Читать книгу Crazy Little Thing Called Love: The perfect laugh out loud romantic comedy you won’t be able to put down - Charlotte Butterfield - Страница 12

The harbour master waved Leila and Nick through onto the main jetty that led to the smaller pontoons gently bobbing above the water. It was only eight in the evening, and the start of dusk was in the air. On the back of every boat people were having dinner, or sharing a bottle of wine, stretched out on the ubiquitous striped benches that adorned every stern.

‘Careful, it gets narrow here,’ Leila said, as they reached Thomas and Judy’s pride and joy, a ten-year old motor yacht called Hendricks. Thomas had lobbied Judy relentlessly throughout Leila’s entire childhood for a boat, and as soon as she had left home Judy finally relented. There was something very special about being a boat owner, Judy had confided after the purchase, like a magical membership to an exclusive club. Judy had thrown herself into the role, replacing the small round buttons on her navy blazers with some that sported anchors, and developing a wardrobe mainly made up of navy and white stripes. If the new hobby had been golf, not boating, Leila was sure diamond sweaters and plus fours would have been the sartorial staple. One always needed to look the part, didn’t one. But it did mean that this evening on the marina, the two of them stood out somewhat, with Leila in her bright coral bridesmaid dress, and Nick in his tails – he’d misplaced the hat, which would have cost him the deposit from the hire place.

Using the key she’d taken from her father’s desk drawer, Leila unlocked the canopy and climbed on deck.

‘Permission to climb aboard,’ Nick said saluting.

‘Permission granted,’ Leila laughed, grabbing his hand and helping him step over the side.

‘Nice digs.’ He said looking around.

‘It’s only marginally smaller than my flat, and a tenth of the price. Come down here, I’ll give you a tour.’

They descended the five steps into the cabin, and Leila opened a cupboard that concealed a fridge fully stocked with a variety of alcohol. ‘Beer, wine, champagne, or shall we stick with the hard spirits?’

‘Do you know what, a beer would be amazing.’ Nick started opening some of the other cupboards. ‘This place is like a tardis, it’s brilliant!’

Leila nodded her head along the galley kitchen, as she clicked the top off the two bottles of beer, ‘Look down there, there’s the cabin.’

Nick opened the small door, and just beyond it was a big double bed in the bow of the boat, the mattress tapering to a point at the end. ‘I love it! Do you know what?’ He turned around and accepted the beer. ‘I’ve never even been on a boat that wasn’t a ferry or a canoe. This is awesome. I would totally live on this.’

‘It gets well stinky in winter with the damp, but it’s lovely in the summer. You would have to start wearing a sailor’s hat and slip on deck shoes and swap your cigarettes for a pipe though, or you wouldn’t be allowed in the marine club.’

‘I don’t want to be ostracised for being a landlubber.’

‘See! You already know the lingo, you’re halfway there!’ Leila led Nick back outside, picking up two more bottles of beer and a packet of peanuts out of the fridge on the way. She lifted the top of the bench that ran along the back of the boat and pulled some cushions out, putting them on two of the chairs around the table. ‘Have a seat.’

A couple of minutes passed. They were both happy to sit and drink their cold beer enjoying the last of the sunshine away from the oppressive humidity of the wedding’s dance floor.

Nick finally broke the silence, which Leila was glad of. She’d started to feel uncharacte‌ristically shy. ‘So Lei, can I call you Lei?’

Leila nodded. No-one had called her Lei before. It was quite nice.

‘What’s your brother like? I’ve only met him twice before.’

‘He’s quite nice. A bit earnest and serious at times, but a decent bloke. He’s quite focused.’

‘On what?’

‘Mainly work, and now your sister.’

Nick leaned back in his chair, ‘Ah. My sister.’

‘You both seem very…’ Leila tried searching for a word that wouldn’t offend him.

‘Different? Polar opposites?’ He chuckled. ‘We are as different as it is possible to be. I’m not really sure why, it sort of gradually happened. Dad left when we were teenagers, he was much more like Lucy. Very serious. Mum has always been this creative free spirit type – she’s a poet.’

‘A poet? That’s amazing.’

‘It is quite cool. Well, it is when she’s writing what it is she wants to write, the other times she’s selling her soul and writing the verses in greetings cards, you know the ones that rhyme cherish with marriage and christening with glistening.’

Leila sighed. ‘I think there’s a certain amount of soul selling whatever job you’re in, although hers does sound particularly horrific.’

‘How did a girl from a Dartmouth hotel end up in London if you don’t mind me asking? What’s your story?’

Leila took another swig of her beer. ‘It’s not very exciting really. I’m the youngest of three. There’s Tasha, the eldest one – I don’t know if you met her, she was the other one in this hideous get up – then Marcus, your new brother-in-law, and then me. Mum and Dad really wanted one of us to stay and help run the hotel. They were desperate for one of us to go to college to do hotel management and then take over and let them basically drink gin on this boat for the rest of their lives. But Tasha went off to London, got herself married and pregnant, not necessarily in that order, and then Marcus left, and all their hopes were pinned on me, so it was a pretty rough time when I told them I wanted to study landscape architecture instead.’

‘You’re an architect? Me too. Although I do buildings. Wow, ok, carry on.’

‘That’s so funny, where do you work?’

‘Hills and Faulkner? Just by Tower Bridge?’

Leila started laughing. ‘That’s hilarious, one of my friends that I studied with works there, Amanda Stratham?’

‘I know Amanda, married to Paul in Engineering?’

‘That’s the one. Small world.’

‘So where do you work?’

‘Halliday and Associates. Up in Notting Hill?’

‘I applied for their graduate scheme, but got turned down.’

‘What year was this?’

‘2004, straight after graduation, why?’

Leila smiled. ‘Would you still keep drinking beer with me if I told you I got it instead of you?’

‘You’re kidding me! This is insane. Wow. Ok, as we’re almost related now and I am on your parents’ boat drinking their beer, I guess I’ll have to be nice to you, but I’m not pleased.’

‘That’s very generous of you.’ Leila leant her beer bottle across the table, ‘A toast. To winners and losers.’

He clinked his bottle against hers laughing. ‘I like you Leila. You’re funny.’

‘I like you too Nick.’

She didn’t imagine it. A look passed between them that said exactly the same as what they’d just voiced out loud but the look was weighted with a lot more than friendly banter. This wasn’t supposed to happen. She was three months into the year, she wasn’t allowed to give and receive these kind of looks with nine months still to go.

‘I’m a bit hungry,’ she said, breaking the pause. ‘I’m sure Mum and Dad have some kind of pasta sauce in the cupboard, or you could nip across the road to pick up some chips?’

Nick raised one eyebrow. ‘I could nip across the road?’

She nodded. ‘It would be the most gentlemanly thing to do in the circumstances. I am, after all, dressed like a prostitute fairy.’

Nick stood up and took his wallet from the inside pocket of the jacket that he’d slung on the back of his chair. ‘Salt and vinegar?’

‘Lots of both please. And as many ketchup sachets as you can carry.’

‘Girl after my own heart. Back in a min.’

Leila watched him getting smaller down the jetty and then ran inside to the toilet. She’d been bursting for a wee but didn’t want to go when he was here because the flush made the most god-awful sound and it would ruin whatever moment was happening. But then, she thought as she frantically pulled her fingers through her short crop and pinched her cheeks to give them some colour, she shouldn’t care anyway. She was off men. Completely chaste. Not interested in the slightest. If only he wasn’t absolutely gorgeous in a rugged musician sort of way. With his dark messy hair that flicked over his collar, tattooed forearms and stubble, Nick was absolutely her ideal type, which was ironically the opposite of all the public school rugby players she seemed to attract. And an architect as well, it was just too perfect. Rather, it would have been had she not set herself up as a feminist icon for single women everywhere.

She’d just managed to get two more beers and arrange herself in her chair – relaxed but not lounging; contemplative but not aloof – when he came into sight down the floating walkway.

‘Your chips m’lady,’ he said, passing the warm wrapped parcel to her before vaulting over the side of the boat.

‘You are a legend, thank you.’

The faint strains of country music could be heard from the boat on one side of them, and some Beatles from the other. Leila caught Nick’s eye and smiled as he said, ‘It’s a step up from the wedding DJ’s playlist at least.’

‘I like it,’ she replied. ‘It’s like Dolly Parton is doing a duet with John Lennon.’

As the songs changed and the chips were eaten, more bottles were fetched and the light completely faded, they shared stories and laughed into the night. At some point in the evening Nick had given Leila his jacket, and she inhaled a heady combination of aftershave and tobacco every time she breathed in. She’d moved the other two chairs closer to them, so they both had their feet up on the seats opposite them. Most of their neighbours on the marina had either pulled down the canvas roofs and walked back to their waiting cars and houses, or some had retreated into the downstairs cabins and a warm glow emitted from behind the curtains on the small portholes.

‘There’s something very romantic about the sea isn’t there?’ Nick said, looking wistfully across the water.

‘Is that a line? Because it sounded like a line.’

He smiled. ‘Would you want it to be a line? If it was a line?’

This was it, this was the crossroads where she could continue the evening down the wonderful path it had been going down, or she could stop it and they could go back to the wedding and pretend that they hadn’t just met their soulmate. And she could bang her head against the wall for the rest of the night.

‘I think I’d like it to be a line.’

Nick slowly leant over the table and tilted her chin up so her lips met his. He parted her lips with his tongue and his hand moved up to the back of her head. Leila leant in and rested her hand on his leg. When they finally broke away they were both smiling.

‘We might be more comfortable in the cabin,’ she heard herself say. Three months Leila. You’ve done so well for three months.

But for the next hour and a half she managed to keep any sort of feelings of guilt or self-loathing at bay. In fact, it was remarkably easy to not think of very much at all.

***

Despite how well acquainted they were with each other, considering the positions they’d managed to contort themselves into in the tiny cabin just moments before, there was now an uncomfortable silence walking back up the hill to the hotel. Nick had tried to take Leila’s hand, but she’d put it firmly in her pocket. He’d then casually shoulder-barged her after making a joke, but she remained passive and distant.

‘Look,’ she offered finally, as the hotel came into view. ‘There’s something you should know.’

They kept walking, but their pace had slowed. ‘You’re married.’

‘No.’

‘But you are with someone?’

‘Absolutely not.’

‘You have a weird disease that you should have told me about before and now it’s very probable that I have it too.’