Chapter 18 #2
‘I’ll manage a bite or two if I work hard enough in the morning,’ I smiled back.
I found myself looking up into his blue eyes and was suddenly transfixed.
‘Well,’ he swallowed, ‘night, Skylar.’
He bent to kiss my cheek and my breath caught.
‘Jacket!’ Rafe suddenly shouted from the kitchen. ‘Have they gone? Someone’s left a jacket! I think it’s Erik’s.’
‘Just a sec,’ I called over my shoulder and when I turned back, I found Erik hadn’t moved, and rather than kissing my cheek, it was our lips that connected.
The surge of electricity that raced through my veins could have lit up the whole of the city and rather than pull away I found myself compelled to move closer and increase the pressure.
Erik didn’t pull away either and had it not been for the sound of footsteps behind me, I don’t know what would have happened.
We sprang apart just as Rafe appeared in the hall holding Erik’s jacket.
‘It is yours Erik, isn’t it?’ he asked, thankfully not seeming to notice the sparks or feel the crackle of current that had sent a jolt through me like nothing I’d experienced before.
‘It is,’ Erik answered rather huskily. ‘Thanks Rafe. I’ll see you Monday, Skylar,’ he added. ‘If not before. Thanks for a great night.’
I watched him walk down the path, shrugging on the jacket as he went.
‘Close the door then,’ tutted my father. ‘You’re letting all the heat out.’
Given how hot I was still feeling, I didn’t think that was any bad thing.
After a restless night, I felt apprehensive about my trip to the Grow-Well on Sunday morning.
A peck on the cheek would have been perfectly acceptable between friends who were also acting as a PPO for each other, but a lingering kiss on the lips was a different matter altogether.
And it hadn’t been just any old kiss. Not for me anyway.
But perhaps I was making too much of it…
my next conversation with Erik would let me know, but I wasn’t ready to have it just yet.
I had felt that intimate moment deeply and needed more time to compose my thoughts and feelings.
The one thing I did already know, and it wasn’t helpful at all, was that my heart wouldn’t have been averse to repeating the experience.
While my head was trying to quash the desire with dire warnings that a re-run could lead to a lost friendship and awkward moments, my heart was telling me to throw caution to the wind!
As it turned out, I was in no danger of compromising either my head or my heart, because Freya, who was also working in the garden, told me Erik had gone to the gym and taken Finn with him.
‘I didn’t have Finn down as a gym kind of guy,’ I said as I tried to imagine him on a treadmill and lifting weights.
Though not at the same time, obviously. How Erik would look doing both, however, was an image that was far too tempting to conjure…
‘He’s not,’ Freya said, cutting through my daydream. ‘But it was either that or I was going to crown him.’
‘Why?’ I laughed. ‘What’s he done?’
‘Spent the whole time since we got back from yours trying to convince me that we should get a cat,’ she said and rolled her eyes. ‘He’s perused every puss rehoming website within a fifty-mile radius and reckons Nell would soon get used to having a feline around the house.’
She sounded doubtful that Nell would adapt and I gave the lovely dog sitting next to her a fuss. Nell was getting used to me now, but I didn’t think Finn had a hope of convincing her to accept a cat companion at her stage in life. She was getting on in doggy years.
‘Oh dear,’ I sympathised. ‘If it would be any help, you can tell Finn he’s always welcome to come and fuss Rafe’s two. Socks loves attention, and from what I witnessed last night, Plato loves it too if it’s Finn giving it.’
‘Thanks,’ Freya said. ‘I’ll tell him that. Now come on, let’s get these empty beds mulched. It’ll be much quicker if we do it together.’
As well as the mulching there were courgettes to pick before they got too big and plenty of runner beans, too.
We put the harvest in wooden crates on the bench in the bothy, so anyone could help themselves.
And the pots of Christmas flowering bulbs were lined up in there, ready to spring into life during the next couple of months.
‘I’ll take a handful or two of the runner beans,’ I told Freya. ‘Rafe’s cooking a late roast lunch and he’ll love using these.’
‘Take some courgettes, too,’ she practically begged. ‘We’re almost overrun!’
‘All right,’ I laughed. ‘And now I’d better get back so there’s time to prep them.’
Grandad George arrived while I was in the shower and Rafe had already given him the ground floor tour before I came down.
‘Skylar,’ he beamed, ‘you look the picture of health!’
‘That’s down to working in the Grow-Well this morning,’ I told him as I kissed his cheek. ‘It’s given me a rosy glow.’
‘It’s put roses in your cheeks for sure,’ he said approvingly.
‘That’s not an expression I’ve heard before,’ Rafe said.
‘Me neither. I like it though. What do you think of the house Grandad?’
‘I love it,’ he enthused. ‘What I’ve seen of it anyway. It’s a shame I can’t get upstairs.’
‘I was thinking the same thing myself,’ I said, as I pulled up a chair to sit next to him. ‘So, before I came down, I filmed this on my phone.’
Rafe came to look over my shoulder. He was wearing a pinny and had a tea towel slung over one arm.
He really was in his element, and I felt another hankering for all the years we’d missed.
At least we were making up for them now.
No matter how long this halcyon time lasted, I felt even more determined to make the most of it.
‘Beautiful!’ Grandad George clapped, once the virtual upstairs tour came to an end. ‘It’s an absolute treat to see so many of the original features still in situ.’
‘And taking that video was a very clever idea,’ Rafe said as he kissed the top of my head and went to check something on the hob.
‘That’s because she’s a very clever woman,’ Grandad George praised. ‘And all thanks to good genes, of course.’
‘Mum would be so happy to hear you say that,’ I laughed.
‘Um, well,’ he teased rather ungenerously. ‘I wasn’t thinking of Faye.’
Rafe and I laughed and then I set the table.
‘Sherry, Dad?’ Rafe asked.
‘Oh, yes, please,’ Grandad George said and rubbed his hands together. ‘Just a large one.’
How any of us had the ability to move after the platefuls of succulent roast beef, crispy roast potatoes, huge Yorkshire puddings, medley of fresh, seasonal veg, flavoursome gravy and hot horseradish from Poppy’s kitchen, I had no idea.
‘I’ve made an autumn pudding for dessert,’ Rafe said, once we’d cleared the table and sat back down again, ‘but shall we wait to have it later with a cup of tea?’
‘I think we’d better,’ Grandad George agreed. ‘Otherwise, you’ll have to roll me back to Cavell when it’s time to see me off the premises.’
‘What do you think, Skylar?’ my father asked me.
I’d only had half an ear on the conversation, so the question didn’t register immediately.
‘Earth to Skylar,’ Grandad George said, clicking his fingers.
‘Earth to what?’ I said vaguely.
‘Where did you just go?’ my father laughed.
‘Yes, penny for them,’ Grandad George said.
I felt the roses come back into my cheeks because I’d been thinking about the last person I’d seen off the premises and what had happened seconds before his departure.
‘Oh,’ I said, ‘they’re worth much more than that. Now, who wants dessert?’