Chapter 3: The Trophy in the Room
The jacket still hung on her chair, but now it smelled like her flat—turpentine and dust—with only a ghost of him left in the lining. Isla stared at it as she twisted her hair into a knot, then let it fall. Nothing felt right. The dress Molly had insisted on was a slip of charcoal silk, simple but undeniably a statement. It felt like a costume.
“You look amazing,” Molly said, applying a final coat of mascara in the mirror. “Stop fidgeting. It’s a party, not an interrogation.”
“It’s his team’s sponsorship celebration. It’s a room full of people who speak a language I don’t understand.” Isla’s voice was tight. “It’s the flock, en masse.”
“And you’re the mysterious rare bird they’ll all be jealous of. Now come on. Cam’s sending a car.”
The penthouse was a shock of light and sound atop a glassy New Town building. The elevator doors opened directly into a roar of conversation and thumping bass. The view was a panoramic sweep of Edinburgh Castle lit up against the ink-black sky, but no one was looking at it. The room was a sea of tailored suits, little black dresses, and the gleaming, confident smiles of athletes and the people who paid them.
Ally spotted her the moment she entered. He was surrounded by a group of older men in expensive watches, but his attention snapped to the door like a compass finding north. He excused himself with a smooth nod and cut through the crowd.
He looked different. Not just in the perfectly fitted navy suit, but in the set of his shoulders, the easy, public smile already fixed in place. This was Ally MacLeod, Asset. Then he reached her, and his eyes did that thing again—the public mask softening at the edges, letting the private man peer through.
“You came,” he said, his hand finding the small of her back, a point of warmth and certainty. “I was worried you’d bail.”
“I nearly did,” she admitted.
“Thank you for not.” He leaned in, his voice dropping. “You look… honestly, you’re going to distract me all night.” The words were for her alone. He handed her a chilled glass of champagne. “Stick with me. It’s a circus, but I’ll be your guide.”
For a while, it was okay. He kept her close, his touch a constant anchor. He introduced her to people—the team physio, a friendly woman who talked about muscle strains; the quiet, bearded CEO of the sportswear brand, who actually asked about her art. Ally translated the rugby shorthand, the insider jokes, his thumb making small, reassuring circles on her spine.
But the anchor couldn’t hold forever. A club director hauled him away for a photo op. A teammate dragged him into a debate about a new training regimen. The flock needed him. Each time he was pulled away, he’d give her an apologetic glance, a silent two minutes.
Isla drifted to the vast window, pressing her cool glass against her forehead. The castle looked like a paper cut-out. She felt like a specimen under glass herself, observed by the curious glances of women who knew Ally’s history, their eyes flicking over her with appraising, then dismissive, smiles.
“He’s in demand, eh?” Cameron appeared beside her, a bit unsteady, his tie loosened. He clinked his whisky glass against her champagne flute. “Good to see you, Isla. Really. He’s… different with you.”
“Is he?” She kept her eyes on the castle.
“Aye. Less of a… performative prick.” Cam laughed, a warm, sloppy sound. “Sorry. He’s my best mate. But he knows what he’s like. Or what he was like.” He took a gulp. “The jackets.”
Isla turned her head slowly. “The jackets?”
Cam’s face froze for a second, a slow-motion realisation of error. The alcohol had loosened his tongue, but not enough to sever it completely. “Ah, nothing. Stupid banter. Forget it.”
“What about the jackets, Cam?”
He shifted his weight, avoiding her gaze. “It’s just a thing we said. A stupid team thing. When he’d… you know. Have a new… friend. He’d get a jacket off them. A hoodie, whatever. Like a trophy. The lads would ask, ‘Got a new jacket yet?’” He tried to laugh it off. “Lad banter. It’s daft. He doesn’t do that now.”
The noise of the party receded, replaced by a high-pitched hum in Isla’s ears. She saw it with brutal clarity. Her own vintage jacket, the one he’d left at her flat after the cinema. He’d told her to keep it. You can give it back next time.
Was that the game? Was she just the current keeper of a garment, a placeholder until the next one came along? The quiet, shy girl from the art school—an unusual trophy, but a trophy nonetheless.
“Isla, hey, I’m joking—” Cam started, his face genuinely worried now.
“Don’t.” Her voice was a thin sheet of ice. She set her champagne glass down on a passing waiter’s tray. “It’s fine. Really. Just… lad banter.”
She moved through the crowd, a small, silent figure in the shimmering silk. The conversations around her were just bursts of meaningless sound. She saw Ally across the room, laughing at something a sponsor said, his head thrown back, the golden boy in his golden cage. He was a performance. And she was an audience of one, who’d foolishly started to believe the play was real.
He saw her moving and his smile dimmed. He excused himself, starting towards her, but the crowd was thick. Isla reached the elevator bank and stabbed the button.
“Isla!” His voice cut through the din, laced with panic.
The elevator doors opened with a soft chime. She stepped inside and turned. He was ten feet away, blocked by a hulking player. Their eyes locked. In his, she saw the public confidence shatter, replaced by raw, undiluted fear. He was mouthing wait, fighting his way through.
The doors slid shut.
The descent was silent and swift. In the mirrored walls, her reflection looked pale, her eyes too dark. The silk dress felt ridiculous now, a pathetic attempt to belong in a world that operated on a code she’d just cracked.
Outside, the cold night air was a physical relief. She started walking, not toward home, just away. Her heels clicked a frantic rhythm on the pavement. She didn’t cry. She felt hollowed out, scraped clean by a few drunken words.
Her phone buzzed in her small clutch. Once. Twice. Three times. She didn’t look.
She walked until her feet ached, ending up on a quiet bridge overlooking the Water of Leith. The water was a black ribbon below, swallowing the city’s lights. She leaned on the cold stone, finally pulling out her phone.
Four missed calls from Ally. Two from Molly. A stream of texts.
Isla please.
Where are you?
Whatever Cam said it’s not what you think.
Please let me explain.
I’m leaving the party. Tell me where you are.
The last one was from two minutes ago. I’m coming to your flat. Please be there.
She stared at the screen, the light bleaching her face. The part of her that had kissed him in the rain, that had felt rooted and real, screamed to answer. To listen. The older, wiser, more guarded part saw the pattern with cold clarity. The charm, the tailored attention, the gradual collection of intimacy. The jacket.
She typed a single reply. Don’t.
She turned her phone off. The silence was absolute. She walked the rest of the way home in a kind of trance, the night air numbing her skin.
Her flat was dark and still. She bypassed the light switch, going straight to the chair. She took his jacket off its hook. The leather was supple in her hands. She brought it to her face. Her scent, her flat, had almost overwritten his. Almost.
There was a sudden, furious banging on the door downstairs. Not the buzzer. A fist on wood. “Isla! It’s me. Open the door. Please.”
He’d run. He was out of breath.
She stood in the middle of her dark living room, holding the jacket, listening to the desperate sound of him on the other side of the building’s main door. He would wake her neighbors. He didn’t care.
The banging stopped. A moment of silence. Then her phone, plugged in on the table, lit up with a call from the building’s entry system. He was buzzing every flat.
She walked over and pressed the intercom button without picking up the receiver. “Go away, Ally.”
“No.” His voice was ragged through the cheap speaker. “Not until you talk to me. Five minutes. That’s all.”
“I know about the jackets.” Her voice was flat, dead. “Five minutes won’t change that.”
“It wasn’t like that. It was a stupid joke that got out of hand. It meant nothing.”
“That’s the point, isn’t it?” she said, the words sharp as glass. “It all meant nothing. And now you have a jacket from the weird art girl. Congrats. The collection is complete.”
“Isla.” Her name was a broken thing. “What I feel for you… it’s in a different universe. That other stuff, it was just noise. Filling a hole. You… you’re the quiet. You’re the thing I was trying to find.”
She closed her eyes. She wanted to believe it. The memory of his hand in the dark cinema was a physical ache.
“Please,” he whispered, the anger gone, only bare pleading left. “Just let me up. Look me in the eye and tell me to go, and I will. But don’t do this from behind a door.”
She stood there for a long time, the hum of the intercom the only sound. Then she pressed the button to unlock the main door.
She heard his footsteps taking the stairs two at a time. She didn’t open her flat door. She stood back from it, waiting. The footsteps arrived, paused. A knock, softer this time.
She opened it.
He looked wrecked. His tie was gone, his shirt collar open, hair dishevelled from running. His eyes were wide, dark pools of panic. He didn’t try to come in. He just stood on the threshold, his chest heaving.
“The jacket I left here,” he said, his voice rough. “I didn’t plan it. I just didn’t want a reason to have to leave. I wanted you to have something of mine so you’d have to see me again. It was the opposite of a trophy. It was a… a placeholder for me. A claim I was too scared to make out loud.”
He saw his jacket in her hands. His face fell further.
“It was a game, Ally.” She held it out to him. “I don’t know how to play.”
He didn’t take the jacket. Instead, he took a step into the flat, closing the door softly behind him. He was in her space, filling it with his distress. “It’s not a game. Not with you. The person who played those games… he doesn’t exist when I’m with you. I forget he ever existed.”
“But he does exist,” she said, her own anger finally surfacing, hot and sudden. “He’s in that penthouse right now! He’s the reason Cam knew exactly what to say. He’s the reason all those women looked at me like I was a temporary exhibit. He’s the product, Ally. And what am I? The limited edition?”
“You’re the goddamn artist!” he shouted, the sound raw in the quiet room. He instantly looked horrified, running a hand over his face. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I just… I can’t lose you over my own pathetic history. Give me a chance to prove it’s history. One chance.”
He was crying. Silently. Tears tracking through the sweat on his temples. A giant of a man, standing in her cluttered, dark flat, weeping.
Isla felt the resolve inside her crack, a fissure opening in frozen ground. She still held the jacket between them, a leather barrier.
“Prove how?” The question was a whisper.
“By being exactly who I am with you. No performance. No flock. Just this.” He gestured between them, his hand trembling slightly. “The guy who thinks about numerical patterns on door codes and wants to hold your hand in the dark. That’s the real thing. The rest is just… survival until I found the real thing.”
She looked at him—really looked—past the suit, past the famous smile, past the tears. She saw the man who’d kissed her forehead with heartbreaking gentleness. The man who’d chosen the quiet street over the roaring club. The contradiction was the truth. He was both. The golden boy and the seagull. The question was which one he fed.
Slowly, she lowered the jacket. She didn’t give it back. She let it fall to the floor at her feet.
“You have one chance,” she said, the words leaving her lips before she could stop them. “And you’re using it up right now, standing in my hallway.”
A ragged breath escaped him. He didn’t move to touch her. He just nodded, a quick, desperate dip of his chin. “Okay.”
“You should go.”
“Okay.” He didn’t move.
“Ally. Go.”
He turned, his hand on the door handle. He looked back at her, his eyes red-rimmed but clear. “Sunday. The terrible French film. I’ll be in the back row. If you’re there… I’ll know. If you’re not…” He swallowed. “I’ll understand.”
He left, closing the door with a soft click that echoed in the silent flat.
Isla stood there, staring at the spot where he’d been. The jacket lay in a heap at her feet, a puddle of dark leather in the moonlight from the window. She didn’t pick it up. She stepped over it and walked to her bedroom, leaving it there on the floor—a question mark in the middle of the room.
The jacket remained on the floor for two days. Isla navigated around it like a monument to a war she hadn’t asked to fight. Molly, for once, said nothing, just made tea and occasionally glared at the leather puddle with disdain.
“You’re not actually considering going on Sunday, are you?” Molly finally asked on Saturday morning, watching Isla sketch the same line over and over.
Isla’s pencil stilled. “I don’t know.”
“The ‘jacket’ thing is objectively gross, Isla.”
“I know.” Isla looked at the offending item. “But the man who cried in my hallway didn’t feel gross. He felt… dismantled.”
“Men are excellent at strategic dismantlement.” Molly sighed, stirring her tea. “Just promise me you won’t decide until the last possible second. Make him sweat.”
The rain on Sunday was a persistent, grey drizzle. Isla stood before her wardrobe, her fingers brushing fabric. The charcoal silk dress held the memory of the penthouse, of feeling like an imposter. She pushed it aside.
She would go. She would give him the chance. She wore a long, straight skirt the colour of moss and a thick, cream-coloured jumper that swallowed her frame. She put his jacket in a bag.
The cinema’s familiar mustiness wrapped around her like a damp blanket when she pushed through the heavy door. She was early. The tiny lobby was empty except for an elderly man tearing tickets, the sound a dry rasp in the quiet. She bought one for the French film and paused at the entrance to the auditorium, her hand tightening on the bag’s strap.
The house lights were still up, weakly illuminating the rows of shabby velvet. The back row was empty. Her pulse, a frantic bird against her ribs, settled into a dull, heavy thud. She’d expected to see him there already, a broad silhouette waiting. She chose a seat in the middle, a neutral territory. She placed the bag with his jacket on the floor between her feet.
People trickled in. A couple whispering. A solitary man with a notebook. The lights began to dim, casting the room into a deep, velvety blue. Just before the final light died, she heard the door at the back open and close. A shadow moved, not to the back row, but down the side aisle. He slid into the seat directly beside her, his movement stirring the air. He smelled of cold rain and fresh sweat, like he’d run all the way.
He didn’t speak. He didn’t try to touch her. On screen, the opening credits began to roll, stark white letters against a bleak Parisian street. The enforced silence of the cinema pressed down on them, a third presence in the space between their bodies.
For twenty minutes, they just watched the film. Or pretended to. Isla felt every minute shift of his posture, every quiet breath. Her own muscles ached from the effort of staying still. A scene unfolded where the protagonist, a weary photographer, found an old, damaged print in his darkroom—something he thought was lost.
Ally’s voice, a low, rough scrape in the dark, broke the rule. “I don’t want a jacket from you.”
She didn’t turn her head. Her eyes stayed fixed on the flickering screen. “You already have one. It’s in the bag.”
“I know. I saw it.” He paused. The photographer on screen held the print under a chemical bath, watching an image ghost into existence. “I want the chance to leave it at your flat again. And again. Until it’s just my jacket that lives there, with you. Not a trophy. A habit.”
His words, so specific and unpolished, unravelled something tight in her chest. It wasn’t a grand declaration. It was a blueprint for a quiet, ordinary future. She finally looked at him. The silver light from the screen played over his profile, highlighting the tension in his jaw, the absolute focus in his eyes as he stared straight ahead, waiting for her verdict.
“Cam’s joke,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “It made me feel like I was on a shelf. A curio.”
He flinched as if she’d struck him. He turned his head then, and in the shifting light, his expression was one of pure anguish. “You’re the opposite of a shelf. You’re the whole room. The studio, the quiet, the… the bloody seed in the door code. You’re the thing that makes the other stuff feel like the shelf.” He dragged a hand over his mouth. “I hate that I made you feel like that. I hate who I was that it even became a joke.”
On screen, the photographer smiled at the rediscovered image, a private, tender moment. Ally’s hand rested on the armrest, palm up. A repeat of his question in the dark. This time, his fingers were trembling.
Isla looked at his hand, then at the bag between her feet containing the symbol of all her doubt. She thought of the hollow feeling in the penthouse, and the shattered man in her hallway. The two versions of him warred in her mind.
Slowly, she let her hand settle into his.
His fingers closed around hers, a shuddering breath escaping him. He didn’t say anything else. He just held on, his grip fierce and grateful, as if she’d pulled him from a cliff edge. They sat like that for the rest of the film, their joined hands a secret between the seats, a silent conversation in the dark.
When the lights came up, he didn’t let go. They filed out with the handful of other patrons, stepping back into the grey, drizzly afternoon. The normalcy of the street felt newly strange.
“Walk with me?” he asked, his thumb tracing circles on her knuckle.
They walked without direction again, but the silence was different. It was charged, but with a current of relief, of a catastrophe narrowly averted. He stopped them under the awning of a closed bookshop, turning to face her. Rain pattered softly on the canvas above them.
“I need to say this properly, in the light,” he said. “The ‘jacket’ thing was a hollow game played by a hollow guy. It was never about the women. It was about the distraction. You are not a distraction. You are the main event. And it’s terrifying.”
She studied his face, the earnest lines around his eyes, the rain-dampened hair. “It’s terrifying for me, too.”
“I know.” He squeezed her hand. “So we go slow. We only do things that feel true. No more penthouses. Just… this. Films. Walks. Terrible daal.”
A faint, real smile touched her lips for the first time in days. “I can work with that.”
He leaned in, slowly, giving her every chance to retreat. She didn’t. He kissed her, a soft, lingering press of lips that held all the apology and promise words couldn’t quite carry. It tasted of rain and hope and a fragile, new beginning.
When they parted, he gestured to the bag. “So what’s the verdict on the contraband?”
She hefted the bag, then looped it over his shoulder, letting the weight of it settle against him. “You can carry it. But I’m not giving it back. It stays at my flat.”
The meaning hung between them—a conditional surrender, a tentative trust. He nodded, a profound understanding in his eyes. He slung the bag over his other shoulder and took her hand again.
“Where to?” he asked.
“Anywhere quiet,” she said, and they walked on, the ghost of the jacket now a shared, manageable weight between them.