Page 38 of Finding Love at the Magical Curiosity Shop
A wide grin lights up his face and he meets my eyes in the dark evening light and his are positively shining, and his smile is a thing of beauty. He doesn’t feel like anewfriend. It feels like I’ve known him for years, not less than three weeks.
I rip into a packet of mini muffins and he opens the sausage rolls and we stuff our faces in comfortable silence, interspersed by throwing bits of pastry into the water and watching the ripples as tiny fish surface to gobble them up.
‘I didn’t do this with the intention of you inviting me to join you…’ He looks up at me with eyes gleaming in the moonlight. ‘But I’m really glad you did.’
I’ve kicked my shoes off and my feet are in the water, and I lift my foot until I can poke his knee with my toe. ‘Me too. Youreallyknow how to apologise.’
‘Maybe that should worry you about how often I have things to apologise for.’
Maybe it should, and itdoes. It niggles that this probably won’t be the only time we’ll ever clash, but I also appreciate that he’s human and we all overreact sometimes and say things we don’t intend to say, and when most of the food is gone and my stomach has well and truly stopped growling, I get out the box of posh chocolates and pick an almond praline crème, and then set the box on the rock where we can both reach it.
He shifts nearer, puts his arms up and folds them on my rock and lays his head on them, right beside me as he watches the water, and the temptation is just too much.
I let my fingers give his dark hair a quick ruffle. ‘I like your hair like this. Usually it’s so… stiff.’
‘Like me, you mean?’
‘No, like it has too much product in it.’ I probably shouldn’t, but I stroke through it again, tugging gently on the longer part to the right of his parting that’s usually stuck down, letting the dark strands slip between my fingers just one more time. ‘You’re perfect exactly as you are.’
I hear his breath catch and he lets out a shaky exhale of a sigh, and IknowI should stop, I shouldn’t be touching him like this, but he seems to be welcoming it. With every breath, his shoulders slump, shifting his head closer to my hand, so I carry on, gently brushing his hair to one side, trying not to watch the relaxation seeping through his usually taut body while trying not to overthink how good it feels to be this close to him.
‘Sorry.’ I go to yank my hand away when rational thinking returns with a vengeance. You don’t stroke the hair of someone you barely know, especially when this, whateverthisis, ends at the friendship we toasted to earlier. Ithasto.
‘Please don’t think you have to stop doing that.’ He reaches up blindly until his hand wraps around my wrist and stops me from pulling away, and he swallows hard and lets out another breath. ‘Pleasedon’tstop doing that, ever.’
His voice is a shaky whisper and the vehemence in it makes me smile. ‘Well, you’re going to have to give me a second because there’s wine left and it would be a shame to waste it.’
I hold my hand out for his mug and he passes it up to me, and I empty the rest of the bottle equally between our mugs and pass his back, and then I shift nearer the edge of the rock and settle back, letting my fingers play with his hair again as he nestles his head against my thigh and his eyes drift closed.
It’s the most gorgeous summer night. It must be about 10p.m. by now, the air is warm but the breeze is keeping it pleasant, and there’s no sound at all apart from the burbling of the river against the stones.
‘I never used to be like I am now.’ His voice is barely louder than a breath in the silence. ‘Stiff. And uncompromising and dull, strict, a bore-fest as Ava would describe me. I used to be fun and spontaneous. I used to laugh.’
‘You still laugh.’
‘Not like I used to. I’m always holding back, never letting myself enjoy anything because I know it won’t last.’ He lifts his head to take another swallow of wine and then rests it against my leg again. ‘I used to be like you. Easy-going, laidback, hopeful. I saw the best in people. I was the world’s greatest believer in the power of love and the possibility of magic, and now… I’m sharp. Hard. Harsh. I lash out, I say things I don’t mean to and see only the worst in people. I push everyone away, desperate to be left alone, and yet…’
‘And yet you crave human connection?’ I finish the sentence for him when he seems unable to find an ending for it.
At first I think he’s going to deny it, but he sighs and moves his head against my leg, nodding gently. ‘I didn’t realise how much until I met you.’
I knock back the last of my wine and set the mug aside, and then let my free hand trail along his shoulder, until he reaches up to tangle his fingers with mine, and the fingers of my other hand continue carding through his hair.
‘I know I shouldn’t be sitting here, but that affection is like a drug. I haven’t felt liked for so long. Ava holds so much against me. My relationship with her grandparents is strained – they blame me for their daughter leaving, even though we were already divorced by then. Friends pulled away – or I pushed them away,’ he adds before I can interject. ‘Every decision I make when it comes to Ava is the wrong one.’
‘No teenager appreciates their dad. Don’t take that personally.’
He sighs and untangles our fingers to take another glug of wine while being careful not to dislodge my other hand from his hair. ‘I just wish there was somebody on my side. Somebody to tell me I’m doing it right, or at least, somebody to get it wrong with together. I’ve never felt so alone.’
I canhearthe pain in his words. I want to say something to reassure him again he’s doing a good job, but right now, it would seem like a pointless platitude. External validation makes very little difference when you’re floundering this much on the inside.
He downs another glug of wine and then shifts, turning so he’s leaning back against the rock, the back of his head resting on my leg as he turns his face to look up at the stars, and I go back to tucking his hair back and let the fingers of my other hand dance across his shoulder, because I don’t know how long it’s been since Ren opened up to anyone, but I have a feeling this is the very first time.
‘I didn’t ever expect to be divorced. I didn’t think I’d ever be a single father. I was happy. I loved my wife, I thought she loved me. I thought we were in it together. I stupidly thought that marriage might make us a partnership for the rest of our lives, not only until she got bored of having a husband and daughter. All I wanted was love and a family and I had that. What I did wrong was being happy. Being settled. Not yearning for anything more. Apparently that’s what you’re supposed to do in a relationship, just want more all the time. Nothing should ever be enough.’
‘Was there cheating involved?’ I ask quietly, because it sounds like there must have been, but he’s never said it outright.
‘A lot. And I put up with it because I naively believed we could work things out and if I just let her do what she wanted, go looking for the “more” she believed was out there, maybe she’d eventually realise that what she had was enough all along…’ He leans his head back and meets my eyes. ‘See? I used to believe in fairy stories too.’
