Chapter Twenty-Six
The next day was Saturday, and I was reading in my hotel room, wondering what to do with a day of freedom when I heard a knock on my door. Something told me before I even opened it that it would be Ben.
‘Fancy a swim?’ he asked, towel thrown over his shoulder, classic tortoiseshell Ray-Ban Wayfarers perched on top of his blond head. ‘I’ve been going most days. Would be nice to have some company for a change.’
I nodded, grinning at the suggestion. It felt spontaneous and romantic, plus I would get to see him in his swimming trunks.
He knew where we were going, and we strolled the half-hour walk from the hotel to the beach as conversation flowed easily between us.
Our hands kept brushing against each other’s as we walked, and neither of us moved apart.
It was all a foregone conclusion, I just had to give myself over to it.
We got to the beach and laid our towels down on the sand.
For some reason I had been expecting pebbles, and the sight of the pale, creamy-coloured sand felt like a good omen.
I kicked off my sandals, pulled my dress off over my head and underneath was a sleek, black, high-leg classic Hunza G crinkle swimsuit.
I wasn’t a bikini girl but as I stood there I couldn’t help wondering if I should have gone for something more revealing.
‘Very chic,’ Ben said, eyeing me approvingly as I twisted my hair into a neat little topknot to keep it dry. He was wearing red-and-white striped trunks and I tried not to stare at his big, muscular legs. I tied my hair up and he grabbed my hand and led me towards the shore.
As soon as my feet touched the water I had to suppress a scream. It was so cold! It was a beautiful summer’s day but the water had not got the memo.
‘Oh my God!’ I exclaimed involuntarily. ‘I thought it was going to be nice! How have you seriously been coming every day!’
‘It’s still the Atlantic!’ Ben said, plunging all the way in, the water darkening his fair hair. ‘Besides, you get used to it after a while.’ Drops of water ran off his smooth chest.
‘I just didn’t think it was going to be quite . . . this . . . cold!’ I gasped. Why had I agreed to this! I thought it was going to be a fun, sexy time and instead I might die of hypothermia.
‘Come on! It’s not so bad!’ He urged me, and I steeled myself and ducked under the water, up to my shoulders.
It was, in fact, quite bad, but it didn’t kill me.
We swam breaststroke, keeping our heads out of the water.
We talked about his childhood in Oxford, the expensive schools, the drama classes, his path to fame.
Even though we both seemed like we were somehow from the same world, it was nothing like my experience of going to an open audition for Wonderwick, swallowing down the anxiety of skipping school to go, even though my mum had told me it was OK, that I wouldn’t get in trouble.
The light danced on the water and there was a sense of delight in the air – children building sandcastles on the beach, mothers dangling babies’ feet into the water, serious swimmers cutting through the waves.
‘I’m not used to this . . . swimming with my co-stars,’ I told him.
‘Not too many beaches near Smithdown, I suppose.’
I shook my head, the topknot feeling a little loose. ‘This is all just really different to Wonderwick.’
‘Well, you’re working with people who got their roles through talent rather than nepotism.’
It wasn’t hard to know who he was talking about, but I played dumb.
‘Oh, you mean Darcy?’
‘Of course, and Josh Sacco, naturally.’
‘Ah,’ I said, as if the idea hadn’t occurred to me. ‘He’s all right.’
‘Really?’ Ben asked with a wry smile. ‘I thought you’d be far too clever to get on with him.
All I ever hear is what a time-wasting brat he is.
No impulse control. I heard they were talking about getting him an earwig because he wouldn’t learn his lines.
’ This was true, and would have been a pretty devastating blow to Josh.
Only the most difficult or lazy actors needed an earpiece to be fed lines through, and I felt a huge sense of relief that he’d got himself together before that had become a necessity.
‘He turned things around, I think those days are over. He’s pretty good once he gets his shit together . . . and I think he’s grown up a lot recently.’ Ben knew my feelings about Josh’s response to Howard Hunt and I wasn’t going to have that particular fight again.
He gave me a sceptical look as we headed back towards the shore. It was just shallow enough for me to stand, and we paused, waist deep in the water. ‘Enough about him.’ He pulled me towards him, my skin covered in goosebumps. ‘This is fun, right?’
I couldn’t help smiling at how inevitable it all felt.
A strand of hair had come down from my bun.
He lifted it, tucked it behind my ear. I looked up at him and nodded, everything tingling with anticipation.
When finally his lips met mine, the culmination of a shoot’s worth of flirting not to mention the effort on behalf of our publicists, it felt .
. . good. Yes, it felt good. It made sense. Ben and I made sense.