Page 65 of The Secret Christmas Bookshop
‘For being an arsehole,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t sure how you felt, after last weekend – if you thought it was a mistake, because of … your plans. I didn’t know what to do.’
She laughed lightly, feeling a twinge of guilt, of regret, that he’d been put off because she was leaving. But ofcoursehe had: it was self-preservation, something she knew far too much about. ‘So … ask me?’
He gave her a rueful smile. ‘That’s a bit easy, don’t you think?’ He ran a hand through his hair, leaving some of it sticking up. ‘I should have done that, I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s got into me.’
Sophie could sympathize. She’d felt unlike herself, giddier, since their kiss. She was contemplating changing her future because of him. ‘I didn’t think it was a mistake,’ she said. ‘Kissing you was …’ She shook her head. ‘I’ve been looking forward to seeing you again.’
‘Right.’ Harry swallowed. ‘Good. Me too.’
Relief flooded, warm and vital, through her body. ‘Great. So … what do you want to do? Do you need to get home?’
He shook his head. ‘I think we should … go and play Whack-A-Crab.’
‘What?’ Sophie laughed.
‘That isexactlywhat we should do.’ His eyes brightened, and the dour, uptight Harry slipped away, replaced by the version she’d started to get used to. ‘You’ve got a higher score than me, and I can’t let it stand.’
‘OK,’ she said.
‘Then we should go and get fish and chips; have a proper night out at the seaside.’
‘In December?’
‘Mistingham is the perfect seaside village. Have you really taken full advantage of it while you’ve been here?’
‘In the summer, I—’
‘But it’s great all year round. So often, people don’t make the most of living somewhere like this, with the sea and the countryside on their doorstep, old-fashioned arcades, fish and chips a stone’s throw away—’
‘Right below their flat,’ Sophie cut in.
‘Exactly,’ Harry said with a smile. ‘Let’s indulge ourselves. A Batter Days tea and a Whack-A-Crab face-off. Do you really not want to do this with me?’
‘You’ve gone from grumpy to insane in five minutes,’ Sophie said, stalling for time. But the truth was, she was never going to say no. She thought of how Jane Eyre owned her feelings about Rochester: how bold she was in the face of his teasing, his dominance. She always gave as good as she got.
‘I’m seizing the moment,’ Harry said. ‘Not waiting for things to be perfect, but making the most of right now. Someone taught me that recently.’
Sophie rolled her eyes, but she was grinning. ‘Let me drop these bags off at the flat, then we can go.’
‘Deal,’ he said.
‘Deal,’ she echoed, and as the sun sizzled down to the horizon, casting Harry in a golden hue that was far too magical to be real, they held each other’s gaze for a beat too long.
Chapter Twenty-One
As they headed in the direction of Sophie’s flat, Harry told her the background to the empty sweet shop. ‘Delores, who ran it for twenty-five years, ended up running off to Italy with a man thirty years younger than her. I was in London when she absconded, but it was a big enough scandal that I heard about it through Dad’s carer, and his care home was five miles outside Mistingham.’
‘I wish I’d met Delores,’ Sophie said. ‘She sounds like a proper character. Fiona said she was thin as a rake – if I worked in a sweet shop, I’d eat at least a pound of sugar a day.’
‘She probably got sick of it. I wish she’d got sick of the bloody e’s in the name, too.’
‘If you were Simon, would you get sick of fish and chips?’
Harry was silent for a moment, then said, ‘I don’t think that’s possible.’
They carried the bags of craft materials up to Sophie’s flat, the tension sparking between them once they were inside, just metres from her bedroom. She took a steptowards him, saw the moment his breath stalled, but then he grabbed her hand and led her down the stairs, to where Batter Days was waiting.
‘Jason told me you were out and about,’ Simon said, when they walked into the warm shop, the air thick with the scent of fried chips and the sharp tang of vinegar.
