Page 48 of Finding Love at the Magical Curiosity Shop
He smiles at me as I pull my legs up too, bent at the knees, so I fit alongside him and our arched legs rest against each other’s.
He takes a sip of his tea and lets out a sigh, letting his head drop back against the wall. His dark hair is mussed up and sticking out in a few directions, there’s a few days’ worth of stubble peppering his jaw, and he looks half-asleep and soft around the edges.
‘Can’t sleep?’
‘Only the recently deceased could sleep on that thing. If one of my ribs starts poking out of my neck tomorrow, you’ll know why.’
I hide my giggle behind my cup of tea to make sure I don’t wake Ava up, and he turns his head to look out of the window again, a distant look in his eyes.
‘Watching for mermaids?’ I ask quietly.
He makes an affirmative noise in response, and then blinks a few times. ‘Er, no, I meant… just sitting, watching the water. It’s perfect here, like a fairytale town. I could get used to a view like this.’
He rolls his head against the wall until he’s looking directly at me again. ‘I haven’t enjoyed life for a long while, but I’ve had such a good time this summer – because of you. Thanks for making me come here, no matter what questionable persuasion tactics you had to use.’
I go to protest and jokingly smack at his leg, but he catches my hand and squeezes it, and his cheeky grin lets me know he’s teasing.
He jiggles my hand gently to make sure my attention is on him. ‘You make me feel hopeful again. I’d given up on the idea that life could ever be good again, but since I met you, it… justis.’
I nod in recognition. I hadn’t realised how muddy my waters had got until he cleared them, but this has been the most enjoyable summer I can remember, and for the first time since losing Dad, I’ve started to feel normal again. Hopeful, like there really is something to look forward to.
He lets go of my hand, but before I can be too disappointed, his hand lands between our knees where they’re resting together, and his fingers start marking out mindless patterns on my knee, trailing warmth through the thin material of my pyjama trousers as he goes back to watching the glittering lights of the boats moored in the harbour, and the more distant lights of houses on the occupied islands on the horizon, and the silence is comfortable and so peaceful that I could fall asleep right here.
I wrap both my hands around my mug like I’m trying to warm up, not because it’s cold tonight, but because it would be too easy to take his hand and draw those patterns on his skin too and the constant movement is making me want to shift nearer to him.
‘Thank you.’ It’s nothing more than a murmur and he says it to the view outside the window before turning to look at me.
‘What for?’
He shakes his head like it’s a question he doesn’t have an answer for, and then turns towards where Ava’s asleep in bed. ‘How you are with her. You’ve been good for her.’ He pauses for a minute and turns back to me. ‘In a weird way, I think you’ve mademebetter for her.’
‘The highest form of praise,’ I say with a smile.
‘You’re confident in what you like, and you aren’t afraid to like things other people would laugh at, andthat’sbeen good for her. You’re unequivocally you, unapologetically you, she doesn’t have many adults like that in her life, and it’s been good for her to realise you can be who you are and people will like you for that, and anyone who doesn’t like you isn’t worth your time anyway. All I’ve ever shown her is that if someone doesn’t like you, you should change yourself to please them, andIhadn’t realised how harmful that is until I met you either.’
He’s obviously talking about his ex, and I reach over and let my fingers brush over his hand where it’s stilled on my knee.
‘Even having the courage to talk so freely to the old man on the bench today, and to Caryl on reception, and to see her helping customers in your shop has been fantastic. I hadn’t realised how much confidence she’d lost until I’ve started to see her regaining it. And that’syou. Making her believe in herself and trust her feelings and just…knowthat you like her. That youwantto spend time with her. After her mother…’
He doesn’t finish the sentence, but I know what he’s getting at. Her mum not showing up for arranged visits, and then leaving without the slightest bit of contact. ‘I honestly can’t imagine what it’s like to face that kind of rejection at her age, and I can only imagine how much it must destroy someone’s self-worth. One of the most powerful things in the world is being wanted,asyou are, forwhoyou are, and one of the worst feelings is being unwanted, and being made to feel like you’re not good enough, whenyouare.’ I add a pointed tone to the last two words so he knows we’re not just talking about Ava.
He holds my gaze as a tired smile creeps across his face, growing wider with every second that passes, and his fingers twitch towards mine, barely grazing them, like he’s trying to stop himself holding my hand.
My hair is loose, long waves that cascade down to my lower back, a bit haywire where I didn’t bother to smooth it down when I got out of bed, and rather than taking my hand, he reaches over and lifts a section of my hair and then sits back with it still in his hand, his thumb rubbing back and forth over the red strands.
‘Maybe I’ve gone too far,’ he murmurs. ‘Tried to be too cautious. There are worse things in the world than having coloured hair. Yours is… beautiful.’
He meets my eyes again as he says it and the word sounds so heartfelt that it makes my breath stutter. ‘Why are you so against it?’
‘Because her mother would’ve let her get her hair dyed, and I don’t want to beanythinglike that woman.’ He answers without thinking about it, and then looks surprised, like he didn’t intend to answer so openly.
‘There’s such a thing as compromise,’ I say. ‘You can let her express herself without giving the impression that you’re about to swan off into the sunset too.’
‘All right, you know a lot about hair colour – what if it goes wrong?’
‘What if it does? Every woman has many hair disasters in her life, we’ve all got to start somewhere. Besides, why should it go wrong? Her hair is brown and she wants it purple. There’s no bleach or other harsh chemicals involved. They’ll use a vegetable dye and it’ll probably wash out within three weeks. You’re overthinking it.’
‘Yeah, I do that.’
