Chapter 24
24
We both hovered outside of the car, neither of us knowing what our next move was.
‘So, what now?’ he said, broaching the subject.
I had no answers for him and shrugged my shoulders, scared to speak. This was all new to me. I had no flipping idea what came next. And it scared the living daylights out of me.
‘I suppose you could make me another coffee. I never did get to drink the one you made for me earlier. Then maybe we could talk. Maybe I could apologise for storming off. Maybe I could even come to my senses and realise I might have been overreacting?’
The inflection at the end of his sentence turned it into a question rather than a sentence.
I nodded. Seemingly all my words had disappeared.
As I fumbled to put the key into the front door of Books In The Bay, Dennie took the key from me and opened the door, before closing it gently behind him. The click of the lock being put across made my spine shiver with anticipation. I headed out back to the kitchen and started to fill the kettle but could hear his footsteps behind me, and as I turned, I literally bumped into his body. His firm, hard body.
He took the kettle from my hands and placed it on the counter. Every hair on my skin stood to attention as he closed the gap between us and took my face in his hands and kissed me once more. His fingers reached to the back of my head and unleashed my hair, which fell to my shoulders, and he let his fingers slide through it as his lips pressed down on mine, more urgently and passionately than when he’d kissed me earlier.
Somehow, before I knew it, he’d moved me so I was now leaning against the door and his body was pressed against mine, every tingle I’d felt before magnified by a million per cent. My knees were trembling and my hands were shaking but I knew that this felt more right than anything in my life had ever felt before. We kissed for what seemed like hours, his lips on my neck and his hands roaming my body. He could have literally taken me there and then. I wanted him more than I ever thought possible.
My mind was running away with me and before I could take a breath, I realised he’d pulled away.
‘God, I’m so sorry! I never meant to…’ He ran his hands through his hair and exhaled.
‘Do it again, Dennie!’
‘Sorry?’
‘Kiss me again. Please.’
I didn’t have to ask him twice this time. He kissed me as if it were the only thing in the world that we could do, and right there and then I knew I would have let him make love to me, had there not been a knock at the door.
‘Ignore it!’ I whispered breathlessly. We both held our breath. I buried my head in his chest and we both giggled.
‘Nance!’ There was a shout and a harder, more urgent knock at the door.
‘I know you’re in there. The light is on out the back. Open the door.’
‘Ignore it!’ I urged him again. ‘He might go away.’
‘He’s your brother and he clearly needs you right now,’ Dennie said. ‘Go and let him in.’
I groaned as I tore myself away. I opened the kitchen door and walked down the hallway, shouting at Dan to calm down and stop banging on the door.
‘Hey, sis, how are you doing?’
‘Erm, yes. I’m good thanks.’
‘Are you sure? You’re a bit flushed in the face.’ He held the back of his hand to my head. ‘You’re not sickening for something, are you?’
Dennie coughed as he came out of the kitchen with two coffee mugs in his hand and walked towards the chairs in the bay window. Dan and I followed him.
‘Oh, right, that explains everything. Sorry, I didn’t know you had company. I woke up and you’d gone so I figured you’d be here.’ He was totally oblivious to the hugely momentous scene that had just happened at the train station.
‘Yeah, we were just…’
‘It’s fine, we were just…’
Dennie and I couldn’t look at each other but I could hear from his voice that the corners of his mouth would be turning up.
I said ‘stocktaking’ at the same time as he said, ‘ordering some books’.
‘Oh, so that’s what you call it.’ My brother grinned at me. ‘About time, Nancy. About time.’ He winked at me and flung himself down one of the armchairs in the window. ‘No sugar for me thanks, Nance, and while you’re doing that, I’ll have a little word here with yer man.’
Shaking my head and wondering what the hell my brother was going to say to Dennie, I headed back to the kitchen. I felt like my whole life had changed in the space of an hour. What did this now mean though? I frowned as lots of thoughts flew through my mind: was he stopping here in Driftwood Bay, or was he heading back to London again? How could we conduct a long-distance love affair? How was our story going to end? All of this, just as our story was beginning, and it scared the crap out of me. I was forging ahead too fast, almost seeing it not work out before I was going to give it a chance. I needed to get back out into the shop and stop my brain working overtime.
I got back to the shop floor just in time to hear Dan say to Dennie, ‘…or I’ll break your legs!’
‘What’s going on here then?’
They were both smiling so I knew it was nothing too serious.
‘Your brother was just telling me that if I broke your heart, he’d break my legs.’
‘Oh, right.’ My hands wouldn’t stop trembling as I put Dan’s coffee down on the table between the chairs. They were both sat extremely comfortably, seemingly at ease in each other’s company.
Dan continued. ‘I just wanted to say that I’m sorry, Nancy. For letting you think that my relationship is normal. I think I’ve finally realised that it isn’t.’
Dennie lifted himself out of the chair. ‘I’ll leave you two to it.’
‘No, it’s fine, mate,’ Dan said. ‘There’s nothing you can’t hear. It’s probably good if you do to be honest. I want you both to hold me accountable. I know I’ve made a lot of mistakes and I know I’ve been the one who stopped you wanting to put yourself out there and find someone to love you, Nancy. But you are a wonderful human being, who deserves the very best of everything in your life. Everything you do, you do for others and not yourself. The beach work you do, the teaching and now this.’ He swept his arms around the room and swallowed before he continued. ‘You deserve love in your life, Nancy. Don’t let me and Sabrina be the example of how things should be. Look to Mum and Dad instead. They got the fairy tale and there’s no reason that you shouldn’t too.’
‘I do, Dan, but not many relationships end up like that either.’
‘But it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get your happy-ever-after. You deserve to have someone in your life who puts you first. To love you, to cherish you, to help you and support you to flourish.’ He nodded towards Dennis, who was looking down at his feet, trying not to get involved.
‘And so do you,’ I said.
‘I know, and I promise that I’m going to sort things out with Sabrina once and for all. Remember that lodge that we all used to go to in the woods?’
‘I love that lodge,’ I said, looking up with a smile.
‘I know you do and I do too. We have so many happy memories there from our childhoods, don’t we? I’ve just called the owners and it’s free right now so I’m going to go and spend some time there on my own, to work out how I’m going to break the cycle and start being me again. I haven’t felt like me for years. I might need your help, though, sis.’
‘You’ve got it. Anything you need it’s yours.’
‘You’re the best.’
‘Yeah, I know.’
‘No, I am.’
Snotty tears streamed down my face as we fell into a childhood competitive tradition. I was so glad that my brother had finally realised that I wasn’t the only one who deserved a different life and I hoped beyond words that one day, his princess would come and she would not be called Sabrina.
As I glanced over at Dennis, I saw he was grinning at me and I mouthed the word ‘sorry’ over my brother’s shoulder as he grabbed me in a bear hug.
‘It’s fine,’ he whispered and winked and my heart felt a little safer than it had before.
‘Sorry, mate, I interrupted you again, didn’t I?’
‘It’s fine, Dan. I really hope you get yourself sorted out, and if there’s anything I can do to help, just let me know. Nancy and me. We’ve got all the time in the world.’
But had we?