Page 29 of Outlier

I stiffened as we turned in the opposite direction to Buckingham Manor.

“Where are we going?” I managed to ask. I was not particularly good with unknowns, and driving off in the opposite direction of my family’s house where I was staying was definitely an unknown.

Mike had both hands on the steering wheel now, and he tightened them until his knuckles turned white.

“I’m taking you back to my home,” he told me.

“But… why?”

“Why?”

“Yes… why are we going to your home?”

“I live there.”

I snapped my mouth shut and blinked at the windscreen. “But I don’t live there.”

“There’s nobody at Buckingham Manor now. They’re all at the party. You’re not going home to that great big empty house after what just happened. You’ll be coming home with me.”

“That makes no logical sense.”

His eyebrows went up. “Why not?”

“You don’t like me.”

Ah, my special talent—blurting out uncomfortable truths.

Mike let out a long breath, muttering, “shit” under his breath before he glanced at me then back at the road. “I like you, Vicky. Okay? And someone needs to look after you.”

I blinked at the windshield, still feeling numb and shaky after my meltdown.

“You don’t need to look after me,” I whispered, horrified he thought me that incapable, but I was guessing after witnessing that meltdown, I should have expected it. “And anyway, if I do need to be looked after, then Ollie and Lottie can?—”

“Fine bloody job they were making of it,” he said in disgust. “First, you’re carted around, smiling at a bunch of absolute gobshites that you shouldn’t have been within a country mile of,thenone of those gobshites grabbed you, leaving red marks which will probably bloody well bruise by tomorrow.”

The absolute fury in Mike’s voice when he mentioned even a possibility of a bruise on my arm made anything I was going to say die on my lips.

“Andthenwhen those fireworks go off, neither of those two were anywhere near you. So, no. I’m not keen to leave you with them after you’ve just had a massive shock. You’re coming home with me.”

I actually made a harrumph sound of frustration at Mike’s little speech, which was entirely out of character for me. But I decided that I would just have to put up with this detour for now. I’d call a taxi from his house to Buckingham Manor. It would involve waking up Janice, who was the only taxi driver in Little Buckingham and would be less than pleased, but this was an emergency.

It was then I realised that I had no idea where Mike lived. He had a workshop at Moonreach, his mum’s house, but I knew that he didn’t actually live there.

We went through Little Buckingham, past The Badger’s Sett and down one of the tiny lanes into the woodland by the side of the village.

When the trees thinned, I sucked in a shocked breath at the small house in the middle of the clearing. I’d never seen anything like it in my life. It was entirely made of wood, but not wood like I had ever seen it before. All the wood was cut in a sort of fluid way, following the grain and patterns of the trees it came from. There were no straight lines.

Even the fence around the wooden terrace at the front of the house wasn’t straight; instead, it was made of sanded-down and varnished natural branches.

The windows were all different shapes, as if the wood itself had dictated how they should fit in.

I usually really liked straight lines and order, but as I stared up at this breathtaking house, I didn’t think I’d ever seen a more beautiful building. I was still sitting in the passenger seat staring up at the house when Mike startled me by opening the car door.

He looked between me and the house for a moment and scratched his beard. “Right, so it’s not much, but this is my gaffe.”

“Youlivehere?” I breathed, still unable to move.

Mike shrugged, and two flags of colour appeared high on his cheekbones.