Chapter 33
It’s hot in Barcelona.
Hotter even than it was on the yacht.
There, at least, there was almost always a breeze.
Here it’s humid and there’s sweat trickling down my back within minutes of getting out of the cab.
The address Kelsey gave me is on a narrow street with a single palm tree at the end like an exclamation mark.
Most of the buildings are tall, painted lemon and peach and baby blue, but Berry’s is shorter, with only two floors and an iron balcony in the centre of the first floor, the windows either side hidden with wooden shutters.
I stand on the other side of the street and try to make myself cross.
To knock on the door.
To see Berry and explain everything.
To tell her I’m sorry I didn’t tell her about me and Adam.
I’m sorry about the storm.
I’m sorry she left. I’m sorry I let her down.
The balcony is lined with plants in brightly painted pots.
Mostly green, but one in the corner trails a veil of pink flowers over the railing and down the front of the building.
I take a deep breath, count to five, and make myself cross the street, stand in front of her door and press the buzzer, my hand shaking.
I can feel my heartbeat in my face, in my teeth.
If she’s not here, I don’t have much of a plan.
I’ll wait. I’ll come back.
I’ll go home. I don’t know what I’ll do.
And then the door opens and Berry is standing in front of me in pink shorts and the ‘Let’s Summon Demons!’
T-shirt she was wearing the first time I saw her.
Her red-wine hair is piled on her head and she’s perfect.
Beautiful and perfect and looking at me like she’s been expecting me.
And, like Bec said about the first time she saw Morgan, I think, There she is .
‘Come up,’ she says.
I follow her up a short flight of dark, narrow stairs and into her apartment.
Berry’s apartment. It’s so bright, so suddenly, that tears prick the corners of my eyes.
It’s only when I’ve blinked them away that I see the dozens of flowers I sent from Liverpool.
Pink, red, orange and peach dahlias that look like a sunset.
Clouds of white hydrangeas, because I couldn’t get popcorn flowers in the UK.
Tall stems of purple veronica because lavender’s out of season.
Pink and white snowberries that look like balls of meringue.
‘I wanted to make you a superbloom,’ I say, my throat tight.
Berry nods. ‘I got that, yeah.’
‘I was thinking about your mum’s metaphor about the bad thing bringing out the good. ’
She smiles. ‘I got that too.’
‘I miss you,’ I say, before I can stop myself.
She shakes her head.
‘Hope, you can’t just turn up and –’
‘No. I know. I’m sorry.
I didn’t mean to do that.
I just . . . I did, I missed you.
But forget I said that.
I want to explain everything. ’
‘Do you want a drink?’ she says.
‘I need a drink.’
She brings us both cold beers, condensation on the glass.
We take them outside to her terrace and sit on an uncomfortable wooden bench shaded by a yellow-and-white-striped awning.
‘Okay,’ she says, turning towards me, leaning back against a cushion, her feet up on the bench between us, her knees pulled into her chest.
I tell her how it was when Adam and I were together and that we agreed to pretend not to be for the job.
I tell her about his gambling addiction and debts and how that was partly why he wanted us to hide our relationship; he couldn’t risk anything jeopardising the job because he needed to get away from Liverpool and he needed to make as much money as possible.
I tell her that I was attracted to her from the first time I saw her, but I was still with Adam and it freaked me out.
That it freaked me out even more when she kissed me because then I couldn’t stop thinking about her and I dreamt about her and it was so hard to share a room with her, wanting her all the time.
And how I told myself it was just a crush because Adam was being weird and I was totally out of my comfort zone, but then when I kissed her I knew I was kidding myself.
I tell her that it’s over between me and Adam but that he was my first love and my best friend and he’ll always be in my life and I’m not going to apologise for that, but I apologise for everything else.
And that what she said about me using her, when she brought up what happened with Charlie, really hurt me.
By the time I’ve said everything, we’ve finished our beers.
Berry brushes tears from her cheeks with her fingers.
‘So.’ She smiles. ‘That was a lot.’
I smile through my own tears too.
‘I know. I’m sorry.’
Over another two beers, Berry tells me she thought about moving back to Barcelona, getting her tour guide job back, but since she’s been here, she’s realised she doesn’t want to do that.
She’s house-sitting for a friend from home for a couple of weeks, but then she needs to decide what’s next.
‘What are you going to do?’ she asks me.
‘I’m going back to the Serendipity .
Captain Liz asked me and I told her yes. ’
‘Oh, wow, I didn’t realise. ’
She takes a pull of her beer, her brow furrowed.
‘What’s wrong?’
She shakes her head.
‘Nothing’s wrong. I think part of me thought you wouldn’t make plans until you knew where I would be. ’
‘I did think about that. Of course I did. But . . .’ I sigh.
‘All of this happened because I was following Adam. You know? It was his idea and I just went along with it. And, god, I’m so glad I did.
I’m lucky that I love yachting and that I met you.
But the next step needs to come from me. ’
She nods. ‘I respect that. So if I go back to California?’
My heart clenches like a fist. ‘Are you going back to California?’
She smiles.
‘I haven’t decided yet. ’
‘Oh.’ I twist the beer bottle in my fingers, trying to give her the space to tell me more.
‘And we’re not going to do long distance. ’
It’s not even a question.
‘You really don’t want to come back to the Serendipity ?
With me?’ I can’t help but add.
‘It’s not a no,’ she says and my stomach flutters.
‘But I need more time to think about it.’
We talk all afternoon.
Berry orders in food from one of the places she used to take people on her tours.
We eat sharp cheese and lavender honey, slivers of ham and bright, sweet, sundried tomatoes.
The air cools, the sky darkens, a crescent moon rises, surrounded by a scatter of stars.
‘I downloaded an app,’ Berry tells me, pointing.
‘That one – see the sort of circle?’
I don’t, but I tell her I do.
‘That one’s Neptune’s Nutsack. ’
I snort. ‘Oh yeah? I think that’s my rising sign. ’
She laughs. ‘That is not how rising signs work.’
‘You’re the one inventing fake constellations. ’
‘Listen, I googled and they pretty much all look like dicks.’
‘Wow. The patriarchy is everywhere.’
I shield my eyes with my hand, squint, and try to tune out everything else and focus on the pinpricks of light that are actually long-dead planets.
The past made visible, as Berry’s mum said.
But I don’t want to think about the past. I want to focus on the future.
I take a deep, slow, steadying breath.
‘I think I’m probably in love with you,’ I tell her.
I can’t read her face, her perfect face, but she moves closer.
‘You have to promise not to hide things from me,’ she says.
She’s inches away now.
I nod. ‘I promise. I never meant to –’
But I don’t get to finish, because she kisses me.
Slowly and softly and intentionally, like she’s been thinking about it as much as I have.
I make an embarrassing sound, my hands circling her wrists and she lets me hold on for a second before pulling away.
‘I’ve missed you too,’ she says.
We kiss until the moon is higher, the sky dark enough to reveal more constellations we know nothing about.
The heat of the day has dissipated and the goosebumps on my arms aren’t just from the kissing, from being here, with her.
‘You know, there’s a double bed in my room,’ she says.
My stomach flutters.
Nerves and excitement are the same emotion.
‘Oh, I don’t think I could sleep in one now,’ I say.
‘I’ve become institutionalised.
Do you have anything in a cupboard?
Maybe a steam trunk. ’
‘Hope,’ she says, looking at me intently, her dark eyes twinkling, ‘I’m asking you if you want to come and spend the night with me in an actual bed with room for both of us. ’
‘God,’ I say. ‘I really, really do.’
‘I feel like I need to cover Dory’s innocent eyes with a plaster,’ I say later, stroking Berry’s Finding Nemo tattoo with the tip of my index finger.
She laughs. ‘It’s okay.
She has short-term memory loss. ’
I giggle, dropping my head to rest against her hip bone.
‘That just means we’re traumatising her over and over and she’ll never get used to it. ’
‘Maybe she’s into it.
You don’t know her life. ’
‘I’m so sorry,’ I tell the little blue fish tattoo.
Berry dips her head to kiss the new palm tree tattoo on my thigh next to the small scar left by the jellyfish sting.
‘I was so scared when you got stung,’ she says.
‘And then you asked if the kids were okay. I couldn’t believe it. ’
‘I was worried about them,’ I tell her.
‘I know. Because you’re lovely.
You know the scar kind of looks like a constellation. ’
She runs her finger over it gently.
‘Please don’t tell me there’s a dick on my leg. ’
She laughs and her warm breath on my skin makes me shiver.
‘Never again,’ she says, which makes me snort.
‘I still can’t believe you got a palm tree,’ she says, smiling.
‘So basic.’
‘It’s to remind me of the best summer of my life.’
She crawls up my body, caging me with her arms. She leans down and kisses me slowly and I kiss her back, brushing her jaw with my fingertips and curling my hand around the back of her neck.
‘I don’t know about that,’ she tells me, smiling against my mouth.
‘I’ve got high hopes for next summer. ’