An hour after we had left our last stop in Glasgow, we were back at the farm with our supplies. We had seen Finn working with the chainsaw at the top of the garden, and we noticed the hire car in the driveway. Ellie had arrived. I wasn’t sure how I fell about that. I had liked her in school, but I don’t think that she ever saw me as anything more than her best friend’s big brother. I hadn’t seen her in years, but still, the thoughts of her pretty face with her freckles and her wild hair and dark eyes found their way into my mind from time to time. It was hard not to be smitten with her. She had such a vivid imagination too, it was easy to see why she was now an author. A pretty good one too, I mean, she wasn’t exactly Jane Austen, but she was definitely good at what she did.

Charlie started pulling stuff out of the back of the truck, and I whistled up the garden and called Finn over to help. When he got to us, he had a face like thunder. “Who pissed in your cornflakes?” I asked as he stomped past me and grabbed a bag of cement from the van and stomped into the barn with it.

Charlie chuckled as he watched him. “I see someone is still affected by Ellie’s presence then.”

Finn stopped and stared at Charlie. “She chewed my fucking balls off this morning because I was working with the chainsaw!” He growled.

“What time was that at?” Charlie asked him.

Finn rolled his eyes. “About half eight.”

I snorted. Charlie shook his head. “I’m not surprised the poor girl chewed your nut sack off mate, I mean, who the fuck uses a chainsaw that early?” Finn glared at him.

“Wouldn’t have been an issue if she wasn’t here.” And with that, he seemed to consider the conversation done. He threw the bag of cement down and stomped his way back over to the truck grabbing more to help us unload; brooding and silent the whole time. Charlie just looked at me with a knowing smirk and carried on working alongside Finn.

“Well I don’t know about you, but I want lunch. Finn, do you want to head over to the cottage and get Ellie in with us. As a way of making it up to her for the noise?” Charlie suggested. Ever the peacekeeper was our big brother. Finn agreed and sulked off in the direction of the cottage.

I chuckled to him as he walked past. “Someone’s still very much wound up about Ellie Dawson.”

Charlie raised an eyebrow at me. “Are you sure we all aren’t feeling the same way. I don’t think Finn is the only one that never really got out from under her spell.”

I shrugged. All of us? Had Charlie ever liked Ellie like that? It was news to me if he had, he must have hidden it really well, because I can’t say that it had ever been mentioned, nor had it been in any way obvious.

Fifteen minutes later we were all sitting around the table in the farmhouse. The kitchen wasn’t completely finished yet, but it was coming along nicely. We at least had cabinets and counters now. That was a vast improvement on how it had been last week. Of course, we’d done that because a guest was coming, and while Ellie wasn’t staying in the house, it didn’t hurt to have it at least some way usable as an actual kitchen.

“I think I owe you a bit of a sorry for earlier this morning,” Finn mumbled in the corner, glancing sheepishly at Ellie.

She glanced up at him, thinking about her reply, I waited to see if he would get another ear bashing or if he was being let off the hook for now? She said nothing to him. “Thank you for lunch. I get so engrossed in what I’m doing that sometimes I can forget simple things like eating and drinking.”

“You’re welcome.” Charlie smiled and handed her a plate with sandwiches and a bowl of soup.

“This is lovely, thank you.” She smiled back. “And I’m sorry too, Finn. I hadn’t slept well, and when I don’t sleep, I tend to get up and write instead, so I had been up for most of the night before finally passing out.”

Finn nodded, took his own plate and looked at her. “In that case, I’m definitely sorry that I woke you this morning.” She smiled, accepting his apology. Charlie handed me my plate before sitting down with his own, and we sat there in tense silence until I couldn’t take it any longer. “So, how’s the book going?” I asked between mouthfuls of warming soup.

“Not too bad so far. Now that I’ve settled into it, I guess I can understand what my editor was getting at if I’m honest.”

I nodded. “So, what’s this one about?”

“You really want to know?” She thought that I was just humouring her.

“I really want to know.”

She thought about it. “Well, it’s frenemies to lovers.”

Well, that sparked Finn’s interest! “Oh right, what like, people who hate each other and then end up in the sack?” I watched her face as she grimaced just a hint at his question.

“Yes, that’s pretty much it.”

I thought about it. I knew only too well about what she was talking about in her book. The boy that is in the same social circle with the girl and they end up with awkward fuckwittery because that’s a million times easier than just admitting that they like each other in case it makes it too weird for everyone else in the situation. Did she really think that kind of thing could actually happen? Did she ever see it happening between us? Jesus, could I see it happening between us? I chuckled at my own stupidity, and she stared at me.

“So, you really think that’s possible? You think that people who appear to hate each other can end up shagging?” I chuckled nervously.

Her expression grew dark. “Why wouldn’t it happen? Don't you think that my book is realistic then? Can’t people hate each other and then change their minds? Or-or secretly like each other the whole time?” I raised an eyebrow at her. That went from zero to off the fucking charts in a few seconds.

“That wasn’t what Jude meant, Ellie.” Charlie soothed, and damn him there was something about him doing that which apparently worked for her.

“Sorry, I just – well I haven’t slept much have I, and it’s making me a bit of a bitch.”

I saw Finn’s mouth open to say something, and I kicked him under the table. I loved my brother, but sometimes, most times, in fact, his mouth opened long before his brain kicked into gear.

“Sorry Ellie, I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“Sorry Jude, I’m just worried sick about it, and it’s a concept that I’m already fighting with my editor about. I just don’t like having to justify it as a storyline to someone who thinks it’s all nonsense because that’s just not how it works.” Awkward silence returned.

Fuck.

I hadn’t meant it like that at all. In the world of Jude Edwards that was exactly how things worked, because I wanted it with Ellie. Years ago, I resisted her, I walked away, I appeared aloof and ‘above all that’ and kept her away from me. But not anymore. I couldn’t, I wanted her, and the thought that she was writing a book about the exact scenario that we were in made me genuinely curious as to whether or not she really thought it could happen. She wouldn’t write it if she didn’t know it was possible. Right?

I shook my head, thinking like that was the most unhelpful course of action that I had contemplated to date. I needed to escape. I needed to go and do some good old-fashioned manual labour.