Page 41 of Ride the Wave

Stepping round the first aisle, I jump about a mile in the air when I see someone.

‘Oh my God!’ I gasp, putting a hand on my heart as Leo starts at my appearance. ‘You gave me a heart attack. I thought I was alone. What are you doing in here?’

‘I could ask you the same question. Did you follow me in?’ he asks accusingly, holding a bottle of wine in his hand.

‘No! We’ve run out of wine. I was coming to get some more.’

He holds up the bottle. ‘Me too. Anna asked me to pick something.’

Ah. I see what’s happened here.

‘Yeah, me too,’ I grumble.

While he carefully places the bottle back in its box, I stand there awkwardly.

‘Okay, good. I guess it’s covered then,’ I say eventually, before smoothing out a non-existent crinkle at the side of my dress and turning on my heel to march back into the party.

‘Hey London,’ he calls out after me, stopping me in my tracks.

The nickname is weirdly comforting; if he was angry at me past the point of no return, he’d be more formal. I know it’s a mocking title rather than an affectionate one, but I don’t care – it still feels like hope. I turn back around as he strolls round the corner of the aisle, leaning on the rack and folding his arms.

‘As much as I don’t want to admit it, I might need your help here,’ he says, gesturing to the wine cases. ‘Choosing a good wine isn’t one of my key attributes.’

‘Well, luckily for you, it is one of mine.’

‘I thought it might be.’

I walk back towards him, swanning by to study what’s on offer. He turns to watch me, but doesn’t say anything, remaining silent while I read the labels. I know this is my opportunity to apologise. Or, at the very least, to address what happened the other night. But irrationally, I find myself irritated at him. Ididmessage him after we spoke; I reached out. He’s the one who didn’t reply.

Selecting a bottle, I hold it out to him. ‘Here. This is a good one.’

‘We should grab a few then.’

The silence that falls between us is broken only by the clinking of the bottles knocking against each other as I pass him another two. I can feel his eyes boring into me as I turn my back to him so I can survey some of the others that Marina stocks. I brighten on recognising one of the labels, immediately reaching forwards to select the bottle.

‘Hey, this is the one I drank with your dad at our lunch,’ I say, smiling as I study the label. ‘It was really nice. I’ll bring some of these through too.’

‘Great,’ he says.

‘Great.’

Clutching the bottles in my arms, I stalk past him towards the door.

‘You know, London, I don’t get it,’ he says suddenly.

‘Get what? Wine?’ I ask, swivelling round to face him.

He gives me a deadpan look. ‘No, not wine.You.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Didn’t you come here to… I don’t know…’ he shrugs as well as he can while carefully balancing a load of bottles in his arms ‘…talk?’

‘I got the feeling you didn’t want to talk to me, Leo, since you haven’t replied to me. And I didn’t want to bring our… professional tension into Anna’s party.’

‘Professional tension,’ he repeats, as though it’s a stupid phrase. Which it kind of is, but I have no idea how else to put it. He brings his eyes up to meet mine. ‘I thought you wanted to apologise.’

I blink at him. ‘Excuse me?’

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