Chapter 34
Chapter Thirty-Four
I grin. I did it. I actually did it. I transported to the place I intended to reach.
I yelp in delight and fist-pump the air. McGruff looks up at me like I finally lost my mind.
“Oh, come on,” I tell him. “You know I’ve been trying to do that for years and years and years.”
A spark of hope ignites in my belly. I can’t help feeling this is a good sign.
“Okay, Buster,” I tell him. “I think the next thing I need to do is something I have to do alone.”
I unlock the front door, usher him inside, close it again, and then – straightening out my T-shirt and my skirt and running my fingers through my hair – stroll across the hallway and knock loudly on Horatio’s front door.
Nothing.
Silence.
I knock again, and when there’s still no answer, I lean my ear against the door and listen. There’s no sound from within Horatio’s flat at all, and I sigh with disappointment.
There’s an impatience buzzing all the way through my body. I can’t wait. I need to talk to him. I need to talk to him now.
I try to think where he could possibly be on a Sunday. He doesn’t go to the gym on Sunday. And he visits the supermarket on a Saturday. So where else could he be?
And then it hits me.
The Heath.
It’s another beautiful, glorious summer’s day and the Heath is the place to go if you need to think things through.
I race down the stairs, out the front door of the Heatherley Court building, and run along the street, swerving pedestrians as I go, like I’m a rugby player heading for the line.
By the time I reach the Heath itself, I’m out of breath and sweaty and I realise there’s no way I will survive running around the whole of the Heath in the afternoon sun. I’m gonna have to walk.
I try my best to adopt a more reasonable pace, but I keep breaking out into a trot, and occasionally a sprint, as I follow the paths past the ponds, full of swimmers today, people basking on the water’s edge in the hot sunshine.
I dodge little yappy dogs and great big ones too.
I swerve past families, laden down with frisbees, cricket bats, and footballs, children cradling ice creams seemingly bigger than their heads.
I pass the usual tourists, snapping photos on their phones, and talking in all sorts of languages. And I head up the hill.
Call it magic. Call it a woman’s intuition. Call it a funny sensation in the pit of my belly. But I just have this feeling, that this is where he will be.
I’m panting as I climb the hill and I have to stop twice, hunching over my knees to catch my breath again. My thighs are screaming and my toes inside my boots are not happy either.
Finally, I make it to the brow of the hill, the whole of London spread out before me on the horizon.
There’s someone sitting on the bench. My favourite bench. Silhouetted against the bright summer’s sky.
For a moment my heart drops. It isn’t him. But then, as I get closer, I find it is.
I pick up my tired feet and sprint as fast as my now-burning legs will carry me.
And then I drop down, wheezing, sweaty, and red-cheeked, beside him on the bench, relieved to find my eyes weren’t deceiving me. It really is Horatio Hottie Shaw, sitting on the bench on Parliament Hill as if he’s been waiting for me all along.
Around us, the Heath is bustling with picnickers, kids running around in dizzying circles, people throwing balls for dogs, aeroplanes soaring above us in the bright blue sky.
But I don’t see any of it or hear any of it.
All my focus is on the man sitting beside me on the bench who stares at me like he’s seen a ghost.
“Molly,” he says, astonished.
“Hi,” I pant, struggling to breathe and talk at the same time. “I … thought … you’d … be … here.”
“Are you okay?” He leans forward and rests his hand on my shoulder.
I wave my hands about in the air, indicating that I just need to catch my breath, and he bends down and scoops up a water bottle from next to his feet, unscrews the lid and passes it over.
I take it gratefully, gulping the water down my throat and then, because I’m so damn hot, tipping a little over my face too. Then I gulp a load more of the stuff.
“Molly,” he says as I’m drinking, “I’m really sorry–”
I hold up my hand, indicating that I want to speak. I pass the water back and, once it’s clear I’m not going to pass out, I tell him, “You don’t need to be sorry, Horatio. Because I realise I haven’t been completely honest with you either.”
“You haven’t?” he says, screwing the lid back on the water bottle and frowning. An expression that used to scare the pants off me and now I find adorably cute, especially when he looks so damn confused. “Have you hexed me, Molly Eccleston?”
“No, it’s nothing like that I promise. No potions, no hexing, no magic involved.
But I haven’t been completely honest with you.
I didn’t tell you…” I take a deep inhale because I’ve never said this before.
It’s the very first time. The very first time I’ve ever felt it too.
But I do feel it. I feel it right now in the centre of my chest and all the way to the tips of my toes and the ends of my fingers.
“I didn’t tell you, Horatio, that I’ve fallen in love with you. ”
He stares at me, his eyes as blue as the summer sky.
“You’re in love with me too?”
I nod, unable to help but smile at him.
“Yes. Yes, I am.”
A smile hovers on his own lips.
“How much?” he asks. “How much are you in love with me?”
“Hmm,” I say, considering my answer. “I’m completely nuts about you really. And I’m head over heels in love with you. It’s pretty embarrassing, actually.”
“It’s not embarrassing,” he says. “It’s the best news I’ve ever heard. Because I feel the same way, Molly. I’m completely, completely head over heels in love with you too.”
He beams at me. And I beam right back. Two people sitting on a bench, completely in love with each other, the sun shining down on our heads, the warm afternoon’s breeze ruffling our cheeks, the air full of the scent of August flowers.
“So now what?” he asks me.
“Well,” I say, “now the truth’s out in the open, I think you’d better kiss me.”
“Sounds like a terrific idea to me,” he says.
He shuffles closer to me on the bench, leaning one arm on the back of it, and lifting his other hand to cup his finger under my chin and tilt my face towards his.
For a moment he just looks at me, his gaze tracing over my face as if he’s memorising every part of it.
And then he leans forward and presses his lips to mine.
And everything else – the noise of the Heath, all the people, all the kerfuffle around us – all just disappears.
And it’s just me.
And it’s just him.
Together.
No stupid love potion necessary.