“You mean…”
“Yes, Mum!” Zac said, lurching forward from the back seat with a fist pump. “Yes, do it, Mum. Do it.”
Still grinning, Abby turned the ignition. As they drove off with their dad waving madly, Laurel waved back and then twisted to face her sister.
“You aren’t serious…”
“I am. Are you?”
Laurel knew what she was asking. She could feel it in the way her heart thumped and her mind raced. Abby had taken so many risks—she’d been honest, open, heart-rendingly vulnerable with Laurel, with Zac, with their father. Could she be the same… with Archie?
“Keep driving,” she said, and from the backseat Zac let out a whoop of victory.
Chapter Sixteen
There was a slight flaw to their plan, which was that it was New Year’s Eve, and when they arrived in Scrabster at ten o’clock at night, there were no ferries running. Obviously.
“This isn’t a problem,” Abby announced airily. “I’ve been here before. There’s a guy who hires his boat out. He gave me his mobile. We’ll be fine.”
“It’s ten o’clock on New Year’s Eve,” Laurel reminded her, somewhat hysterically. She’d spent the last ten and a half hours of travel in a heightened, surreal state, hardly able to believe they were actually doing this. “Hogmanay,” she added. “In Scotland. A big deal, you know?”
“I think you’ve timed your arrival perfectly,” Abby said with an insouciant shrug. “If you’re lucky, the fireworks will start right as you lock eyes with Archie.”
“Abby.” Laurel could hardly believe how nonchalant her sister was acting about this all. As they’d driven into Scotland, she’d remarked that maybe they’d all move to Orkney.
“Wait, what?” Laurel had goggled at her. “You live in London—”
“I never liked it all that much, and I don’t think Zac did, either.” Zac shook his head vigorously. “And for the amount of money I could get for my flat, we could buy something really nice, and have loads leftover besides.”
“Abby, this might not even work out, you know?” Laurel definitely sounded hysterical then. “I mean, I barely know Archie…”
Abby considered this for a moment. “We’ll rent to start.”
“Yes, Mum,” Zac enthused from the backseat.
Laurel let out a sound—part groan, part shriek, part wild, crazy laughter. What were they doing?
“The thing is, Laurel,” she said more seriously, “if I’ve learned anything from the train wreck of the last ten years, it’s that you can’t spend your life holding back and wondering what if. Go all in, and if it blows up in your face, well, at least you did it, you know? You won’t spend the next twenty years wondering what could have happened.”
“Is that what I’m going to do?”
“Probably, if you don’t find Archie and tell him how you feel.”
“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Laurel muttered. She felt close to hyperventilating.
What would Archie even think when he saw her—all of them? Laurel showing up with her family in tow, declaring true love, or something edging towards it. This was crazy.
And yet somehow it was happening. Abby called the guy with the boat, and he agreed to ferry them over for a rather exorbitant fee, at least by Laurel’s standards, but Abby didn’t bat an eyelid.
The sea was amazingly placid, unlike her first ferry crossing, but Laurel’s stomach churned all the more. What was she doing? What was she going to say?
By the time they arrived in Stromness, it was half past eleven, and the town was strung with lights and thronged with people ready to welcome the new year. They were on foot, as they’d had to leave the car, in Scrabster, and suddenly, finally, Laurel felt completely overwhelmed and stopped right there in the street.
“I can’t do this.”
“Laurel,” Abby said. “You are doing it.”
“What if