‘Same.’
He nods.
‘I’ll let you get on,’ I say eventually.
‘Thank you.’
I sit back down again, feeling on edge. Maybe we didn’t bond as much as I thought we did. I sigh, then switch my music back on and try to focus.
Where was I? Oh, yeah. Diaries.
I haven’t been able to find that much plot direction from Nicki in herConfessionsorSecretsfolders, but it’s occurred to me that maybe the key to connecting with her characters really lies with connecting to Nicki herself.
Sorting through all of her diaries and notebooks, I’ve worked out that she wrote her first diary when she was fifteen.
As the years went on, the diaries became less confessional and rather all-purpose notebooks, with random thoughts and general musings. She was only thirty-one when she died.
I lean back in my seat, put my feet up on the desk, and begin to read. Time to get to know the person behind the stories...
At the first mention of Charlie’s name, I sit bolt upright and put my feet flat on the ground, my pulse racing. I had no idea that Nicki and Charlie went to secondary school together.
Morris and Kit went to secondary school together, too, and the similarities don’t stop there. Both Charlie and Morris are from Cornwall, they’re both blond and good-looking and they both run their own businesses.
Morris is a laidback surfer with ambition. I don’t know if Charlie surfs. I don’t even know if he’s laidback – it’s kind of hard to tell. I wonder if he has ambition.
I look out of the window and watch for a moment as Charlie drives a long nail through the wooden structure, two more nails at the ready between his lips.
It’s only when he finishes hammering in the third nail that I realise I’ve been staring, but, before I come to my senses, he lifts up the bottom of his T-shirt and wipes his brow, revealing a maddeningly sexy stomach, all tanned and taut, with a dark triangle of hair disappearing into his waistband. My skin feels hot.
It is so not funny that my boyfriend lives ten thousand miles away. All this eye candy and no chance of action is doing my head in.
I stand up and turn down my music, needing a break from Nicki’s messy handwriting. At that very moment, Charlie looks up and locks eyes with me. My scalp is prickling as I head down the stairs, walking into the kitchen at the same time as he steps through the French doors.
‘You have gotseriouslyeclectic music taste,’ he comments drily.
That’swhy he looked up: he could hear my music. ‘It has been said,’ I reply with a grin.
‘What was the song before last?’ he asks.
‘The Avalanches?’
‘Is that who it was?’ He sounds surprised.
‘Yeah. “Frankie Sinatra” is the name of the song.’
‘Bonkers,’ he says.
‘You mean catchy.’
He shakes his head. ‘Maybe I need to hear it again.’
‘I can play it for you if you want,’ I offer, quite genuinely.
He shrugs and then meets my questioning gaze for a long moment. ‘Go on, then.’
I return with my speaker and iPod.
He leans against the worktop with his arms crossed and stares at me directly as a 1940s Calypso singer goes on about Frank Sinatra not having ‘the voice to sing calypso...’
