He'll have to break all the rules to keep her, but first she has to break just one and let him in...
It's taken four years, but Anna Fray has finally put the past behind her. Mostly. She fills her days working in a bar and her nights watching bad ro...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
I almost changed my mind seven times before we reached the car.
Eight if you counted the moment I stood in the kitchen doorway and pretended I'd forgotten my keys, even though they were already in my hand.
Atticus didn't call me out on it, but I could see the mild amusement dancing in his eyes as he leant against Black Betty.
The drive took less than twenty minutes but it felt like twenty years. The city slowly gave way to wider roads and larger houses, the terraced streets of my present unravelling into the manicured hedges and detached homes of my past.
Black Betty growled and groaned as we wound through the streets.
I hated how familiar it all felt.
The pristine tennis courts with the little wooden clubhouse. The once grass green sign was now faded, but the tennis lawns were still immaculate.
The bus stop where I'd once waited in the rain after school, pretending I didn't care that everyone else had been picked up.
The church spire cutting through the grey sky: a needle piercing up through the trees that spanned the small surrounding graveyard.
We turned onto Mulberry Lane. The street which arced gracefully alongside the busier High Street, with its swanky wine bars and extortionate boutiques.
My street. Once.
My chest tightened.
I hadn't said a word in ten minutes. Possibly twenty. Gratefully, Atticus didn't fill the silence. Instead, his hand rested on the gearstick, close enough that I could reach for it if I wanted to.
The houses on Mulberry Lane looked smaller than I remembered.
That annoyed me.
They should have stayed enormous. Looming. Untouchable. The sort of houses people whispered about and envied and judged from a distance.
Instead, they were just houses. Made of brick and glass and adorned with overpriced driveways and fancy electric gates.
My old family home sat halfway down the street, tucked behind a low brick wall and a thick manicured hedge. The tall birch tree I used to play beneath was now bare, revealing the imposing red brick Victorian Villa I'd once called home.
The sight of it stole the air from my lungs.
The large white sash windows were classic and elegant against the red brick walls and slate roof, and the brass number nine was still fixed beside the door. The whole building was beautifully restrained, no obscene splashes of colour or garish planting to spoil the picturesque street. All except for one thing, the raspberry red front door. My mother's choice, and one she had giggled at the second she touched the brush to the otherwise black door. I could still remember how my father had chuntered about the colour, so much so that I was surprised to see it had lasted the test of time.
