Chapter Three

Mackenzie

Stop flirting with him. Right. Now.

His grin doesn’t help, but I pretend not to notice. Instead, I cross my arms and concentrate on the array of sandwiches and pastries in the glass counter-top displays. Please don’t jump all over my stupid comment. Just like earlier, the quote slipped out accidentally, not that I’m trying to justify my gaffe. When he asked if I wanted to get something to eat, I should’ve stuck to my plan and got the bus home.

I don’t know what made me start with the quoting again.

Because you’ve missed it.

Okay, sure. I’ve missed the easy friendship we once shared, but that’s no excuse for pretending the last two years never happened. No more Princess Bride, got it?

I’m not even going to dignify that thought with a response. I pick up a vegetarian wrap with a pair of tongs and place it on my plate, before adding an apple.

“Which herbal tea do you want, Mac?”

“Chamomile, thanks.” Despite my promise not to flirt again, I can’t stop a smile escaping. Smiling doesn’t count. I’m just relieved he decided to ignore my last remark. “You should try it sometime.”

His grin sends my stomach into freefall. Bugger. “I need my caffeine to function.”

Yeah, and I need oxygen, which seems to be in short supply right now. He pays for my lunch before I have the chance to pull out my card and then glances at me, as though he’s daring me to argue.

I pick up my tray. “You know what that means, don’t you? I owe you one.”

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with what I just said, except the innuendo pounds through my mind, and, if that wasn’t bad enough, I’ve also challenged him to a second date.

It’s not a frigging date.

I need to backtrack, and fast, but the problem is I want to see him again, even if it’s got nothing to do with Jake Myers or Atomic Fire.

“I’ll collect next week.”

“Okay.” My voice is breezy, even though inside I’m tied into knots. Is he serious?

We make our way outside and find a table beside the lake, with a view of the Princess Di Memorial Fountain. The wind’s picked up since this morning, but I don’t mind the drop in temperature. With a bit of luck, it’ll cool my rampant hormones.

“Okay?” His tone is mocking, and I flap my napkin over my lap, so I don’t have to look at him. “I half expected you to throw your tea at me.”

“Why waste a perfectly good cup of tea?” I take a sip to reinforce my point, but it’s only a ploy so I can continue to avoid his warm gaze. I don’t even have to look to know it’s warm. I can feel it.

“I’ve missed this.” He’s not messing around anymore. My breath catches in my throat at his serious expression, and butterflies spiral in my stomach. I replace my cup on its saucer before I spill my tea like a prize dork.

“What, us hanging out together?” The question’s out before I can stop it.

He shrugs, and frowns at his lunch. “Yeah. Haven’t you?”

Still holding the handle, I tap my thumb against the rim of the cup. It’s a nervous gesture, and I can’t help it. I can’t look at Will, either.

The truth is, I hate the way everything fell apart between us. I shouldn’t have let one mistake ruin our friendship. Time to grow up and move on.

There are a dozen responses to his question, but only one that matters. “Yes.”

“Right.” There’s no mistaking his relief, and a little ripple of warmth swirls through me, giving the butterflies another intoxicating shot of adrenaline to play with. It’s crazy, but I never really considered that he might’ve missed the way we used to get on so well. Just assumed he didn’t care that things had gone bad between us. “Do you reckon we could be friends again?”

From the first time he came to the house he always got on well with my parents, and over the years attended most family things as though he was a third son. It’s not like we’ve been able to avoid each other for the last couple of years, even when we tried to.

At least, I tried to. To avoid going to his birthday party that Lucas arranged, I even made up an excuse that I had an emergency meeting at Great Ormond Street Hospital concerning the summer internship I had there.

It’s so hard pretending he’s nothing more to me than Lucas’s best friend. But that’s all he ever can be. I’ve always known it.

He’s waiting for my answer like it really matters. Why am I second-guessing everything? I don’t want this senseless feud continuing until we’re old and wrinkly. We’re better than that.

Can we be friends again?

“I’d like that.” I give him a faint smile.

“I should’ve asked you a long time ago.”

“Better late than never.” Honesty compels me to add, “Then again, I could’ve asked you.”

I tuck an escaped curl behind my ear before taking a bite of my apple and catch an irresistible smile on his face.

“What is it?”

“You. Snow White.”

My warm thoughts crash. He used to call me that when I was a kid, and I always hated it. Why did he have to spoil the moment? If I had any sense I’d ignore his comment. It’s not like I want to start an argument. But I’ve never been great at taking my own advice and the words are out before I can stop them. “I’m not a precious princess.”

“I know that.”

I’m so glad one of us finds this funny. “What’s with the Snow White dig, then?”

“Dig?’ He appears genuinely confused. “Your hair’s always reminded me of Snow White.”

Wait. My hair? “That’s the reason?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh.” Crap. Did I just make a total idiot of myself? He doesn’t look as though I’ve stuffed up our newfound friendship.

I glance at my bright red apple and have the ridiculous urge to laugh.

An easy silence falls between us as we eat our lunch. God, I have missed this.

“How’s your dad?” he asks.

“He’s good.” Well, as good as he’ll ever be without Mum. A familiar pang of grief hits me, and I take another sip of tea to clear my throat. You’d think after six years the pain wouldn’t be so bad, but I miss her so much.

Still can’t think about the last conversation we had without wanting to curl up into a protective ball.

When he doesn’t respond, I chance glancing at him. He’s finishing his coffee as though that’s the most important thing in existence, but there’s an odd tension that wasn’t there a few seconds ago.

Mentally, I slap myself. It was only three years ago his dad suddenly died. In a strange way that brought us closer together, both having lost a parent unexpectedly. A shared connection, under the surface, like an invisible bond.

I lick my lips. It’s stupid, but it feels odd asking how his mum is, as I hardly know her, and we’ve only met a couple of times.

“Is your mum okay?”

His cup freezes halfway between table and mouth, and he shoots me a look I can’t figure out.

“Yes, she’s fine.”

Is it my imagination or does he sound as though he doesn’t want to talk about her?

“Oh, good.” Common sense tells me to move on, but I can’t help it. “Is she still enjoying her charity work?”

His mum was always very much a lady who lunches, except she was always the one who organized the events, as well as being joint partner with his dad in the private investment bank they owned. When his dad died, and Will took over the company, he told me his mum threw herself into her charity work. A form of therapy, I guess.

“Not so much.” His tone is definitely guarded now, as though I’ve crossed a line or something. “She resigned from several of the boards a while back.”

“I didn’t know that.” There’s no reason why I should, and even if Lucas knew it probably wouldn’t cross his mind to tell me. On second thought, I doubt my brother has a clue. Whereas Brooklyn and I spill our guts on a regular basis, guys are so weird about telling each other stuff.

He shrugs. “It was over a year ago. She needed time to…” he hesitates, which is so not like him that I have the scary urge to take his hand and squeeze his fingers. You can’t do that. I pick up my cup instead. “You know. Get her life together again.”

“Sure.” I nod to show I completely understand, even though a part of me wants to dig deeper because something just doesn’t feel right. And although once I would have, those days have long gone, despite our brand-new friendship pledge.

I take a sip of tea and try not to mind.

“What about you?”

I glance up, lips still attached to my cup, and his drop-dead gorgeous smile is aimed my way. Stop thinking about him like that.

“Still with Jon?”

My tea goes down the wrong way, and I choke. How does he even know about Jon? Even Dad didn’t meet him during the Easter break, before I ended things with him the first week back at Uni.

Which means he found out from Lucas. It also means my brother talks about me with Will. I’m not sure how I feel about that.

“Uh, no.” I press my napkin against my mouth and hope this conversation is dead. The last thing I want to talk to him about is my ex.

“New guy on the scene?”

Even my brothers don’t ask me this. But Will always did. He was forever teasing me about the numerous boys I dated while still at school, and then the handful of guys I went out with during my gap year, after I returned home from Africa.

“I’m taking a break from guys.” Isn’t that the truth. The same goes for my social life, too. Not that I’m telling my family that. They’d worry. That’s why I pretended to agree with Will earlier when he joked about my party lifestyle.

“Why’s that?” He grins like I’m joking.

If anyone else asked me that—my brothers, for example—I’d give a flippant response. Because they’re too much trouble. I almost tell him that, except for some reason I can’t.

“It turns out I can’t handle a relationship and keep up with my studies.” Talk about an understatement. At school, I was usually at the top of the class. For some insane reason, I thought Oxford wouldn’t be that different.

How wrong can you get? I might not be at the bottom of the class, but I’m not far off.

“Bit of a culture shock?” For once, he’s not messing around, and I have a scary moment when I want to confide in him completely.

There’s no way you can tell anyone, least of all Will, how badly you suck at Uni.

Brooklyn’s the only one who knows how rubbish things really are. Nerves spike through my stomach as I recall my tutor’s veiled warning at the end of last term.

Is there anything you need to talk about, Mac? We’re concerned about your grades…

“More like a rude awakening.” Thought you weren’t going to talk about it?

“Hey, don’t be so hard on yourself. You got into one of the top universities in the world. You’re allowed to have a non-genius day sometimes.”

I push worries of my just average grades to the back of my mind and give a little huff of laughter because he’s being kind of adorable.

In a totally platonic, my brother’s best friend kind of way.

“Genius is pushing it. That’s Harry’s specialty.”

“You’re still enjoying the course, though, right?”

Shock streaks through me. No one’s ever asked me that before. It’s always assumed I love what I’m doing, and I’ve never contradicted that view. Why would I? Gaining my medical degree has been my fate since I was nine-years-old.

But for Will to ask. It blows my mind. Either he’s become scarily empathic over the last couple of years, or my “everything’s fine” mask slipped.

It must be my mask. Keeping up this masquerade is exhausting. And I’ve another four years of it.

You’ve a lifetime of it. I smother the flare of panic and give him a careless shrug. Mask on. “Sure. It’s my raison d’etre, remember?”

It’s the last promise I made to my mum.