“That depends. How crazy is crazy?”
“Well, that also depends,” he said, lifting an eyebrow. “On your appetite for adventure.”
Of course, I want Caleb to think I’m at the greedy end of the adventure scale, so together we left the cottage and walked hand in hand down to the beach. Now, we’re making our way toward the end of the shingle, the section that faces dunes rather than houses.
In front of a row of classic candyfloss-colored beach huts, Caleb pauses. They’ve been here as long as I can remember, these sought-after wooden cabins offering high-tide refuge to Shoreley’s beachgoers. They’re nestled back from the shingle, deep in the dunes as if they’ve sprung up quite naturally through the marram grass.
“Fancy a swim?”
I let out a sound that’s somewhere between a laugh and a shudder. “What?”
“Come swimming with me.”
“I... I mean...”No. No. Not in a million years. If I don’t drown, I’ll freeze to death, probably, or get arrested for indecent exposure.
“Sorry, forgot to check—youcanswim, can’t you?”
“I mean... I can, but...”
“You’ll love it, I promise. There’s no feeling like it.”
“I don’t... have a bikini with me.” Even the word is enough to make me shiver.
“Kind of the point,” he whispers, devilishly.
“I think there are laws against that.”
He looks as though he’s trying to suppress a smile. “Well, then, we’ll just have to make sure we don’t get caught.”
“Also, I don’t want to sound like a wimp, but... it’sfreezing.”
He rests a palm flat against the beach hut we’re standing next to. It’s smart and stout, painted in a glossy flamingo pink. “Don’t worry. We have a good place to warm up afterward.”
“This is yours?” I say, surprised and impressed. “These things are like gold dust.”
“Actually, no,” he confesses. “It belongs to a mate of mine from school. But he moved away years ago and hardly uses it now. So he gave me a key.”
He moves to the front of the hut to unlock it and I follow him inside. Tash had a school friend whose parents owned a beach hut on this row, but it was nowhere near as nice as this one. It’s very neat, and smart: all the wood inside is painted cream, there are two banquette benches upholstered in deckchair-striped fabric, and a line of brightly colored bunting is strung across the back wall. It reminds me of a rather grandiose playhouse in a catalog I once got fixated on as a child. Somewhere magical to escape to, its own little world.
Caleb flicks on a garland of fairy lights looping from a shelf before showing me round—as much as you can conduct a tour of a space not much bigger than your average garden shed. “Okay, so we have towels and blankets, and crucially—a stove, heater, and hot chocolate. Shall we go?”
Letting slip a laugh, I realize I’m starting to feel nervous. “So what—we’re just going to go skinny-dipping? Just like that?”
“I’m up for it if you are.”
I release a breath like I’ve eaten something hot, then laugh again. “Okay. Okay. All right. Let’s do it. Why not? Yes.”
“Ah, you’ve convinced me,” he jokes.
So we ditch our shoes and outer layers in the beach hut, and then Caleb locks up, hiding the key beneath a piece of driftwood before we walk down to the shoreline. The shingle is cold and sharp, biting into my bare feet. I decide as I follow him that Caleb is the only person on earth who could have possibly persuaded me to do this.
We come to a pause at the water’s edge. I glance left and right. The only other people I can see are a pair of night fishermen, their little tents glowing like igloos, a quarter of a mile or so along the beach. The air is cool and calm, sublimely still.
“So,” Caleb says.
“So,” I reply.
The only time I’ve been naked with Caleb before now has been close up, well within touching distance, in the heat of a moment. It’s vastly different to the idea of standing still and unclothed in front of him, which I’m worried will feel a bit too much like I’m auditioning for something.
