Page 49 of Finding Love at the Magical Curiosity Shop
‘Oh, really? I hadn’t noticed.’
A laugh bursts out of him and he clamps a hand over his mouth to keep quiet, and then chuckles to himself, and it makes a huge difference to see him not taking himself too seriously for once. I can’t help giggling too, consistently surprised by how easy it is to enjoy simply spending time with him.
He picks up my hair and starts playing with it again, and I squish my legs tighter against his because the position is impossible for a proper hug, and his hand slips over my knee again and he gives it a tight squeeze, and we smile at each other in the darkness, and it doesn’t feel like anything else needs to be said.
I lose track of time passing as we sit there. His hands are resting on my knees and his fingers are twiddling in my hair, plaiting and un-plaiting the section he’s holding, and it feels like such a gentle and intimate thing, and it’s only a movement down in the harbour below that makes me sit up so fast that my hair falls out of his grasp. ‘Did you see that? It looked like a tail diving into the water!’
‘Dolphin.’ He rolls his head along the wall and looks down again, but I scramble up onto my knees and cup my hands around my eyes to block reflections and look out onto the water.
‘Okay, firstly, dolphins are something to get excited about too, and secondly, it could have been something else.’
‘A harbour porpoise or a large fish, maybe even a nocturnal seabird catching a late-night feast,’ he suggests, making it obvious that he’s deliberately trying to avoid what I’m suggesting.
‘Itcouldhave been a mermaid.’
‘Itcould…’ He smiles an indulgent smile, and then yelps under his breath when I accidentally kneel on his foot as I try to press my face closer to the window. There’s a gentle lapping of waves against the hulls of moored boats, but no other movement now. ‘What do you want me to say, Mick?Oh yeah, that was definitely a mermaid’s tail disappearing under the water? It wasn’t. Webothknow it wasn’t.’
I sigh and sit back on my knees, and he pokes my thigh with his toe until I look at him.
‘I want you to believe it could have been,’ I whisper eventually. ‘Iknow, okay? I know they aren’t real, but there’s no harm in believing in magic, even for a moment. Everyone’s life is better if they’re open to possibilities. And there’s something about the diary that feels real.’
‘It does feel real.’ He holds eye contact so intensely that I feel like there’s a hidden meaning. ‘A lot of things have been feeling real lately…’
Eventually, he looks away and back out to the distant sea. ‘Historical reports of mermaid sightings have been proven to be manatees. I believe there might be some truth in the diary – the boat sinking, the island perhaps – but I cannot, not even for a moment, believe that she’s really a mermaid. I agree with your assertion that the ocean depths are vast and there are undoubtedly things out there that we don’t know about, but I don’t believe they’re half-human, half-fish affairs who sing songs of love and rescue princes from drowning.’
‘Okay, what is she then?’ My attention is half on him and half still looking out the window, hoping for another glimpse of whatever we just saw in the water. ‘Based solely on the diary, if she’snota mermaid, what do you think she is?’
‘My honest, sceptical opinion that you’ve heard before and won’t like?’ His teeth pull his lower lip into his mouth as he waits for me to nod. ‘I think she’s a novelist. A good novelist writing a first-person point-of-view story. Within thirty seconds of arriving, we were told a fairy story about a mermaid. This isn’t the origin of that story – this is someone who’s been here and heard that same fairy story and written a tale about it. They probably employ that bloke on the bench to sit there and spoon feed that junk to tourists.’
‘Oh, don’t be so cynical.’ I smack at his knee and he catches my hand again and holds it between both of his, his fingers playing with mine, pressing, squeezing, stroking, and I sit back down again and scooch nearer to him, because no matter how cynical he is, heisn’tanywhere near as contemptuous as he was a month ago, and tonight, he’s touchy-feely and soft, letting me see a tired, vulnerable side, and I get the feeling that hewisheshe could believe in mermaids in a metaphorical sense.
He’s still holding my hand but he leans his head back against the wall and his eyes drift shut. I watch the water for a while longer, but whatever it was that splashed down there, it’s long gone, and the hands of the clock on the wall have moved past 2a.m. now.
I give his hand a gentle shake. ‘You want to go back to bed?’
‘Nah.’ He blinks hazy blue eyes open and focuses on me. ‘I’m going to stay here. The window seat is more comfortable than that folding contraption.’
The look he gives the offending fold-out bed makes me chuckle to myself, and I reach over to squeeze his knee. ‘I’m going back to bed. Give us a shout if you see any mermaids out there.’
Even half-asleep, he manages to raise the most disbelieving eyebrow and I have to bite back laughter again.
I slip off the window seat and he reaches out, silently asking if he can pull me in for a hug, and I step into his arms and lean down to give him a squeeze. His arms slide around me and his hands splay on my back, his fingers warm through my pyjama top making me shiver in a definitely-not-cold way.
‘You know what’s powerful?’ His voice is muffled against my shoulder and his lips graze my neck with every word. ‘You got out of bed to spend time with me.’
I’d think he was teasing if I didn’t know how much little things mean to him. ‘I can sleep anytime. How often do you think I’ll get to drink tea and watch for mermaids in the middle of the night with you? That’s a better option than any dream.’
He makes a noise that sounds like someone’s just punched him really hard in the solar plexus. His face is still buried in my neck, and his arms squeeze me impossibly tighter.
‘Night, Ren.’ I let my fingers slide through his hair and tuck it back once, and then press my lips to his forehead, right on his hairline, and I hear his breathing stutter, and his hands tighten in my pyjama top, holding on so tightly that there’s the sound of fabric stretching, and he keeps his arms around me for an abnormally long time, so long that I half-wonder if he’s gone to sleep in my arms, and honestly, although going back to bed is theonlyoption, I could quite happily stand here and hug him until morning.
15
‘Dad, the archives are that way.’ Ava points up the road towards the council building because we’ve come out of the hotel and Ren is taking us in the opposite direction.
‘Ah, butoneof us has got an appointment elsewhere first.’ Ren steeples his fingers in an evil overlord sort of way, complete with matching ‘mwhahaha’ laugh.
Ava looks to me, silently asking if I know why he’s lost the plot, but I’m as in the dark as she is.
