‘I’d like to, if that’s cool.’
‘Of course it is,’ I say, trying not to show that I’m pleased. I turn and grab a handful of shingle, letting it sift through my fingers. ‘Oh look!’ I hold up a tiny, smooth piece of bottle-green glass. ‘Sea glass.’
‘Open your hand,’ Charlie prompts.
I glance at him with surprise. He’s holding his fist out to me, so I uncurl my palm. He drops a small handful of glass straight into it.
‘Where did you get it?’ I ask with delight. The pieces range from the size of a fifty-pence piece to smaller than a penny, and come in shades of green, brown, blue, red and yellow.
‘April and I were looking for it. I’ve found sea glass before at this beach.’
‘What are you going to use it for?’ I dust sand grains off a couple of the larger pieces and then brush the same sand off my legs. I’m wearing my denim shorts today.
He shrugs. ‘I don’t know. Something.’
The three biggest pieces are green, brown and yellow, in that order. For some strange reason I imagine them being melted together into one piece of polished glass. And, for an even stranger reason still, Charlie’s eyes spring to mind.
God, I’m weird. Why did I eventhinkthat?
‘Look what I got,’ I say in turn, emptying my notepad of stone shards onto his hands. ‘Aren’t the colours stunning?’
‘Yeah,’ he says with wonder, bringing a piece up close to his eyes and turning it this way and that as he studies it.
‘Haven’t you ever climbed up there?’ I ask.
He shakes his head. ‘I’ve always had April with me.’
‘You didn’t come here with Nicki?’
‘No, she found this place on her own and told me about it. I only visited for the first time a few months ago.’
‘Where do you want me to put these?’ I ask after a moment, holding out my fist.
‘Swap.’
We exchange our finds and I put the shards back in my notebook so they don’t get broken. They’re very fragile.
‘Is your friend coming this weekend?’ he asks me.
‘Marty? No.’
‘Oh.’ He frowns. ‘I thought you were going to ask her.’
‘I did,’ I murmur, sifting through another handful of shingle. ‘She only got back from holiday last Friday. She wants to chill at home with her boyfriend this weekend before she goes away again.’
I was pretty disappointed when she told me that.
‘Have you got any other plans?’ he asks, and I know he feels bad for me, which is a bit embarrassing.
‘Not yet.’ I shrug. ‘But I have plenty of work to catch up on.’
‘Why don’t we do Heligan on Saturday, then?’ he suggests.
I give him a small sideways look. ‘I thought you needed to work.’ We’re here on a Thursday, after all.
‘I’ve got ages until my next big deadline,’ he replies. ‘If you don’t want me to come, though, just say.’
‘It’s not that.’
