Chapter 21
‘Oh my God, that was incredible!’
Alyssa jumped off the raft and hopped towards Devan, who was already at the side of the lake, looking for somewhere to tie the raft’s rope.
Before her sensible head could catch up with her endorphins, she flung her arms around his neck and gave him a brief squeeze.
He smelt of amber and something woody, invoking memories of being close to him all those years ago.
She closed her eyes momentarily, before shaking her head and quickly disentangling herself.
He might not be with Sylvie now, but he had been.
And she’d been fooled by his charms before.
‘That’s what all the ladies say,’ he joked, giving a small bow.
‘Don’t be a twat.’ She gave him a light swipe. Hell, what was she, eleven years old? ‘I just meant maybe there’s something in this enjoy the journey stuff.’
Her heart was still racing from their wobbly ride across the water on the crappy contraption they’d hashed together using logs, a saw and a whole lot of rope.
Teijo’s instructions had been as useful as a bag of sand in the desert, but somehow the ‘teamwork or drown’ motto had got them across the lake without sinking.
Alyssa had to admit, she felt more alive than she had in ages.
The unexpected rush of adrenaline could be the only explanation for her having just flung her limbs around Devan like a total goon.
‘Sorry,’ said Devan, clearing his throat and going back to his task with the rope. ‘For the stupid comment. I’m not always a twat. I just … don’t always know what to say around you. I come out with all this nervous bravado, and that’s not really me.’
‘Like the time you stripped in the love garden, when you could have just put the overalls over your clothes?’
‘Yeah.’ He winced. ‘I wouldn’t normally get semi-naked in front of your parents. When you’re around I sometimes do odd stuff.’
Were his cheeks going red? A tiny part of her almost liked the way they could poke fun at each other, and how their jesting was becoming a touch less barbed.
‘Just be yourself, Devan.’ She sat down on the bank of the lake, pulling out the last square of Yorkie she’d saved in her pocket.
She wanted to add because everyone else is taken, like she might have said on Instagram.
The quote attributed to Oscar Wilde was a good one.
Though as she saw his eyebrows gently raised in question, she knew this wasn’t the time to throw out advice she wasn’t sticking to.
‘Alyssa Heart is a role I’ve come to play,’ she heard herself mumble, through a mouthful of chocolate. ‘We all have our reasons,’ she added, more firmly.
‘I get that.’
Did he? She didn’t answer because she’d said more than enough.
And she had been meaning to somehow escape this task as soon as the raft thing was done. But Teijo would be expecting photos of them next to a pitched tent, so she supposed she ought to stay for that bit. Contractually speaking.
By the time it came to pitching their tent, Alyssa had learned it would be faster to work with Devan than to obstinately do her own thing.
It was curious how quickly they fell into step as they worked, like some strange, historic muscle memory was taking over.
They’d built dens together as kids and had worked on school projects.
They’d both been in Scouts, and he’d even joined country dancing, until they’d tried to get him to wear a flowery hat and braces.
Their bodies and minds knew how to work together, even if Alyssa had tried to resist it.
If nothing else, it was useful for getting things done.
When the tent looked like it probably wouldn’t collapse, they set up a campfire.
Perhaps she ought to stay until they lit it later, because that would make for good photos too.
She absently wondered if Teijo had managed to pack enough blankets and thermals, because it would surely get chilly.
For Devan, that was. She’d have worked out how to get signal and order an Uber or something by then.
‘Lunch,’ Devan announced, when the afternoon was getting on.
It was quite possibly the best word she’d ever heard him say, and there was no way she was missing that bit. They’d had an active day, and her stomach was all but yelling.
‘Is the quinoa salad yours or mine?’
Alyssa looked up to see the familiar twinkle in his eyes as he said it.
He’d bailed her out before and she didn’t need him to.
She should just be honest with Teijo and let him know she only liked quinoa when it was disguised as chocolate cake.
But her failure to do that was her problem, not Devan’s.
‘Salad’s probably mine,’ she said with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. Nobody’s eyes could smile about pseudograins – especially if they’d probably been cooked to gritty imperfection by Sausage Sandra, as lovely as she was.
‘Whatever he’s sent, we’ll share. Team Delyssa,’ he said, combining their names and holding his hand up for a high five.
‘Yep, you’re doing that awkward bravado thing again.’
‘What? That was better than Team Alyvan, right?’
‘Still not a team.’ She laughed and rolled her eyes.
They were back on the bank of the lake by the time they got around to sharing Teijo’s thrown-together picnic.
His notes said they’d have to catch fish to cook and eat for tea, and in the interests of getting photographic evidence she’d done her best with this task, they made a start.
Teijo had sent a list of which fish they were allowed to eat, even if the rest of his instructions were dire and she did not plan on sticking around to gut a trout.
It was surprisingly peaceful sitting by the water like a pair of gnomes, each perched on a rucksack and dangling a fishing rod, their lunch spread out between them.
Alyssa noticed how the quinoa salad was more or less bearable when you only had to eat half of it, and it helped that she had half of Devan’s ham and pickle baguette to sweeten things.
‘How did the Alyssa Heart thing come about?’ Devan asked, after an almost amiable silence she’d been quite enjoying.
She wasn’t sure how much of her private life she wanted to share with him, after the last time she’d foolishly trusted him.
But most of her love coach story was on her social media, and they may as well talk about something as they pondered the surface of the water.
‘After I … left,’ said Alyssa, the last word feeling uncomfortable, ‘I went to London and juggled various crap jobs. Then this life coaching course came up and I had no better plans, so I went along. I had no idea what to specialise in until one of mum’s old friends, Dina, turned up drunk at my bar job.
She was on the verge of divorce, and I started giving her informal coaching.
My words helped to save her marriage. Dina suggested I could be a love coach.
’ She gave a small laugh. ‘After everything that had happened in Hartglove, I can’t say I thought much of the big romantic dream.
’ An image of a stage and an embarrassing costume invaded her mind, and she shook her head.
‘But I’d found a strategy that helped people.
Then when I set up my business, I was ready for a complete new name. A fresh start.’
‘You seem good at what you do,’ he said a little awkwardly. ‘Do you enjoy it?’
Alyssa let out a long sigh. ‘I used to.’
‘And now?’
She stole a glance at the side of his head, as though sizing him up. What the hell. If he blabbed, she could always deny it. He had a history of lying.
‘Like all careers, it has its moments.’ She wasn’t about to admit business had been rubbish for a while, or that she’d received a few reasonable enquiries since the love tasks began, but somehow, she was still holding back from them. It didn’t yet make sense to her either.
‘And the persona?’ he asked gently.
She watched the lake ripple. Was that a fish?
‘Not always me,’ she conceded, when the water stilled.
‘Why did you drop Beryl?’ he asked, his voice still soft. He was probably trying not to scare off his tea.
‘People weren’t that into her.’
‘I was into her,’ he said, with a sudden firmness. ‘I liked her just how she was. She didn’t need to pretend to be …’
Her head swung around to face him and his followed. Her eyes dared him to continue but he halted.
‘You clearly didn’t like her enough,’ she challenged.
His gaze held hers for as long as she would let it, hurt seeming to flash across his face. He was hurt? Tears stung her eyes and she turned back towards the water, a stir of old emotions broiling. As he started to speak, she shushed him.
‘We have a fish to catch. Then I’m getting out of here.’
Nearly an hour passed, with nothing pulling at their rods or swishing the water.
Even the trout didn’t want to breathe their uneasy air.
Alyssa could feel the tension building inside her.
Should she have seized that moment to scream out her hurts or address the stampede of unspoken elephants?
Could she honestly continue like this? But blurting out her feelings would be like saying ‘Here’s the ugly scab you made; come and pick it.
’ Like showing her weakness. Letting go of her power. She wasn’t down for that.
So she quietly seethed.
‘Maybe we should give up and order you a takeaway, if you’re staying.
And me a taxi,’ she finally said, when her backside was numb and her patience had reached its limit.
She had no idea if they were close to food or phone reception, but anything was better than this passive-aggressive waiting game.
In fact, if they could get a car to bring takeaway, she’d get a lift home.
‘Alyssa Heart.’ Devan put his hand on hers, clearly trying to bring back the easy humour from earlier. ‘You would cheat?’
She. Would. Cheat. That was the wrong choice of joke. She stood up quickly, her fishing rod catapulting into the water. She glared at him, his last word still echoing across the lake. How did he have the audacity to look confused?
‘What did I say? I know you’re not really a—’
‘No, I’m not,’ she said pointedly. ‘Shame about you.’
His forehead creased, as though his brain was on rewind. ‘Oh right.’ He rubbed the back of his neck, as people often did before they told a massive lie. Again. Alyssa wasn’t stupid. ‘I know it looked bad back then, but it was complicated, and—’
‘It looked bad? When my best friend ended up pregnant by my boyfriend. The boyfriend who hadn’t yet slept with me, because he wanted the moment to be “right”.’
Devan put down his fishing rod carefully, slowly standing, his hands raised as though he was fully expecting missiles.
Alyssa wasn’t finished. ‘And before I’d realised all of that I made an absolute idiot of myself, announcing my “love” for you on a stupid stage, with everybody gawping.
You legged it from the room, leaving me alone up there.
Then, to make it even worse, Sylvie’s dad started yelling that you were marrying her because you’d got her up the duff.
And that’s the last time I’m drinking cheap-shit wine. ’
‘Did you?’ He shook his head, as though it was helping the thought to settle. ‘Why did nobody tell me that? I must have left the room before you said that, though I heard the gossip about what Sylvie’s dick of a dad had shouted.’
‘Like it would have made a difference.’ She thrust her hands on her hips, so she didn’t whack anyone with them. ‘You’d made your choice, and it wasn’t me.’
‘No, Alyssa. It wasn’t like that. I tried to speak to you.
I wanted to explain. I called you, I knocked on your door, I threw stones at your bedroom window.
Hell, I even tried to climb a tree and get in.
You wouldn’t let me near you. And then you left so quickly.
You changed your number. I didn’t know your address and your parents said they were under strict instructions not to pass your contact details to anyone.
They had their own stuff going on and they got sick of me and Sylvie bugging them.
We had to back off, but we wanted to explain.
I know it must have seemed terrible to you.
The worst. But the truth of it was such a mess.
Sylvie was gutted too. She missed you. But she was so ill through her pregnancy and then Emmalina arrived.
’ He couldn’t hide the small smile at the mention of his daughter’s name.
‘Please believe me, Alyssa. There was so much more to that story. Things I couldn’t share and still can’t, because it’s not just my story to tell.
But I promise you this: I thought the world of you, and I never meant to hurt you. ’
He took a slight step towards her, but she backed away.
Her head was spinning. She’d known Devan all of her life.
From everything she could see on his face and through his body language, he looked honest and sorry to the point of desperation.
But she knew how getting pregnant worked, and he’d married Sylvie.
His actions had hurt her – beyond measure.
She screwed her eyes shut and exhaled. ‘Whatever. It was a mess back then, but none of it’s my problem. We’re just two people, trying to get through seven tasks without killing each other. I need to get paid. You need to promote your app. Nobody needs any pointless heart-to-hearts.’
‘Alyssa … The rod. I think we’ve caught something.’