‘And?’
Annie knew that tone. It meant trouble. She could imagine Cassidy’s dark brow arching in suspicion.
‘And…’ Annie faltered.
‘Oh my god! Thereisan and!’
‘We might have… had a moment last night.’
There came a squeal of excitement down the line. Annie would have stopped her friend’s speculating dead if it weren’t for how good it felt to be confiding in each other again. It was like old times. Like there was no distance between them at all.
‘Was it agoodmoment?’ Cassidy pried.
Annie kept moving down the slope. She wanted to be out of the hearing of everyone in England if she was going to admit this.
‘It was…sogood! We kind of got locked in an old library together at night…’
Another squeal.
‘It’s alongstory. Anyway, we were drinking wine and one thing very quickly led to another, and he was kissing me, and then he was, you know, moving his mouth lower and…’
‘Oh my gawd! Go Harri!’
‘Quite,’ Annie said in a prudish way, even though she was smiling and enjoying this. She wasn’t on her own with it anymore. She had her other best friend in all the world back. ‘He was…’ Annie glanced around the harbour wall, covering where her mouth touched the phone with her hands. There were families nearby on the sand and kids in waterproofs barefoot in the rockpools. ‘…seriously good, and things were about to get crazy serious, like I was in my bag looking for birth control and then… we stopped.’
‘Why?’
‘I didn’t want to stop, believe me, but it’s for the best we did. It was a good reminder about how important he is to me as a friend. Actually, this whole trip’s been one big reminder after another that I need my friends around me.’
Silence down the line told her this had landed with Cassidy how she’d needed it to. It wasn’t a barbed criticism; it was the truth. She needed friends more than she needed excitement or adventure or unbelievably hot and intuitively good head from Harri, even if she’d never wanted someone so much in her entire life than she’d wanted Harri last night when he’d made her forget where she was. Heck she’d forgotten her own name!
‘Annie?’ Cassidy’s voice broke through.
‘I’m still here.’ Annie shook away the memories, standing at the edge of the shore. ‘Listen, do you need me to come home early? I can change my flights.’
‘No way! Don’t run from this.’
‘I’m good at running. When are people going to realise this? I’m not as brave as you think I am.’
‘If Harri really is your best friend, don’t you owe it to him to stay and prove it?’
This silenced Annie.
‘And if there’s actually something more, and things between you are as good as I suspect they must be, well… don’t you think it’s worth the risk to find out?’
‘I don’t want to lose him.’ That was the bottom line. Annie feared his loss more than she dared risk exploring the growing attraction.
‘If your friendship is so important and so strong the thought of losing him makes you this afraid, how could telling him you like him possibly spoil things? Look at us, we’re friends, right, no matter what?’
‘Right.’ Annie wanted to protest that Harri was a different matter entirely, but she didn’t. She only watched the gulls in the sky, her shoulders dropping. She suddenly felt very small and very stupid indeed.
Cassidy wasn’t done yet. ‘If he’s love-of-your-life material, you don’t want to pass up the opportunity to find out for sure.’
‘I’m flying home Saturday. What can possibly happen before then?’
‘It sounds like plenty’s already happened.’
Annie wanted to dream and confide and giggle like a kid with her old pal, but she forced herself to face facts. ‘I saw him pick out a Valentine card for Paisley.’
