“Ooh, I say,” said Mr. McCredie, as what she’d intimated suddenly made sense to him. No horrible bungalow in the suburbs . . . no two rooms . . . Was it possible? Then he said, just to make sure, “What?”

Thinking about Oke hadn’t been the only thing that had occupied Carmen the night she had stared over the battlements of Edinburgh Castle. She had meant to find a better time to mention it, but it had just slipped out. If possible, she didn’t want to leave this beautiful city. She didn’t want to leave Phoebe and the other two (well, three now) if she could possibly help it when it came to that. And Victoria Street. This lovely shop.

She wanted to build a life here. They had done well so far. Why not have a shot?

“Um, you know your house upstairs?” she said. “Just out of interest, how many bedrooms does it have?”

Mr. McCredie looked puzzled. “Well, a few, I suppose.”

Carmen looked at him. “Okay. Well, now I have to go because my boss failed to tie the man I love up in the stacks until I got back. But can we discuss this when I get back? Maybe . . . prolonging things?”

Mr. McCredie nodded, surprised.

Carmen apologized to the man in the kilt, who said that was absolutely fine, he’d just take a seat if that was okay, and she banged out of shop. Then banged in again.

“Where’s the biology department?”

“King’s Buildings!”

SHE’D JUST ASK him for Christmas, she told herself, a mass of febrile agitation.

God, Christmas. With a sudden sense of shame, she realized she’d left it—as she always did, every year—for her mum and Sofia to work out between them. Even more shamefully, she thought, her heart starting to pound, she’d moaned at them when they’d asked her what she was doing for Christmas, whether she was coming home (or, as of late, to Sofia’s), and she had resented being expected to spend money on the brats, couldn’t see the appeal of watching them open their presents—for God’s sake, didn’t they have enough junk?—didn’t want to wear matching bloody sweaters. It used to be a busy time at Dounston’s; she usually went out and got drunk with her friends and normally turned up hungover . . .

That wasn’t . . . that wasn’t what she wanted this year. Not at all. She wanted to be part of all of it. All of it.

She looked at her phone in dismay. She thought the university was in the center of the city, but it turned out half of it was absolutely miles away, on the south side. In her rush, she hailed a cab, jiggling anxiously all the way downtown, wincing at every traffic light, until the cabbie turned around.

“You need the toilet, hen?”