“Um, yes. Sort of,” Anderson admitted. He plastered on a nervous smile and gestured to the empty chairs beside Shona and Logan. “Should we take a seat? People are staring.”
“Let them bloody stare!” Maddie snapped, but then she sighed, pulled out the chair next to Shona, and placed it at the end of the table as far from Logan as it was possible to be.
“Drinks!” Shona exclaimed, rocketing up onto her feet. She met Anderson’s eye and they both nodded enthusiastically. “We should get drinks!”
“Good idea,” Anderson said. “I’ll just… We’ll just…” Hesitantly, he bent and placed a kiss on Maddie’s cheek, then went scurrying into the cafe, hot on Shona’s heels.
The double doors swung closed. Logan regarded them in silence for a few moments, before finally giving his verdict.
“What a pair of conniving bastards.”
His daughter scowled. “Don’t pretend you didn’t know.”
“I didn’t,” Logan insisted. “First I heard about coming to Largs was last night. First I knew you were going to be here was when you came up the steps.”
Along the table, Maddie folded her arms and gave the briefest roll of her eyes. She didn’t believe him. She didn’t trust him.
And who could blame her, after everything he’d done?
“I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s great to see you,” he ventured. “You’re looking well.”
“You’ve got fatter,” Maddie replied, and there was a real sting to it, like the words had been meant to hurt.
“Aye. Well. You should’ve seen me a year ago.” He picked up his spoon, swirled his ice cream around in the bowl for a few moments, then set it back down again with a clink. “Congratulations, by the way. On the wedding. I sent texts, but I don’t know if you got them.”
“I got them fine.”
“Right. Right, aye. Good.” He tapped his fingers on the tabletop. “Anderson Crawford.”
“What about it?”
“Nothing. Just, you know, that last name as a first name thing. Never been a fan of that.”
“Jack can be a surname, and Logan can be a first name, too,” Maddie pointed out.
“Aye, fair enough,” Logan conceded, but he couldn’t just leave it there. “It’s no’ the same though, is it? I mean, Anderson Crawford. Anderson. Who calls their child ‘Anderson’？”
“His parents. And you know what else they did?” Maddie asked, spitting the words out like they were poisonous. “Supported him. Were there for him. Didn’t let him down.”
“Right…”
“And not once—not once—did they use him as bait to lure out a serial killer. Nice of them, eh?”
“You weren’t bait,” Logan said, though there was no conviction to it. “I mean, not exactly.”
She shimmied her chair back even further from the table. “You’re unbelievable,” she muttered.
“Look, last name for a first name or not, he seems…” Logan gestured at the door that Anderson and Shona had gone through, grasping for the perfect descriptor.
“What?” Maddie asked. “He seems what?”
“Nice enough,” was what Logan settled on, which didn’t impress his daughter one bit.
“He’s not ‘nice enough.’ He’s lovely. He’s kind. He’s thoughtful. He’s there when he says he’ll be there. He doesn’t lie, or keep secrets—”
“Apart from this one,” Logan pointed out, and he looked pleased with his little victory. “He kept this one from you.”
Maddie crossed her arms and sat back so hard the chair gave a little squeal of complaint. “What do you want?” she demanded.
“This wasn’t me,” Logan insisted. “I had no idea. About this. Any of it. I thought you were in London. Your, eh, your mum says that’s where you’re living now.”
Maddie gave a sulky shrug of her shoulders, neither confirming nor denying this.
“What’s that like?” Logan asked. “Is it no’ full of, you know, Londoners?”
“We’re outside London,” Maddie said. She shifted in her seat. “But yes.”
“Yes, what?”
“It’s full of twats.”
“I didn’t say ‘twats.’ I said ‘Londoners.’”
Maddie shrugged again. “Same thing.”