However, the truth is that I spent a good portion of the afternoon nursing my hangover, constantly checking my phone – despite the fact I never even gave Jamie my details – and scouring all the social media platforms I can think of to try and track him down. I even hoped he might turn up at my place again to check on things, but that was perhaps a little over-optimistic. For all Jamie knows, Connor came crawling back to beg my forgiveness, we leapt into each other’s arms, and Jamie’s been relegated to nothing more than blip in our perfect relationship record, never to be mentioned again.

‘Good for her,’ I reply to my dad. ‘I’ll go say hello to them then.’

I leave him at the stairs as he heads up to my room, which happens to be the bedroom I had as a child. It’s been redecorated since and converted into an office, so my night will be spent on a fold-down chair bed that digs into the base of my spine in a way that no sleep-related furniture ever should. Wandering into the spacious living room, I find my brother camped out in front of the TV, peeling a huge mountain of carrots with a tub in his lap for the peelings and the finished carrots in another on the sofa to his right.

‘Hey Mikey,’ I greet him. ‘Happy New Year. Nice little set up you’ve got going on there.’

---