Page 7 of Forever, Maybe

Chapter four

Nell applied the final touches to her makeup, scrutinising her reflection with a frown.

Lipstick wasn’t her usual choice—she disliked the waxy texture and the way it always wore off leaving an outline—but tonight she’d opted for a slick of dark, glossy red, hoping it might breathe warmth and vibrancy into her pale complexion.

She tapped the vanity mirror in the ensuite, dimming the LED lights that seemed programmed to highlight every wrinkle and pore. As she mulled over potential escape routes—headache, plague, sudden alien abduction—she dismissed each with a sigh. None felt convincing enough.

Her phone sat screen-up beside her, obstinately silent.

No lifesaving buzz, no glorious last-minute text from Stephanie reading, So sorry, can’t make it.

Can we do another time? Ah, the unparalleled joy of someone else cancelling.

A get-out-of-jail-free card and the crowning achievement of modern social etiquette.

Stephanie, at a loose end a couple of weeks ago, had suggested a Saturday night out, and Nell had declined, pleading tiredness.

Now that the rearranged date had arrived, the exhaustion of the past few weeks still accompanied her every waking minute, worsened by waking in the early hours of Friday and finding it impossible to drift back off to sleep.

That wretched White Lightning Communications photo—and the Pandora’s box of long-buried issues it unearthed—had hijacked her thoughts, dominating her entire Friday morning and afternoon like an unwelcome houseguest who refused to leave.

When she’d sent Stephanie a coded message this morning— Hey, still up for going out tonight or have you had a better offer —her friend chose to ignore the subtext, and replied, You betcha!

Oh well, at least she’d managed to duck out of tonight’s Taste of Scotland awards. When Danny had brought it up a few weeks ago, she’d suggested Nicky step in for her. The novelty of those events had worn off ages ago, leaving nothing but lukewarm wine and polite clapping in its wake.

“You finished in there?” Danny knocked on the bathroom door, and she opened it, letting him in.

He was wrapped in a dark grey towel, looking maddeningly bright and fresh.

Unlike her. Danny had embraced abstinence in his mid-twenties after a stag weekend had left him feeling so wretched he swore off alcohol forever.

Life seemed determined to stack the deck against women.

Danny still looked like the man she’d married years ago.

His full head of dark hair and trim physique—complete with a six-pack and arms that could moonlight as a Men’s Health cover—were intact.

When they did venture out to restaurants or bars (a rarity these days), he still turned heads.

The problem wasn’t just his ageless appearance; it was his schedule.

Take Friday, for instance. He’d crept into the house at three in the morning, waking the already sleepless Nell and triggering a screaming row.

She had listed, in painstaking detail, every time his work had bulldozed their plans, while he fumbled to smooth things over, tossing out apologies like they were loose change.

When that failed, he broached the one subject they tried to steer clear of, knowing that bringing it up would pick open an old and not entirely healed scab.

Children, Nell. You bulldozed me into that decision…

I didn’t bulldoze you; you agreed! she had yelled back.

And anyway, I’ve always, always been crystal-clear about that!

The Langbourne hotel trip for her forty-second birthday in six weeks’ time he booked the following day had, however, soothed troubled waters. When she married him, she knew how much work consumed him. Why complain now, after twenty years?

Danny’s eyes, cautious and testing the waters, met hers in the mirror. “Nell, I shoulda let Dennis handle things on Thursday. I’m sorry.”

She waved a dismissive hand. Pointing out the obvious—that he apologised all the time but never actually changed—would only derail another evening. Besides, the White Lightning Communications picture loomed like a thundercloud, a get-out-of-jail-free card he knew nothing about.

He leaned in to drop a kiss on the top of her head. “Gimme a few minutes, and I’ll drop you in the city centre on my way to the Marriott. Want me to pick you up at the end of the night too?”

That offer instantly made the night out more palatable—a built-in escape route and an excuse to leave early. She blew a kiss at his reflection, watching as he smiled, visibly relieved to have smoothed over Thursday’s choppy waters.

“Thank you. I’ll be ready downstairs.”

He stepped into the shower, and the frosted glass quickly steamed up, but not before giving her a glimpse of his lean, toned backside.

Once upon a time—and it really wasn’t that long ago—she’d have thought nothing of pulling her dress over her head, unhooking her bra and joining him in there.

Now? The effort required felt on par with scaling Everest without oxygen.

Was that chapter of their lives truly over…?

Danny joined her downstairs twenty minutes later, resplendent in his kilt. The green and blue tartan, streaked with thin red stripes, swung neatly as he moved, paired with a black ghillie shirt loosely laced at the neck. He looked effortlessly put-together, which was irritating in itself.

“Ready to go?” he asked, all cheery efficiency.

Nell sighed as she hauled herself out of the armchair, which creaked in protest beneath her retreating weight. Sitting down had been her first mistake; the chair’s warm embrace had almost convinced her to text Stephanie with some half-baked excuse.

He held out his hand and she took it, surrendering in relief to the man in charge, who did everything. Who didn’t need to know every single thing.

“You could always cancel,” he offered once they were outside, standing across from his maroon BMW 4 Series Grand Coupe.

He’d bought it a few years back as a treat for himself.

When Nell had floated the idea of personalised plates for Christmas—because men were impossible to shop for—he’d grimaced and said, “God, no,” much to her relief.

A personalised plate, after all, was the universal signal for wanker .

“No, I can’t. I always swore I wouldn’t be that friend.”

“Fair enough,” he said opening the car door for her. “If it’s okay, I’ll drop you off at Bath Street?”

“Thanks. How did the interview go yesterday?” Nell asked, knowing Danny had been sweating over the journalist’s interest in writing a full-length feature on his business.

He waited until they’d pulled out of their gravel-lined driveway, glancing left and right to check for traffic, before answering.

“Aye, fine. She started wi’ all the usual stuff: ‘How did you grow from a wee van selling sandwiches to running all these other vans and shops?’ Then she wanted to know about how you and I met. ”

“Oh? And did you tell her how you wooed me with the best sandwich in the world?” she teased, sinking into the warm familiarity of their well-worn love story.

Cute boy offers cute girl a freebie, then cheekily asks her out. The Officially Sanctified Story of Nell and Daniel.

“She was more interested in the bit after,” he replied, smirking. “The part where I had to chase you down the street because we hadnae agreed a time.”

Nell raised an eyebrow, amused. “Mmm. Did you tell her about our first date?”

“Nah.” He shot her a glance in the rearview mirror, a conspiratorial grin tugging at his lips. “Kept that to myself.”

For a moment, they shared a smile. The memory flickered to life—crinkled edges and all—filling the car with a phantom hint of Febreze.

The nostalgic warmth washed over, briefly drowning out the weight of Thursday’s White Lightning photograph, leaving it blank and distant, exactly where Nell wanted it.

She placed her hand on this thigh and squeezed hard, enjoying the feel of his muscles as he shifted gears and grinned at her again, turning him into his the twenty-year-old self, the guy whose body responded to the slightest touch.

She related the story of how he had ordered her to wait for him on her hands and knees while an entire restaurant’s customers listened in, and he raised an eyebrow, Roger Moore like.

“Let’s do that for real on Sunday morning, eh?”

He pulled the BMW over just before the second set of lights on Bath Street, and she hopped out of the car.

“Have a nice night. Phone me when you want picked up. The speeches and the glad-handing should be over by eleven o’clock.”

She leant in through the open passenger door window, kissing her fingers and touching them to his hand. “Thank you. Enjoy your night too.”

The car pulled away, Danny’s jaunty wave still visible in the rear window. He was a good man, a good, good man. One she didn’t deserve. And, as if on cue, the imaginary conversation she’d rehearsed countless times over the years came creeping back, uninvited.

Danny…

Aye?

So, there’s this thing I need to tell you. It’s… well, it’s a big one. Should’ve told you ages ago, but I…

Nell? Jesus, just spit it out—what is it?

Then she told him. And even though it was a scenario conjured entirely in her head, the ending never changed. His face twisted, eyes screwed up, jaw shifting as he tried to make sense of it. Finally, the words would come, sharp and accusing: What the fuck? But Nell, you always said…

She swallowed hard, the sting of the imaginary scene lingering, when she spotted Stephanie barrelling up Buchanan Street’s gentle slope, waving as if directing traffic.

The conversation was hastily stuffed back into its usual hiding place—the overflowing bin of things you bury to protect yourself—and she forced a bright smile onto her face.