Ash’s eyes lock with mine and I experience a full-body jolt. We both look down. I feel edgy and nervous and yes, okay, I’ll admit it, sick with jealousy.
Suddenly this whole thing seems insane. There’s no way Beca left him because of me. It makes no sense. There must be more to it than that.
I force myself to turn to Evan. ‘So you’re thinking about heading to a waterfall tomorrow?’ I ask sunnily.
‘Yeah, do you fancy it?’
‘Sure,’ I reply, just as I realise that Ash and Celyn have fallen silent.
‘It’s about forty minutes away,’ Evan adds.
‘Where are you going?’ Ash asks directly, his eyes moving between us. He sounds casually interested.
‘Don’t ask me to pronounce it,’ Evan replies, pulling out his phone. I lean over his shoulder and catch sight of the words Pistyll Rhaeadr before he turns the display towards Ash.
The sound that comes out of Ash’s mouth sounds so distinctly Welsh that my chest contracts.
‘I’ve only just realised that you’ve been talking like Ashton Berkeley!’ Celyn suddenly exclaims at Ash.
Ash’s eyes flit to mine and cut away again. He laughs lightly and takes a swig of his beer, pink tinging his cheeks.
He doesn’t dare speak with a Welsh accent in front of me, I realise. Not after the way I reacted when he switched accents so seamlessly on the night of his parents’ party. The last of my scratches from stumbling backwards into the rose bushes with shock only healed a few days ago.
I jump to my feet and head inside, grabbing my phone from where it’s charging on the countertop.
Be yourself, I text him, glancing out the window in time to see him get his phone out of his jeans pocket. He’s only sitting a few metres away, so this time when he looks towards my window, he meets my eyes through the glass. I feel jittery as I wait for his reply.
I don’t want to freak you out.
You won’t.
He meets my eyes again and it hits me how much I want to hear his voice, the voice that I remember.
I walk outside and sit back down.
‘What have you done for your birthday today then, Bethan?’ Ash asks her, and God, he sounds like him, likeAsh, like himself.
I feel all skittery beneath my ribs as he and Bethan talk to each other. I can’t concentrate on a single other thing, only the sound of his voice, his slow, melodic lilt, the easy, laid-back quality that seems to come over him.
My ears are tuned into his every word, and my gaze keeps getting drawn back to his body too. I manage to prevent myself from staring too openly at his face, but I’m drinking in the casual way he’s leaning back in his deckchair, the length of his legs in those well-worn jeans, the way his chest and shoulders fill his faded green T-shirt.
I’m struck with a vision of him in his Hawaiian shirt, open at the neck, flapping wildly in the wind as he holds his hair back from his face in a tuk-tuk in Lisbon.
The sound of his voice together with the vivid memories takes me back to a time when my attraction to him was all-consuming. My eyes land on his mouth as he puts his beer can to his lips and tilts it.
Time seems to have slowed down. That Prosecco has gone straight to my head.
Bonnie Tyler’s ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ comes pouring out of the stereo and I breathe in sharply as Ash looks straight at me.
The moment has coincided with a pause in his conversation with Bethan, but he doesn’t ask another question or turn to anyone else. While the others talk around us, he and I stare at each other. His eyes are glittering with intensity as he holds my gaze, and inside my chest, my heart has begun to beat erratically.
I need to look away, but I can’t.Heneeds to look away, but he doesn’t.
Goosebumps race up my neck just as he tilts his head towards the outbuildings, giving them a very subtle look over his shoulder before returning his eyes to mine.
Is he asking me to meet him there? But people will see us leaving.
I give a tiny shake of my head and lift my eyes and chin up towards the roof of the cottage.
