‘Well, I’d better get Radia to bed,’ she said. ‘Her fishing trip’s tired her out.’
For a second, Joy thought she saw Mrs Crocombe winking at Radia but when she whipped her head around to check, her daughter was smiling sweetly in Monty’s arms, her eyes tight shut. Perhaps a little too tightly shut.
‘Right you are, don’t let us stop you! Nighty night,’ called Mrs C., delving for her keys but showing no signs of moving just yet.
As they moved on up the hill, Monty and Joy only smiled warily down at their feet until they’d turned the sharp left into the shadowy passageway between cottages that led to the square where the bookshop glowed in the light of the strings of white bulbs.
‘Do you reckon she was inviting him in for a nightcap?’ Monty asked wickedly.
‘Cone or tub?’ Joy laughed. Now it was her turn to find keys. ‘Tomorrow this’ll be a passcode lock, you know?’
‘Ah, how very Airbnb,’ said Monty. ‘Shall I carry this little one to her bed?’
Joy paused before pushing the door open. ‘Uh… OK. Just let me kiss her goodnight first.’
Monty followed Joy up the steps and onto the shop doormat, twisting his body so Joy could press a kiss to her daughter’s forehead.
The bookshop was warm and stuffy, the air still and papery. Joy set about opening the porthole windows and flipping lamps on, while her instinct to follow Monty and oversee him putting Radia down contended bitterly with the voice in her head telling her to at leasttryto curtail the panic. They were fine, the door was open, and he’d be back out here any second. Yet she still strained her ears and her neck peering at the doorframe.
Monty lowered Radia onto her bed, too afraid of waking her to attempt taking off her jelly shoes. Radia, however, pulled him close and whispered sleepily right into his nose like it was a microphone, ‘I know what you should do for Elliot’s party.’
‘You’re awake?’
‘No, I’m not,’ she insisted, closing her eyes to prove him wrong.
‘Ah, sorry, my mistake. So what’s this idea then?’ Monty whispered back, turning his head so her whisper met his ear.
Monty emerged from Radia’s room. ‘Another amazing brain, that one,’ he told Joy. ‘But you already know that.’
‘Yep,’ she said, leaning her back against the counter, holding herself in a hug and telling herself the lie that what just happened hadn’t felt so very bad. She could trust this man, if only the worry now hardwired in her brain would let her.
Monty read the signs – she wanted him out of her shop – so he squeezed past her and stepped right out onto the doorstep.
‘Thanks for coming tonight,’ he told her, turning back and placing a hand on the doorframe. ‘Sorry we didn’t catch a fish.’
In the sky behind him, Joy caught another glimpse of Jupiter, now competing with silvery streams of moonlight streaking the deep sapphire.
Taking hold of the door as though to close it, she moved closer to Monty, so they stood only an arm’s length apart over the threshold.
Neither spoke, they only watched one another.
Monty seemed to be thinking hard. He hung his head a little, keeping his eyes fixed on her, a questioning furrow between his brows.
‘We’ll catch something next time,’ she told him, before wondering why she’d said it.What next time was this?He hadn’t asked her about a next time.
Monty must have seen her recoiling but he only smiled and kept his eyes trained on her, making Joy’s mind race.
He certainly didn’t look like he was thinking her presumptuous, and not like he was thinking she was odd either. He was looking at her like she’d seen the guys on her degree programme look at her at the end of uni nights out; carefree, young, desirous, but trying to hold back, trying to be respectful.
For a moment, Joy was back in Halls at the door of her dorm and she wasn’t a tired mum, or a travelling technician, or a daughter who couldn’t remember the last time she was held. She was a woman who wanted to kiss a beautiful man and there was just enough Cava and moonlight in her system to make her do it, so she stepped across the threshold and brought her face up to meet Monty’s, pausing only a breath away from his lips to ask if it was all right.
Monty nodded once, everything soft and slow, before his lips touched hers in an unhurried electric kiss, and there was not a hint of the sea chill between them, only warmth and all the good things Monty saw in her that she could not yet recognise in herself.
Early the next morning Joy sprang awake, alone in her bed up at the top of the spiral stairs in the bookshop. Her first thought was to wonder why her sister was texting her this early. Then,Oh!Memories of the night before flooded back. Kissing Monty for what must have been half an hour on the doorstep, then giving him her private mobile number because he’d asked for it and she hadn’t even considered giving him her other work number.
She should have been alarmed, but all she could do was grin and grab for the phone.
Dear Joy and Radia, Sorry I don’t have time to do proper invites but please come to Elliot’s stag at the Siren’s Tail on Saturday in the function suite, 6pm. Totally kid-friendly, I promise. Wear old clothes. Monty x
