Chapter 36
THIRTY-SIX
Christa and I stood in the wreckage of the shop, looking around at the mess. We hadn’t spoken in the car – she’d sat against Jake, his arm tight around her. In fact, none of us had said much at all. Penn sat in the front, feeling very far away from me again, and Sophia had driven at a much more sensible pace, delivering us back to the shop before leaving for home.
Penn and Jake were outside, Jake dragging deeply on one of his vapes while Penn gathered up discarded eco-warrior placards from the pavement. It turned out Linda had been persuaded to create a distraction, as well as send a well-timed message to Christa to leave if she didn’t want to get involved. Linda’s penchant for criminal damage to other ‘unethical’ beauty salons made her susceptible to a spot of blackmail and ensured Christa would appear to be in the right place at the right time.
‘I don’t think it’s too bad,’ said Christa, toeing the shards of a vinyl record. ‘I think only a few things are actually broken; the rest is just scattered around the floor.’
I knelt down and picked up a bento box and its spilled contents. No harm done. I could put the shop back together almost as easily as putting the fork, knife and spoon back inside this box.
‘She gave you the money then?’ she asked.
‘Mmhm. She transferred it to each of us before we left. Everything she arranged to have stolen in the burglary – those shady pals she drafted in to do it had already settled up for the goods. Plus extra for all this damage.’
‘And that means you can carry on with the shop?’
‘I want to.’
Despite my bravado at Melissa’s, reality had crept back in. Now that I had the money she owed me, I could start again, restock the shop and keep my own head above water while paying off the loan for my parents. Just like I’d planned. But, despite the fact that I’d insisted Penn pack up and go home to Northumberland, I couldn’t stand the thought of seeing his side of the shop empty, or somebody else moving in. It would take time for me to decide what to do.
I looked at Christa, who was now gathering up piles of paperback books, stacking them neatly on a table, flattening out the dog-eared corners with care. How I could ever have suspected my friend felt utterly beyond me now.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said quietly. ‘I don’t know how you can ever forgive me.’
She kept fiddling with the books, not looking at me. ‘It doesn’t matter. It’s sorted now.’
‘It does matter. I should have had more faith in you. You’ve never given me any other reason to doubt you.’
She laughed softly. ‘Annie, I don’t blame you. Really. Melissa did such a good job at setting me up, it’s a miracle you didn’t take a swing at me.’
‘I know. I can’t believe how accomplished Melissa was at all this.’ I couldn’t include Olivia’s name. Despite everything – the fake photos, the text messages laying suspicion on Christa – I still felt sorry for her. ‘Do you think I should be worried about not calling the police? What if she does something like this again?’
‘I don’t think she will. Not unless she finds another married man to take vengeance on. And we still have the video and the texts from Olivia in case she’s stupid enough to try anything.’
I nodded. ‘Do you really forgive me, Christa?’
She came over and wrapped me in a hug. ‘Of course I do. Now stop apologising and help me pick up these fairy lights. It’s Christmas tradition to untie the knots in them while swearing like a sailor.’
I grinned and took one end of the snaggled wire.
‘So, do you want to tell me about you and Jake?’ I asked, raising my eyebrow.
Her face glowed with what looked like embarrassment and affection.
‘I thought you weren’t keen on him. That he was cringe and a scourge on the environment with his disposable plastics.’
‘Let’s just say he grew on me. The night he and Penn sent Neil packing, I started to see him in a different light. Like one of those bodice-ripping alpha males on the cover of those romance novels you sell. I couldn’t look at him without a little zing in the knicker area.’
It made me think of Penn again. He was different now, compared to what I thought I knew of him that first day in this shop. But he really hadn’t changed at all – he’d always been a good person underneath.
I shook my head. ‘Well, I suppose that explains why you were acting so shifty, having private conversations in your shop… It’s going to take some getting used to seeing you two love-birding away in front of my eyes. It’s cute… but weird.’
She smiled and bit her lip. ‘On that subject, I’ve got something to tell you.’
‘Please tell me you’re not planning on starting an S I’m just stubborn.’
‘So am I. So this business partnership is going to happen. Your dad will shake my hand, and everyone will get what they want. Including you.’
He gave me a sad smile and walked a few steps back, not breaking eye contact. He was just about to turn round when I called out.
‘This isn’t what I want!’
He stopped, as if his whole body had been locked into place.
‘It isn’t…’ I repeated, more quietly. ‘I miss you too. Already.’ As soon as the words left my mouth, I wanted to take them back. They’d erupted from me like hot lava, and now I wanted to gather them up so they didn’t cause him more pain.
He looked at me, breathing heavily. ‘Say it again.’
I shook my head, taking a step back, forcing down the emotions that were trying to push to the surface. ‘Don’t listen to me. See! I’m not strong. I’m weak enough to say how I really feel, and that’s really fucking selfish of me.’
‘Why is it selfish? Annie, if you really do feel something, why didn’t you tell me before? I know you understood what I meant back at Ashcliffe.’
‘I did. But it was all happening so fast. I’d only just started to realise that I… that I…’
He looked at me with a glimmer of hope in his eyes. I swallowed dryly and scuffed my hand through my hair, looking away.
‘If there was a right time to tell you how I felt… how I feel …’ – my voice trembled as the wall I’d built inside threatened to crumble – ‘then that wasn’t it. But I’ll get over you, and you’ll get over me. You’ll start your new life in Northumberland and make up with your family too. It’s for the best.’
‘I’m not moving back to Northumberland.’
‘What?’
‘I never planned to, but you didn’t give me a chance to explain. Annie, please. Are you saying you still feel the same? Because if you are, you need to hear me out. I told Nathaniel I don’t want the apartment. I meant what I said at Ashcliffe – I don’t want to leave Newcastle. I’m staying in the flat, still doing gigs after hours. I’ll commute to Northumberland.’
I couldn’t move. I could barely breathe, never mind speak.
‘If you still want me, just say the words. I’ll be here, in the city, even if you don’t ask me to be. I’ll work with your dad, even if I have to beg him not to talk about you. But if you say you still want me, we can have it all.’
There was a tightness in my chest, a feeling that oxygen wasn’t reaching my blood. My thumping heart felt like it could be heard across the river. He wasn’t going anywhere. My parents wouldn’t have to move. And Penn would still be reunited with his family as well as doing what he truly loved. My breath started to slow; my toes and fingertips could feel again.
‘I want you,’ I whispered. ‘I want you so much, Penn. I want everything.’
He walked forward, that burning look in his eyes that I loved so much searing into mine.
‘You are everything,’ he said, plunging his hand into the hair at the back of my head, almost lifting me off my feet to bring my mouth to his. He kissed me so deeply, so hard, I felt like he was claiming me, telling me he’d never let me go again. And I claimed him right back, holding his face, kissing his lips, his cheeks, his stubbled chin.
He seemed to weaken as I grazed his face and neck with kisses, and when I stopped to look at him, he ran a thumb over my cheekbone.
‘I love you, Annie. I don’t know how you’ve done this to me, but I love you.’
And there it was. The words I’d willed him not to say in case they tipped me over the edge, made me give in to how I felt too. I’d tried to hold us both back from the precipice to keep him on safe ground. But now we were falling, and the rush was euphoric.
‘I don’t know how we got here either, but I love you too. I should have said it before. I should have told you a thousand times.’
We stood there in each other’s arms, looking into each other’s eyes. A wide grin spread over his lovely face.
‘Did you ever think when we first met that you’d be standing on the Quayside kissing me on New Year’s Eve?’ he asked.
‘I’d have probably pictured shoving you into the River Tyne.’
‘And I might have had dark thoughts about putting you on one of those sailboats and sending you out to sea.’
‘Not a yacht to St Tropez? I’d have thought that was more your style?’
He laughed. ‘Very funny. You’ll never give this up, will you?’
‘Do you mean us, or me making fun of you for being called the Honourable Peregrine?’
‘I’ll never give up on us. But now and then I’d like to be dishonourable with you…’
‘The lord of the manor and the kitchen maid?’
‘No. The powerful businesswoman and the struggling musician…’
He wrapped me tightly in his arms and kissed me, more gently this time. I let myself fall into him, my whole body pressed to his as if even an inch of space between us was too far apart. I could feel every difference we’d ever had melting away, and we were matched perfectly in how we felt about each other.
Somewhere in the distance, a clock struck midnight and fireworks crackled over the Tyne Bridge, but the explosions in the sky were nothing compared to how I felt; inside, I was soaring higher than the glittering display above us. Then rain started to fall, light drops followed by a deluge. Within moments, we were drenched but didn’t move an inch. I remembered standing on a street months ago, soaked to the skin and dreaming of better times. And here I was now, at the start of a love story, finally getting my kiss in the rain.