When she uncovers his plan to lead an entirely uneventful life, Mia Evian is determined to teach Preston Maddox how to stop living like a ghost, but Mia and Preston have history, tension, and a lot of complicated feelings.
...
As if perfectly timed, once Aiden's finished speaking, I turn to the car park up ahead and spot a familiar Vauxhall Corsa. Only, I'm used to seeing Anwen in its driving seat, not Preston.
'I'd ordinarily say I didn't need rescuing,' I declare as I step into the red car's backseat. 'But fuck me, am I grateful for the lift.'
Aiden laughs at my comment as he dumps my luggage into the boot, and he's still chuckling when he opens the passenger car door to jump in. Frankly, I don't think he's stopped laughing between when he first spotted me and now.
'He's a much better driver than you,' he says as he jerks his head towards Preston. 'Hasn't crashed and landed me in hospital once!'
'Firstly,' I snap, 'you came out of that crash unscathed. Secondly, by bringing it up, you're at risk of resurrecting seventeen-year-old trauma Mia. No one wants that.'
'Eh, she was kinda fun.'
Preston still hasn't said a word, but he's been glancing at me via the overhead mirror throughout mine and Aiden's faux bickering, a lopsided smirk plastered on his face. I give him the finger through the mirror, naturally. I still frequently scold him for taking the blame for that crash, but while it was without a doubt the wrong thing to do, I can at least see the logic behind not letting my unlicensed self own up to drunk driving a car into a bush in the middle of the Welsh countryside.
I don't say anything of the sort aloud, but Preston somehow knows I want to avoid anything Dad-related for as long as possible. Aiden tries to convince us to crash Dad's place and hang out in the inevitable free house, but Preston successfully weans him off the idea without making my horror at the prospect of it blatantly obvious. I thank him in silence; a coy smile via the overhead mirror that I hope he catches.
Instead, we just drive and talk shit. It primarily entails Aiden and me talking shit while Preston guides his mother's car around the suburbs of Cardiff, but he occasionally caves with a clever remark or observation. It's nice. It's really bloody nice. By the time we've run out of road and I have to be dropped off at Dad's, I've forgotten why I was dreading it so much.
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I was on the money when I guessed how Dad would spend his Friday evening. I didn't hear him come home, so it was definitely a late one, and poorly discarded oven ready meal packaging was strewn across the kitchen, so he was definitely drunk. It's also currently eleven-thirty in the morning and he's still not emerged from his bedroom, so drunk may be an understatement.
Happy birthday to him, I guess.
I'm in the middle of making myself breakfast when the doorbell rings, and I open it to see my sister, Livvy, whose flat expression gives the impression she'd rather be shovelling shit than visiting Dad on his birthday. My face, on the other hand, must be doing something really weird because I'm stunned into silence.
'Since when did you visit Dad on his birthday?' I question after finally regaining the ability to speak.
She rolls her eyes, then moves past me to enter the house. 'I'm not totally heartless.'
