Wren · The Flat

The email arrived at eleven-fourteen on a Tuesday morning, and Wren Halliday read it on the bench outside the rink, with her skate guards still on, with her hair still wet from the showers, with her phone propped up against her gear bag and a black coffee in her left hand that had gone cold while she had been on the ice.

The email read:

Wren, Quick note re: the Northern Bank "One Programme" sponsorship campaign — congratulations again on being selected with Theo. As discussed, the campaign deliverable requires the two of you to share Flat 9, Atholl House, for the duration of the six-week filming period (Jan 12 – Feb 21). Marketing have asked me to flag that this is non-negotiable on the bank's side — they need to be able to capture "shared morning routines" content and a Sunday-evening dinner segment each week. Coach is across this. I'll be in your way at training tomorrow morning to talk you through. Cheers, Cal — Athletics Comms

Wren read the email a second time.

She read it a third time, very slowly, from the bottom upwards.

She read, in particular, the phrase forty-one days, which the email did not, in fact, contain anywhere.

She did the maths in her head.

She did the maths in her head a second time, because she had got it wrong the first time, because the part of her brain that was responsible for doing the maths had, somewhere between Theo and share, briefly closed for renovations.

Forty-one days.

Forty-one days of sharing Flat 9, Atholl House, with Theo Mackenzie Mack — captain of the men's, three-time first-team All-Conference, six foot two, twenty-three years old as of November, allergic to small talk, banned by Coach from the rink office on Tuesdays, two parts cold air and one part stubborn grizzly bear — Wren Halliday, captain of the women's, equally tall in skates, also twenty-three, also banned by Coach from the rink office on Tuesdays, sat on the bench outside the rink, with her cold coffee in her left hand, and said, out loud, to her gear bag,

'No.'

—

The gear bag, which had been bought for her by her father on the day she had signed her university letter of intent, did not, of course, answer.

Wren put her phone down.

She picked it back up.

She put it back down.

She picked it back up, and she opened her contacts, and she scrolled past Coach and Cal — Comms and Dad and Mum and Mack T (do not) and she rang the only person she ever rang on a Tuesday morning that had taken a hard left turn on her, which was her sister.

Her sister, Maeve, who was thirty-one, who lived in Glasgow with two cats and a boyfriend Wren approved of, who answered the phone in the voice of a woman who had been waiting for her sister to ring her about something, picked up on the second ring and said, 'What.'

Wren said, 'The university has paired me with Theo Mack on the bank sponsorship.'

Maeve said, 'Theo Mack as in grizzly bear Theo Mack.'

Wren said, 'Theo Mack as in.'

Maeve said, 'And the bank are filming the two of you for six weeks.'

Wren said, 'And they want us to share a flat.'

There was a silence on the other end of the phone.

Then Maeve said, in the voice that thirty-one-year-old sisters used on twenty-three-year-old sisters whose entire personal life had ever been a subject of family supper-table comedy, 'Wren.'

Wren said, 'I know.'

Maeve said, 'Wren, my darling.'

Wren said, 'I know, Maeve.'

Maeve said, 'This is the funniest thing that has ever happened to you. This is the funniest thing that has ever happened to anyone in this family. This is at minimum a six-month dinner-table topic. I am going to phone Mum, I'm going to phone Dad, I am going to phone Granny Halliday and I am specifically going to do so on speakerphone so that I can hear her laugh.'

Wren said, 'You will do none of those things.'

Maeve said, 'I will do all of those things.'

Wren said, 'Maeve.'

Maeve said, 'Wrennie. My sweet baby sister. Tell me, in your own words, the last conversation you and Theo Mack had.'

Wren stared at her cold coffee.

Wren said, after a beat, 'It was in October.'

Maeve said, 'And.'

Wren said, 'And I told him that if he held the rink door for me one more time like I was a woman of advanced years he was going to be wearing his nose on the other side of his face.'

Maeve said, 'And.'

Wren said, 'And he said, very calmly, that he would consider holding the door less and that he would also consider, in exchange, my no longer pretending I had not seen him when we passed in the corridor, and I said, also very calmly, that I had not in fact seen him because I did not in fact see him, and he said, also very calmly, Halliday, you see me, and walked off.'

Maeve said, 'Cute.'

Wren said, 'Maeve, I will physically come to Glasgow and I will sit on you.'

Maeve said, 'Forty-one days, Wrennie.'

Wren said, 'Goodbye, Maeve.'

Maeve, in the small affectionate voice that always made Wren irritated with herself for ringing her in the first place, said, 'I love you, sweetheart. You're going to be fine. Wear the green jumper sometimes. It's good on you.'

Wren rang off.

She sat with the phone in her lap for thirty seconds.

She then, very calmly, picked up the phone, opened her contacts, scrolled past Coach and Cal — Comms and Dad and Mum and her thumb hovered for a long second over Mack T (do not), and her thumb did not, in the end, press it.

She closed the contacts.

She put the phone in her pocket.

She got up from the bench, picked up her gear bag, and walked, in the cold November Edinburgh wind, the eleven minutes back to her flat off Marchmont Road, and she did not, while she walked, think about the email. She did not think about Theo Mack. She did not think about the green jumper. She did not think about the part of her brain that had briefly closed for renovations between Theo and share — and which had, she now noticed, walking up the hill in the cold wind with the smell of her own wet hair in her own nose, not yet, entirely, reopened.

She thought, instead, about the next morning's drills.

She thought, in particular, about a one-on-one breakout she had been failing to land for two weeks against the third-line winger, who was five eleven, who was left-handed, who skated in a way that consistently made Wren cross her own feet on the inside check —

— which was, exactly, the same way Theo Mack skated.

She kicked a small loose stone off the pavement, harder than she had needed to.

She said, to the November wind, into nobody's hearing in particular, 'Bollocks.'

—

Atholl House was a five-storey block off the Meadows that the university had bought from a private landlord in 2019. The university had never quite been transparent about what it intended to do with Atholl House. It had, since 2019, intermittently used Atholl House to put up visiting academics, displaced postgrads, the occasional touring orchestra, and, twice that Wren had personally heard of, the rugby first fifteen during a particularly unfortunate flood at Pollock Halls.

Flat 9 was on the top floor.

Flat 9 had, according to the floor plan that Cal had texted her at eleven thirty-six that morning, two bedrooms, one bathroom, one kitchen, and a small open-plan living room with — and this was the part of the floor plan that Wren had read twice — one sofa.

Wren texted Cal back at eleven thirty-seven.

She wrote:

Cal. One sofa.

Cal wrote back at eleven thirty-eight:

Wren. Don't.

Wren wrote at eleven thirty-eight:

Cal. One sofa.

Cal wrote at eleven thirty-nine:

Wren. The bank brief was very clear about the visual. Two captains, one sofa, one programme. I tried. I will say I tried. I will go on the record as having tried. I have already had this conversation twice with Theo this morning and I would like it to be the last conversation either of you have me on this. Coach is across this. Coach has signed off. Coach has said and I quote 'they are adults and one of them is going to be Olympic and the other one is going to be Olympic and they can survive six weeks on a sofa.' Coach has spoken. I am going for a coffee. Don't text me back.

Wren did not text Cal back.

Wren put her phone down on the kitchen counter of her own flat off Marchmont Road, and Wren stood at the kitchen counter and looked at her phone, and her phone stayed silent for sixteen full seconds.

Then her phone buzzed.

The buzz was a text.

The text was from Mack T (do not).

The text read:

Halliday.

The text read, three seconds later:

We need to talk.

—

Wren, who had not exchanged a text with Theo Mackenzie Mack since the second week of freshers' year, when he had texted her at three in the morning Halliday I think you left your scarf at the rink and she had texted back I did not leave my scarf at the rink and Theo had texted back Halliday I am literally holding your scarf in my left hand and Wren had typed back that is not my scarf, picked up her phone, looked at the text for a long time, and replied:

Mack.

Three seconds.

No we do not.

Three seconds.

I have read the email. I have read the floor plan. I have read the part about the sofa. I am not negotiating with you on the sofa. The sofa is yours. I will take the floor with my own duvet from this flat. I will do this for the bank. I will do this for Coach. I will do this for the Programme. I will not do this for you. Are we clear.

Three dots appeared.

The three dots stayed.

The three dots disappeared.

The three dots reappeared.

The three dots stayed for, by Wren's count, nineteen full seconds.

Then the reply came.

The reply read:

Halliday.

Three seconds.

Are you outside.

Wren went to her flat window.

Wren looked down into the small front courtyard of her flat building off Marchmont Road, at the cold dry pavement with the bin bags out for the Tuesday collection, and Wren, at the window, very slowly put one hand flat against the cold glass.

Theo Mack was standing on the pavement.

He was in his rink jacket — the team-issue navy, with MACK across the left chest in white — and he was holding two coffees, and he was looking up at her window, with his face in the kind of expression that he had been giving her in corridors since freshers' year, the one she had told him in October to stop giving her, the one that was not exactly a smile and was not exactly anything else but which made her cross her own feet on the inside check on the ice and which she had been pretending, for almost four years and three months, that she did not see.

He had, Wren noted, brought two coffees.

He had, Wren noted, brought a black coffee and a flat white, and the flat white was in his right hand, which was the hand that — five mornings a week, every morning since freshers' year, at the rink café — Wren had ordered her own flat white from herself.

Wren did not, this time, pretend not to see him.

Wren stood at her own kitchen window in her own flat off Marchmont Road, with her own phone in her own left hand, with her hair still wet from the rink, and she let Theo Mack see her seeing him.

He saw her.

He did not, this time, smile.

He raised the flat white very slightly, in his right hand, and tilted his head, very slightly, towards the front door of her building.

Wren, very slowly, lifted her phone, and she typed —

I am coming down. We are talking on the pavement. We are not coming up. Are we clear.

She watched him read the text.

She watched him look up at the window.

She watched him, with his face in the expression she had told him in October to stop giving her, type back —

Halliday. We are very, very clear.

She put the phone down on the kitchen counter.

She picked up her coat.

She went, in her own time, down the four flights of stairs to the cold November pavement of her flat building off Marchmont Road, where Theo Mackenzie Mack — twenty-three years old as of November, six foot two, captain of the men's, the boy she had not, since the second week of freshers' year, allowed herself to think of in the privacy of her own kitchen window — was waiting for her, with two coffees, on a Tuesday morning, on the eleventh day of November, forty-two days before the start of the most intolerable arrangement Wren Halliday had, in the entire arrangement of her short and extremely organised twenty-three-year-old life, ever knowingly agreed to.

She opened the door of her building.

She did not, this time, pretend the flat white in his right hand was not hers.

She took it.

She said, in the voice she had been raised by her sister Maeve to use on men she fully intended to keep at the wrong side of the door for the foreseeable, 'Mack.'

He said, in the same quiet flat voice he had been using on her since October, 'Halliday.'

He said, after a second, 'We need a plan.'

She said, 'Yes we do.'

And on the cold dry November pavement of her flat building off Marchmont Road, with a flat white in her hand that she had not paid for and that she had, irritatingly, very much wanted, Wren Halliday and Theo Mack — captain and captain, enemies for one hundred and fifty-one weeks, soon to be flatmates for forty-one days — began, against every advice their respective older sisters had ever given them, to make one.