‘Why are you even talking to me when you have so many pretty girls at your disposal?’ I ask, coughing as the alcohol sears my throat.
He huffs out a laugh and takes the bottle back. ‘I’m not going to dignify that with an answer.’
My insides feel as frothy as the waves crashing onto the shore.
‘Is your uni work in your studio now?’
‘Yep.’
Mum, Dad and Michael used such care when helping me move the pieces out to the studio on Sunday. Michael was delighted when he found the small model of the Austin Healey that I’d made for him.
‘Can I see it?’ Finn asks.
‘Seriously?’
‘I’d love to.’
Nerves flit through me at the thought of showing him my work. But saying that he’d like to see it and actually following through are two different things, so I relax again.
We’ve reached the shoreline. To our left, high cliffs slice straight into the water and to our right, giant jagged rocks loom dark and foreboding against the starlit midnight-blue sky.
‘Ready to start,’ Finn says.
‘What?’
‘The fifth song you want for your playlist: “Ready to Start” by Arcade Fire. I’ve been racking my brain.’
‘How does it go?’
He begins to sing the chorus and his voice makes the hairs on my arms stand up as he runs through the hypothetical lines that begin with ‘If’.
When he sings‘If I was yours,’he glances across at me, holding my gaze in the darkness, but before he can conclude that he’s ‘not’, Dan shouts, ‘Oi, Finn! Stop serenading the girls!’
Finn runs up to a wave that has just crashed onto the shore and kicks water in Dan’s direction with one of his big boots.
‘You didnotwant to do that,’ Dan says darkly.
I’m halfway back across the beach, having run away from the water fight, squealing, when Rach joins me.
‘He fancies the fuck out of you,’ she says matter-of-factly as she hunches over and tries to catch her breath.
‘Keep your voice down!’ I hiss, my stomach bottoming out.
‘And you fancy the fuck out of him too.’
I glare at her. She is my loudest, most foul-mouthed friend by far.
‘Even if both of those things were true, he’s leaving. I don’t want to get too attached. And Idefinitelydon’t want to have to deal with any morning-after crap,’ I whisper furiously. ‘Especially when we’re both working at Seaglass.’
‘So wait until his last night andthenshag him senseless,’ my friend says brazenly.
I snort at her comment.
But when I think about the look Finn and I just shared, and the heat of our rare touches, one night with him with no consequences feels irresistibly appealing.
CHAPTER SIX
‘Is now a good time?’
