Chapter 12: Midnight Homecoming
The key felt cold and strange in her hand, a sliver of metal that unlocked a life. Roz stood outside Ally’s door, the noise of the city a distant hum behind her. The sponsor dinner. He’d be gone for hours. He’d said anytime.
She turned the key. The click was definitive.
Inside, the flat was quiet and shadowed, still holding the day’s warmth. A single lamp he’d left on cast a soft pool of light over the sofa. It felt different, being here alone. It felt like a test. She could see the ghost of their morning everywhere: the two empty coffee cups side-by-side on the counter, the towel neatly hung over the bathroom rail, the faint indent on the pillow where his head had been.
Her own studio had become a cage of nervous energy. The varnish was dry, the paintings were ready, and all that was left was the terrifying silence before the showing. She needed to be somewhere that felt like an anchor. This, inexplicably, did.
She texted him: Using the key. Don’t worry if you see a strange shape in your bed. It’s just me, hiding from my brain.
His reply came a few minutes later, a lifeline: Best news all day. Save my side. This thing is torture. x
She showered, using her own products from her bag, the familiar citrus scent cutting through the clean, masculine smell of his space. She found an old, soft t-shirt of his in a drawer—it swam on her, the fabric smelling faintly of detergent and him—and put it on. Then she crawled into his king-sized bed, under the heavy tartan duvet. The sheets were cool linen. She curled on his side, her face pressed into his pillow, and breathed him in. The tension of the day, the sharp edge of her exhibition anxiety, began to soften, blurred by his absence and his permission to be there.
The door opened close to midnight. The sound was a gentle thud, then the quiet scratch of a key being placed on the ceramic bowl.
Ally stood in the doorway, backlit by the hall light. He looked drained. The elegant suit, now loose and rumpled, hung on his frame like a costume. He’d torn the tie off; it was stuffed into his jacket pocket, the end trailing. He toed off his shoes, wincing as his feet hit the cool floor.
The flat was dark except for the lamp he’d left on. And then he saw her.
A small, dark shape in the centre of his bed, curled around his pillow. One of his grey t-shirts had slipped off her shoulder. Her hair fanned out, a stark contrast against the white linen. She was so deeply asleep she hadn’t stirred.
Something in his chest, something that had been wound tight all evening—the fake smiles, the inane chatter, the constant performance—snapped. A wave of pure, undiluted feeling washed through him, so potent it left him lightheaded. It was more than want. It was a fierce, calming recognition. Mine. Here.
He moved silently, shrugging off his jacket, letting it fall to the floor. His shirt followed, buttons yielding with soft pops. He undressed in the dim light, each discarded piece of the evening’s uniform a relief. The suit was a lie. This, the quiet dark, her in his bed, was the truth.
He slid under the duvet beside her. The heat of her body was a brand. The scent in the sheets was now a complex mix: his cologne, her shampoo, the clean salt of her skin. It was the smell of their collision.
He didn’t wake her. Not at first. He lay on his side, propped on an elbow, and just looked. In the faint glow from the window, he could trace the line of her spine through the thin cotton, the delicate notches like a secret pathway. He lowered his head.
His first kiss was a ghost of a touch at the nape of her neck, right where the delicate hairs curled. She sighed in her sleep, a shift in the rhythm of her breath.
He followed the line. A press of his lips to each vertebra, slow, worshipful migrations down the landscape of her back. His hand slid under the hem of the t-shirt, his palm rough and warm against the smooth skin of her waist. He felt the exact moment she surfaced from sleep, a tiny stiffening, then a melting that was more profound than any surrender.
“Ally,” she murmured, her voice thick with sleep.
“Right here, baby.” His words were a vibration against her skin. He kissed the dip at the base of her spine. “Don’t move. Just let me.”
His hands spanned her waist, holding her still as his mouth continued its exploration. He pushed the t-shirt up, revealing the full, pale expanse of her back in the gloom. He worshipped it. With his lips, his tongue, the scratch of his stubble. He mapped her. This was his new study. Her sharp intake of breath was his data. The way her fingers twisted in the sheets was his conclusion.
He turned her, finally, onto her back. Her eyes were wide, dark pools in the shadows. Sleep-soft and vulnerable.
“How was the torture?” she whispered, reaching up to touch his jaw.
“Gone now.” He caught her hand, kissed her palm, then her wrist, where her pulse hammered. “You’re really here.”
“You gave me a key.”
“Best decision I ever made.” He lowered himself over her, his weight a familiar comfort. He kissed her, deep and slow, tasting sleep and herself. It was different from the night before. Less frantic discovery, more solemn claiming. A reinforcement.
Later, tangled and breathless, the duvet kicked to the floor, the only light came from the distant sodium glow of the training ground lamps outside the window. She lay with her head on his chest, listening to the runaway gallop of his heart gradually slow.
“My mother wants to meet you,” he said into the dark.
The words hung there. Roz went very still. “What?”
“She phoned. After the dinner. She’d seen some tweet from the team account, a picture of me in the suit. She said I looked ‘well-settled.’ Then she asked who’d done my tie, because it wasn’t my usual butcher’s knot. She knows. She always knows.”
Roz’s mind raced. “What did you say?”
“I said a friend had helped. Then she said, ‘Bring your friend for Sunday lunch. I’ll do a roast.’ It wasn’t a question.”
“Oh, god.”
He laughed, the sound rumbling under her ear. “She’s not a dragon. She’s just sharp. And she’s been waiting for me to bring someone home who isn’t a teammate or a sports physio for about five years.”
“Sunday? This Sunday?”
“The day after your show.” His arm tightened around her. “One threshold at a time, yeah? First, your triumph. Then, my mild interrogation.”
She swallowed, the reality of it cascading over her. The show. Meeting his mother. His match in Cardiff. It was all a speeding train, and she was clinging to the side. “Ally… what if she hates me?”
“Impossible.” He said it with such absolute conviction it brooked no argument. “She’ll love you. She’ll probably show you my embarrassing childhood photos and tell you about the time I tried to knit my own rugby socks. The danger is her liking you too much.”
He rolled, pinning her gently beneath him again, his face serious in the dim light. “Listen. This is the messy part. The part with family and schedules and pressure. I need you with me in it. Not just in this bed, but out there. In the ugly suit, at my mum’s table, in the stadium stands when it’s pissing rain and I’m covered in mud. Can you do that?”
She looked up at him, at the earnest intensity in his eyes. He was offering her his whole world, not just the curated, private version. The thought was terrifying. It was also the most real thing she’d ever been asked.
She touched his face, her thumb tracing the scar on his brow. “Yes,” she said. No hesitation.
He kissed her, a slow, sealing kiss. Then he collapsed beside her, pulling the duvet back over them. “Good. Now sleep. You have a big week, artist. And I have to run until I vomit tomorrow.”
“Charming.”
“It’s my reality.” He tucked her against him, her back to his front, his body a fortress around hers. “Sweet dreams, Roz.”
Outside, the wind picked up, making the Scottish flag on the training grounds snap and flutter. Inside, wrapped in the dark and the warmth and the promise of the coming storm, she slept. And for the first time, the anxiety was quiet, replaced by a steady, thrilling hum of readiness.
The hum carried her into a deep, dreamless sleep. She didn’t stir when the dawn’s grey light seeped around the edges of the window, painting the tartan duvet in muted tones. She only woke because the solid warmth behind her shifted, then disappeared.
A kiss, soft and sleep-warm, pressed to the point of her shoulder. “I’ll make you coffee, little darlin’,” he whispered, his voice a gravelly rumble against her skin. “Stay where it’s warm, sweetheart.”
Ally climbed out of bed naked and unashamed, the cool morning air painting goosebumps over his skin. She watched him through half-closed eyes, the powerful, unselfconscious grace of his movement. The play of light and shadow across the muscles of his back, the slight hitch in his step from an old knee injury, the way he scratched the dark stubble on his jaw as he padded out to the kitchen.
The flat was silent except for the distant, domestic clatter of him filling the kettle, the click of the cooker. She stretched, her body pleasantly aching. His t-shirt was twisted around her waist. She buried her face in his pillow again, smiling foolishly at the simple, profound normality of it.
“You watching me?” his voice called out, amused.
“Maybe.” She could see a slice of the kitchen from the bed. He was leaning against the counter, arms crossed, staring out the small window above the sink, waiting for the boil. Completely at
He was leaning against the counter, arms crossed, staring out the small window above the sink, waiting for the boil. Completely at ease in his own skin, in the quiet of the morning they’d stolen.
“Penny for them,” she said, her voice husky from sleep.
He didn’t turn. “Just thinking about door science. The threshold between the kettle boiling and having coffee is the longest in human experience.” The kettle clicked off, steam billowing. “See? Agony.”
She laughed into the pillow. He poured water, the rich, dark scent of grounds filling the flat. He carried two mugs back, setting hers on the bedside table before sliding back under the duvet. He didn’t immediately reach for her, just lay on his back, one arm behind his head, staring at the ceiling.
“You’re quiet,” she said, propping herself up on an elbow to look at him.
“Mmm.” He took a sip of coffee. “Ham’s going to be a bastard today. My GPS data from yesterday’s dinner will show I walked a grand total of twelve steps between the car and the function room. He’ll see it as a personal insult.”
“Will he make you run extra?”
“He’ll make me wish for death.” Ally turned his head to look at her. “But it’s fine. It’s the job. Tell me about your day. The final push.”
A flutter of nerves returned to her stomach. “Glazing is done. I just need to sign them, and attach the hanging wires. The gallery assistant is coming at three to collect everything.”
“You’re ready.”
“I feel sick.”
“That’s how you know it matters.” He reached over and brushed a strand of hair from her cheek. “What are you wearing for the opening?”
The question was so practical it cut through the anxiety. “I don’t know. Something black. Artist uniform.”
“Wear the green dress.” He said it simply. “The one from the tapas place. The one that makes your eyes look like a storm over the isles.”
She blinked, surprised he’d remembered, that he’d stored the detail. “You won’t even be there to see it.”
“I will.” He tapped his temple. “I have the memory. And I’ll be thinking about it while I’m listening to some finance bloke in Cardiff explain rucking protocols to me. Wear the green.”
He sat up suddenly, draining his coffee. “Right. I’m late.” He leaned over and kissed her, a quick, caffeinated press of lips. “You’ll be brilliant. Send me a picture when they’re on the wall.”
And then he was moving, a whirlwind of purposeful energy. He pulled on training gear, grabbed his kit bag, kissed her once more at the door. “My mum confirmed lunch, by the way. One p.m. Don’t bring anything. Just yourself.”
Then he was gone, the flat settling into a deeper silence.
Roz spent the day in a state of heightened focus, her hands steady as she signed her name in a fine, looping script at the corner of each canvas. Door in the Rain was last. Her finger traced the red line, feeling the raised texture of the paint. It was a decision. It was a mistake. It was a door.
The gallery assistants were efficient and bland, wrapping each piece in thick grey felt. Watching them carry her work out to the van felt like surrendering a piece of her organs. She stood on the pavement long after the van had turned the corner, feeling hollow and light.
Her phone buzzed. A picture from Ally. A blurry, rain-streaked window from what must be a team bus, the green Welsh hills a smear in the background. Underneath: Thinking green. You’ve got this. x
She wore the green dress.
The private view was a blur of fractured light and noise. The gallery was all white walls and polished concrete, crowded with a murmur of voices that echoed. Roz felt detached, a ghost hovering at the periphery of her own life. She saw her paintings hanging, spotlit, looking alien and important. She saw clusters of people standing before them, pointing, their faces unreadable.
Her tutor, Elspeth, found her hiding near the drinks table. “They’re a triumph, Roslyn. The red line series is generating real chatter. There’s a critic from The Scotsman here. He’s intrigued.”
“Intrigued is good?”
“Intrigued is everything.” Elspeth squeezed her arm. “Now, stop looking like a condemned woman. Circulate.”
She tried. A man in thick-framed glasses asked her about the “post-industrial tension” in her she wentbrushwork. She mumbled something about texture and memory. Her eyes kept flicking to her phone, dark and silent on the bar. Cardiff time. He’d be in the dressing room now.
“Roslyn?” A woman with a sleek blonde bob and a severe black suit extended a hand. “Mairi Campbell. I own the Campbell Gallery on Dundas Street. I’d love to discuss representing you.”
The world snapped into sharp, terrifying focus. This was it. The offer. Roz’s mouth went dry. They talked for twenty minutes, a conversation Roz only half-remembered, about solo shows and commissions and portfolios. She agreed to a meeting the following week.
When she finally escaped to the cold night air, her head was spinning. She scrolled through her phone. A flood of good luck messages from classmates. Nothing from Ally. The match would have started.
She walked, not wanting to go back to her silent flat. Her feet, of their own accord, carried her across the city, past the quiet training grounds, to his door. She used the key.
The flat was dark, expectant. She didn’t turn on the lights. She kicked off her heels, peeled off the green dress, and put on his discarded t-shirt from that morning. It smelled like him, like sweat and cotton and home. She curled on the sofa, pulled his tartan duvet from the bed over herself, and turned on the television.
She found the match on a sports channel. The volume was low, a drone of commentary. The screen was a chaos of mud and neon light. It took her a moment to find him. Number 8. A giant moving with shocking, brutal grace. He was everywhere, a relentless force in the rain.
She watched him take a pass, drive forward through three opposing players who clung to him like barnacles, dragging them five meters before they wrestled him to the ground. The commentator’s voice rose in excited disbelief. Ally popped up immediately, mud streaked across his face, shouting instructions, clapping his hands.
This was his language. This violent, beautiful calculus. This was the other part of him.
The match was a brutal, grinding affair. She saw him get up slowly once, after a crunching collision, one hand pressed to his ribs. He shook his head at the medic, waved him away, and jogged back into the line. Her own ribs ached in sympathy.
In the final minutes, with Scotland trailing by two points, the ball came to him on a short lineout. He caught it, turned, and simply charged. There was no finesse. It was raw power, a desperate, driving surge for the line. Bodies converged on him. He disappeared under a heap of men in red.
The referee’s arm shot up. Try.
The camera caught his face as he emerged. Mud-plastered, eyes wild with exhaustion and triumph, he screamed something at the sky, a raw, guttural sound lost in the roar of the crowd.
Roz found she was crying, silent tears cutting tracks through her own make-up. The conversion was good. The whistle blew. They’d won.
Her phone lit up, buzzing on the coffee table. His name. She fumbled for it.
His voice was a shredded, breathless thing, filled with crowd noise and pure joy. “We did it! Did you see?”
“I saw.” She could barely speak. “You were… incredible. Are you hurt?”
“Nothing that won’t mend. That last one…” He laughed, a pained, happy sound. “Worth it. How was your night? Tell me everything.”
She did. The critic, the gallery owner, the offer. The words tumbled out in a rush.
His silence on the other end was profound. Then, softly, “Roz. That’s… that’s everything. I’m so proud of you I could burst.” There was a shout in the background, someone calling his name. “I have to go. Team chaos. I’ll call you from the hotel. Get some sleep. You’ve got a big day tomorrow.”
“Lunch.”
“Lunch,” he confirmed, his voice warming. “Just be yourself. She’ll adore you. I love you.”
The line went dead.
Roz sat in the dark, the words echoing in the silent room. They hadn’t said that before. It had just been there, in the space between everything else. He’d said it so easily, woven into a goodbye, as if it were the most obvious truth in the world.
The television showed the post-match interview. Ally, face cleaned up but still looking battered, was smiling politely under the bright lights. A reporter asked about his decisive try. He gave a standard answer about team effort, about the forwards laying the platform.
Then the reporter asked, “You seemed to be playing with a real point to prove tonight, Alistair. Extra motivation?”
Ally looked directly into the camera, his perceptive eyes seeming to find hers through the lens. A slow, private smile touched his lips. “You could say that. I had a very important person to make proud tonight.”
He didn’t elaborate. He didn’t need to.
Roz hugged her knees to her chest, the duvet pulled tight around her, the glow from the screen the only light in the room. The quiet hum of readiness was now a deafening roar. Tomorrow was another door. She was no longer afraid to walk through it.
She woke with the dawn light slicing through the gap in the curtains, her body still humming with the echo of his words. The flat was empty, a monument to his absence. She made the bed with a military neatness he’d appreciate, her fingers smoothing the tartan duvet. The key felt heavy in her pocket as she locked his door behind her.
Her own flat smelled of stale incense and yesterday’s toast. The silence was different here, thinner, waiting to be filled.
“Jesus Christ, you’re alive.” Denny’s voice came from the lump on the sofa, buried under a crocheted blanket. Jack’s head popped up beside hers, his hair sticking out at odd angles. “We thought you’d been kidnapped. Or murdered. We were drafting a missing persons report.”
Roz dumped her bag by the door. “I was at Ally’s. I texted you.”
“A single ‘staying out’ text does not count!” Denny swung her legs to the floor, the blanket falling. “Your exhibition was last night! We went! It was amazing, Roz. Seriously. That Campbell woman was there, looking like a shark in a suit. Did she talk to you?”
Roz nodded, leaning against the doorframe. The adrenaline was gone, leaving a hollow, tired ache. “She wants to represent me.”
Denny’s scream was piercing. Jack winced, grinning. “Roz! That’s insane! You’ve done it. You’ve actually done it.” Denny bounded over, grabbing her hands. “Your parents would be so proud. I mean, they are proud. You know what I mean.”
“I know.” Roz squeezed her hands back, a smile finally breaking through. “Thank you for going.”
“Of course we went. You think we’d miss our flatmate becoming a famous artist?” Jack said, his voice still rough with sleep. “The red line one… it got under my skin. In a good way.”
The ordinary concern, the familiar mess of her home, was a gentle anchor. It grounded the surreal high of the last twenty-four hours—the gallery owner, the try in the mud, the love confession whispered through static.
“So,” Denny said, releasing her and padding to the kettle. “You stayed at Rugby McTightpants’ place. How was the victory celebration?” She waggled her eyebrows.
“He’s in Cardiff. I was alone.” Roz moved to the window, looking out at the grey street. “His mother wants to meet me. Sunday lunch.”
The kettle’s whistle was a sharp exclamation point. Denny turned, her expression shifting from ribbing to genuine scrutiny. “Whoa. Meeting the parents. That’s… fast.”
“It feels fast. And slow. I don’t know.” Roz wrapped her arms around herself. “It just feels like it’s all happening. The show, him, this… everything. And now I have to go to his childhood home and not spill anything on my lap.”
Jack chuckled. “Just be your weird, wonderful self. The one who paints doors in the rain. If she doesn’t like that, it’s her problem.”
Denny handed her a mug of terrible instant coffee. “Jack’s right, for once. But also, strategy. What’s the vibe? Country estate? Suburban semi? We need data.”
“He grew up in a village outside Stirling. His dad’s a retired engineer. His mum teaches primary school.” Saying it out loud made it feel more real, and more terrifying.
“Okay, smart, normal people. Not aristocrats. That’s good.” Denny tapped her chin. “You need to look nice, but not like you’re trying. Approachable. Interesting, but not intimidating.” She peered at Roz. “What does your rugby Adonis think you should wear?”
Roz thought of his command in the dark. Wear the green. “He mentioned a specific dress. But that feels too… date-like. This is a roast lunch, not a gallery.”
“Take the dress,” Jack said simply from the sofa. “If he suggested it, he knows it works for you. And he knows his mum.”
Silence settled for a moment, filled only with the sound of sipping coffee. The weight of the coming weekend pressed down on her—the formal meeting with Mairi Campbell on Friday, the train to Stirling on Sunday. Two different kinds of judgment.
She looked at Denny and Jack, their familiar faces anchors in the whirlwind. “What do I wear to meet Alistair’s parents?”
Denny set her mug down with a decisive click. “Right. We’re going shopping. Not for a new outfit. For armor. Something that says ‘I’m a successful artist who has better things to do than impress you, but I’m polite so here I am.’”
“That’s a lot for a dress to say.”
“Your green dress already says half of it.” Jack stood, stretching. “Wear that. With tights. It’s Scotland. And maybe that silver necklace you made. The twisted wire one. It looks like you.”
The simplicity of his advice cut through the noise. It was about being herself, the self Ally saw. The artist. She nodded slowly, the panic receding. “Okay. The green dress.”
Her phone buzzed on the counter. A new message lit up the screen.
Ally: Landed. Ribs are purple but whole. Thinking about you in my bed. Thinking about you at my table. Can’t decide which is better. See you Sunday. x
She picked up the phone, her thumbs hovering over the keys. The flat, her friends, the unfinished coffee—it was all hers. But his words pulled at her, a new gravity.
She typed back, a small, private smile on her face.