‘Why?’
‘Don’t make me say it.’
I focused on the little dimple on her cheek, beside her mouth. It curled into a cute little comma shape when she smiled. ‘Don’t make you say what?’
Her head tilted. ‘Jack.’
‘What?’ I asked innocently, well aware that I was fishing for compliments. Usually, I couldn’t care less what people thought of me. I was who I was, and you either liked me or you didn’t. But with her, I cared. I cared a hell of a lot.
‘You know you’re good-looking, Jack. You don’t need me to say it.’
‘Maybe Iwantto hear you say it.’
‘You’re very needy.’
‘Not normally,’ I protested. ‘It’s all your fault.’
She looked outraged. ‘How do you figure that?’
‘I was doing just fine until you came along, now I’m…’ I trailed off, unsure how to explain what I was feeling. That since I’d met her, I’d started thinking about things that I hadn’t thought for quite a while. Things like the future, and sharing that with someone. Over the last few years, I hadn’t thought more beyond taking each day at a time. It had been a self-preservation thing, I realized now.
Her eyes softened, as if she sensed my inner turmoil. She reached out a hand and touched my arm lightly. ‘It’s OK. You don’t have to explain.’
‘It’s not that I don’t want to.’ I smiled ruefully. ‘I just don’t know how. It sounds crazy, but meeting you has been like an ice-cold bucket of water thrown over my life.’
She looked understandably confused. ‘OK. That’s not an effect I usually have on people. Well, not one that anyone has ever mentioned before anyway.’
‘Told you I couldn’t explain it very well.’
‘Just tell me whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing?’
‘Good. Definitely good.’
‘That’s OK then.’
She smiled, so beautiful in the glow of the fairy lights that I couldn’t stop staring at her. I knew then what I wanted to say. I wanted to tell her that I hadn’t met anyone like her before. That ever since that first night in the tidal pool, she’d fascinated the hell out of me, with her motorbike and career choice and the way she was so smart-ass in her interactions with her uncle, but so incredibly kind and caring towards Casey. I loved the banter we had going on, the way she’d been so insecure when I’d picked her up for our non-date date, and yet so confident when she’d stood up at the meeting in front of half the town.
‘I—’
‘Jack?’
I turned my head to see Hannah hovering, her eyes uncertain as they flicked between Taylor, the flowers and fairy lights.
‘Hey.’ I smiled. ‘Going for a walk?’
She held up a brown paper bag. ‘Just picked up some takeout.’ She stared at Taylor. ‘It’s Taylor, right?’
Taylor nodded. ‘It is. Nice to see you again.’
‘Are you two… is this a date?’ Hannah asked.
‘It’s dinner,’ I replied briskly.
‘Just dinner?’ She looked Taylor up and down. ‘Dressed up like that, you look like you should be heading out to the opera, or a gala,’ she said, smiling sweetly. ‘Definitely somewhere a hell of a lot more glamorous than this place.’
‘What, this old thing?’ Taylor replied, smoothing down the fabric of her dress over her stomach. ‘It’s just something I threw on.’
‘Was there something you wanted?’ I asked curtly.
