Fuck. My. Life.
Tie-dye, chickpeas, and hessian. I scowled at the wigwams and peace signs and wondered how the hell I’d ended up at a bloody hippie love-in at 10 a.m. on a Saturday morning.
You know how.
My gaze fell on the broad shoulders of my favourite brother, and I suppressed a heavy sigh. Gaz had assumed I’d have nothing better to do than lug his junk around Porthkennack’s annual jam festival and, sadly, he’d been right.
Yeah.Fuck my life.
I picked up the bulging bag, stuffed with jars of artisan preserves, pickles, and condiments, and wove my way through the crowds of crusties. Gaz was manning a stall at the back of the food tent, which was in the next field over, and about as far from the festival’s entrance as possible.
Not impressed,Gaz.Not impressed.
Like he gave a shit. His mile-wide grin when I finally caught up with him confirmed that he didn’t much care that I’d dragged my hungover arse out of bed to be his bitch. “Over there, mate,” he said with a wink. “Then you can help me here. Nicky’s gone for breakfast.”
“Are you taking the piss?” I dumped the bag at his feet. “I’m not staying. I only brought these because Ma bribed me with a fry-up.”
Gaz rolled his eyes. “You’re such a mummy’s boy. At least stick around for a bit, show me some love.”
“What do you need my love for?” I glanced pointedly at the Free Hugs sign attached to the pork pie stall a few metres away. “There’s plenty to go round.”
“Brat.”
Gaz looked like he wanted to call me worse, but a potential customer distracted him, and he was soon happily diverted, plying them with my stepmother’s scones, smothered in his signature rhubarb jam. Only Gaz could make WI-style jam and chutney cool. With his funky glasses and scruffy beard, he was the epitome of the trailblazing yuppie hipsters I’d moved back from London to escape.Yeah,and the rest.The image of my ex cosying up to his beautiful wife flashed into my mind. I pushed it away. Fuck that shit. It had been six months. I was over it . . . honest.
“Oi, dickhead.” Gaz nudged me. I’d missed him handing the reins to our middle brother, Nicky, and invading my personal space. “What are you up to for the rest of the day?”
“Hmm? Oh, I’ve got a job on tonight. Band gig in Bude.”
“That’s good.” Gaz seemed thoughtful, which was always dangerous. “I meant other than work, though. Seriously, Jas. You need to get out more. Eat, drink, get laid.”
“I got drunk last night, thanks very much.” I left out the part where I’d been home alone.
Gaz ribbed me a little longer before I escaped under the pretence of having a look around, though the smirk he bestowed on me—and the dead arm that came with it—left me in no doubt that he’d seen through my bullshit. Not that I cared. This was my time to not give a crap. As a child, I’d spent most of my school holidays following my dad around these stupid festivals and watching him flog the tiny onions he pickled in the derelict barn on the family farm. But I wasn’t a kid anymore, and I didn’t have the patience for this bollocks.
I wandered out of the food tent and bought a pint from the beer stand. It appeared that I was their first customer, but I didn’t care much about that either. Who cared if it was barely 11 a.m.? Not me, but despite my best attempt at disinterest, a few things caught my eye as I drifted through the farm hosting the festival: a besom broom maker, and a teenaged girl weaving a rug from rags. Behind a bee skep stall, a band, The Mocking Horses, were warming up on a small stage. I was intrigued by their collection of weird and wonderful drums—and the odd smell that lingered around them—but nothing held my attention until I came to an eco-furniture stall in a quiet-ish corner of the second field.
Nonplussed, I stared at a wardrobe that looked like it had walked out of the Laura Ashley catalogue. What the fuck was so eco-friendly about that? It took me far too long to realise it had been crafted entirely from disused warehouse pallets.Bloody hell.I circled the wardrobe, studying it from every angle, and tried to find something to feed my inner cynic. Failed. The wardrobe was imperfectly perfect, like every other piece of furniture dotted around the sun-faded grass: a bed built from stripped tree trunks; a sofa from old tractor tyres; and, my new favourite, a pool table built into the upturned hull of a vintage fishing boat.
The boat was fascinating. My hands itched for my camera, but I’d left it at home. Instead, I retrieved my iPhone from my pocket and crouched to get a decent shot of the boat, trying to capture all its magical elements. I was on my third attempt when a low chuckle startled me.
“Got a thing for rust, mate?”
I glanced up, squinting in the sunlight. The soft Cornish accent sounded old, but as the haze of the sun cleared, I found it belonged to one of the hottest blokes I’d ever seen in real life. With his dark windswept hair, scruffy jawline, and inked skin, he looked like a rock star—a skinny one, though he wore his slenderness like a dream.
“Erm . . .” I scrambled to my feet and was instantly lost in an amused set of warm green eyes. “Actually, I do like the rust. The piece would be gimmicky if they’d cleaned the boat up too much.”
“‘Gimmicky,’ eh?”
“Yeah, like those mirrors you get with seashells around them.” I deleted two of my three shots, hyperaware of Hot Bloke still watching. “Or all that fake shabby chic shit you see on the high street.”
Hot Bloke laughed. “I don’t spend much time on the high street. Here, come and have a butcher’s at this.”
He gave my arm a tug that sent shock waves through me, but before I could recover, I was transfixed by a rejuvenated slab of an old wooden printing press, framed in dark-brown oak. It was mesmerising. “Damn,” I said, as much to myself as my mystery companion. “That’s beautiful.”
“Do you think so? I only finished it last night.”
“Finished it? This is your work?”
