Chapter 4: The Cottage at Dawn
The dust motes spun in the slats of light cutting through the broken blinds. Josh watched them, his breath still coming in heavy slows, his skin cooling where it pressed against hers. The smell of them—sweat and salt and the must of the old mattress—filled the room. It was a stark, physical truth that pushed out everything else.
Isla’s fingers trailed absently through the coarse hair on his chest.Her head was on his shoulder, her leg hooked over his. The warmth was immense, a deep animal comfort.“The boiler’s fucked,” she said into the quiet. Her voice was raspy.“I tried. It just groans.”
“I’ll get a guy,” he said.The words felt thick in his throat.Manager talk.Practicalities. A thing to say that wasn’t what have we done.She nodded against his skin. Then she shifted, propping herself up on an elbow.The sheet fell to her waist. He kept his eyes on her face, but the periphery was full of her—the pale curve of her breast, the shadow between them.Her green eyes were searching his, no mischief in them now, just a naked intensity.
“Josh.”
“Yeah.”
She didn’t continue.Just looked at him. He brought a hand up, brushed a strand of hair stuck to her damp cheek. The gesture felt more intimate than anything that had come before.
His phone buzzed, vibrating against the bare floorboards where his jeans were piled.They both froze.The sound was violent in the quiet.It stopped. Then immediately started again.“Millie?” Isla asked.She didn’t move away.
“Has to be.” He didn’t get up.The phone kept buzzing, a stubborn, angry insect. It was a leash.The world, yanking him back.
On the third round, he sighed, the spell broken.He disentangled himself, the cold air hitting his body like a shock. He found his jeans, dug the phone out.Not Millie. Sean – Electrician.“Work,” he muttered, swiping to answer.“Sean.Yeah. No, listen, I’ve got another job for you.Harbour View.Number seven. Boiler’s dead.” He listened, his back to Isla.He could feel her watching him. “Today, mate.However much it takes. Just get it done.”
He ended the call and stood there, phone in hand, staring at the water-stained wallpaper. A faded bouquet of roses, repeating.“You should go,” Isla said softly from the bed.He turned. She had pulled the sheet up around herself, a white shroud against the dark mattress. She looked very young, and very alone in the thin morning light.“I don’t want to,” he said. The honesty surprised him.It was that simple, and that complicated.
“You have to.” She offered a weak smile.“The shop opens at half eleven.It’s Thursday. You’ve got the cod delivery.”
Of course she knew his schedule.She’d worked for him for eight months. She knew which suppliers complained, which fryer ran hot, that he took his tea with two sugars but never finished the mug. She knew the landscape of his life in a way Millie hadn’t bothered to in years.
He dragged his clothes on, the fabric clinging unpleasantly to his damp skin.Every movement felt clumsy. When he sat on the edge of the bed to pull on his socks, she reached out and touched the knobs of his spine through his t-shirt.
“Last night…” she started.“Was it just the texts?” he interrupted, not looking at her. “From Declan.Was that the only reason you came back?”
He heard her breath catch. Her hand withdrew.“No.”
“Then why?”
The silence stretched. He finished with his socks and turned to look at her.Her eyes were bright. “Because when you showed me how to pipe the mushy peas properly, you treated it like it was important. Because you asked me about my octopus research and actually listened to the answer. Because you smell of fryer oil and the sea, and you have flour in your hair sometimes, and it’s the most real thing I know.” She swallowed.“Is that a good enough reason to fuck everything up?”
A lump formed in his throat. He leaned over and kissed her, once, softly.A seal on the confession.“Yeah. It is.”
He stood, the floorboards creaking under his weight. “Electrician will be here by ten.He’s a good guy.He’ll fix it. I’ll… I’ll see you at work later?”
She nodded, pulling the sheet tighter.“Yeah. My shift’s at four.”
A employee.A manager. The roles they were supposed to play waiting for them outside the blue door.
He let himself out, the cottage door clicking shut with finality behind him.The seaside air was bracing, cleaning the intimate smell of the bedroom from his lungs. He got into his car, but didn’t start the engine. He just sat, staring at the peeling blue paint of number seven.In his own kitchen twenty minutes later, Millie was scrambling eggs. She was still in her robe, her hair perfectly smooth.The radio played quiet morning chatter.
“You’re up early,” she said, not turning around.
“Couldn’t sleep,” he grunted, pouring himself a coffee. “Had to drop some spare blankets to the new tenant at Nan’s place.”
“Oh?” She glanced over, a flicker of interest. “Who is it?”
“A girl from the shop.Isla.Her boyfriend kicked her out. Needed somewhere short-term.” He sipped the coffee, bitter and too hot. It scalded a clean line down his throat.Millie made a sympathetic noise, the kind she reserved for distant acquaintances.“Poor thing. Well, it’s good of you. The rent will help with the estate agent fees.”
“That’s what I thought.” He watched her move, efficient and graceful.A stranger in a familiar robe. The ghost of Isla’s touch still burned on his skin, a secret layer beneath his clothes.He smelled of her, he was sure of it.A mix of coconut and sex and dust.
But Millie didn’t notice. She plated the eggs, setting them neatly on the table.“Hurry up.They’ll get cold.”
He sat, picking up a fork. The eggs tasted of nothing. He was a man split cleanly in two: one here, chewing, nodding; the other still tangled in sheets a mile away, holding a truth that felt heavier than anything he’d ever carried.
At ten to eleven, behind the counter of his own shop, hauling the first crates of gleaming wet cod from the delivery, his phone vibrated. A text, from an unknown number—the cottage landline.Boiler man is here. Says it’s terminal.Called you a caveman for the blankets.Thanks.For everything.
He read it, his hands slick with fish ice.Then he typed a reply, his thumbs clumsy.
I’ll get it replaced.Don’t freeze.See you at four.
He slipped the phone back into his pocket, grabbed his heaviest knife, and started filleting. The blade cut through flesh and bone with a sure, familiar rhythm.Slice.Score.Pull.The work was clean. It demanded focus. It left no room for thinking about the electrician’s assessment, or the meaning of ‘terminal,’ or the way Isla had looked at him in the raw light of morning, like he was a lighthouse and she was completely, recklessly, at sea.