‘It’s all right, she’ll fall asleep in her pram,’ Charlie replies.
‘But our sitters ’ere are fantastic!’ he cries. ‘We ’ave a lovely girl for you. She is very friendly. April will adore her.’
Charlie looks at me. I shrug. It’s up to him.
‘I’ve never left her with a sitter before,’ he muses.
‘The Thai restaurantisvery close to our hut,’ I point out. ‘You could always take April to her room and settle her, then come back. And, if she wakes up, they could call us.’
‘What do you say?’ Alain prompts. ‘I get our girl to come to you?’
‘I guess we could give it a try,’ Charlie agrees.
‘Excellent!’ He claps his hands together and gets up from our table. ‘And tomorrow nightIcook for you,’ Alain says meaningfully as he takes two steps backwards. ‘Yes?’
‘Okay,’ I reply with a smile.
‘Sounds like we have a plan,’ Charlie comments as Alain hurries back indoors. He looks at me. ‘You and I are going on adate,’ he says with a smirk.
I suddenly feel very jittery.
Is this too much?I ask myself later, as I eye my reflection in the mirror behind the wardrobe door. My dark hair is down and wavy and I’m wearing the nicest thing I’ve brought with me, but it’s a bit over the top: a silvery, shimmery slip dress with a hemline that floats around the halfway point of my thighs. With heels, my legs look crazy long.
I love this dress. I bought it on a whim, but I haven’t had a chance to wear it yet. Fuck it. Seize the day, right?
‘Whoa,’ Charlie says when I come downstairs, treading carefully so I don’t slip on the polished wood and break an ankle. ‘I feel underdressed.’
‘You still look hot,’ I tell him with a flippant grin. He’s wearing navy shorts and a green T-shirt.
‘Not as hot as you.’
A thrill goes through me, even though he’s teasing. I know he still sees me only as a friend, but maybe this dress will help to change that. There I go, trying to lay foundations, again.
‘I’m putting a shirt on,’ he says, leaving the room.
‘Are you serious?’ I call after him.
He doesn’t reply, but I think that he is.
‘This’ll do,’ he says on his return. He’s kept his navy shorts on – they’re quite smart, anyway – but he’s changed his green T-shirt to a black shirt and he’s rolling up the sleeves. ‘Still up for cocktails at the cave bar?’ he asks.
‘Absolutely.’
We plan to feed April first, then pop back to settle her and meet the sitter before going to eat ourselves.
We sip our drinks and watch as the restaurant vendors pack up for the night and the visiting tourists board their long-tail boats to return to their own islands.
‘Have you seen anything of Jocelyn and Edward since I left Cornwall?’ I ask Charlie.
‘Actually, April and I went over there for Sunday lunch before we came away.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah.’ He smiles at my delight. ‘I think you’re right about Edward. Heisshy. He was more relaxed at home. Mind you, it might’ve had something to do with the bottle of red we sank.’
‘Do you think you could be friends?’
‘Maybe. We’ll see.’
