I’m scratching my head. ‘So who’s actually paying?’
‘No money is changing hands. It was a sweetener, one of the reasons I persuaded her and Nate to sell to me at the right price.’
‘Is speculation always that convoluted?’
He laughs. ‘The best deals are never easy. That’s why they’re so satisfying when you get them right.’ He’s doing that thing where he stares deep into my eyes looking amazingly hot, and vulnerable and hopeful all at the same time. ‘So is that everything?’
‘No, there is something else.’ I shied away from it before, but my heart is bursting, and I have to tell him.
‘And?’ He cocks an eyebrow at me.
‘Thank you. Not just for this. Thank you for always being there for me, for teaching me to bake, for making me understand about my past, for bringing me to Rob, for helping me see what I want, and supporting me to become the kind of person who dares to reach for all those things.’ It’s already a very long list. ‘But most of all, thank you for being your truly awesome self. I’ve never said this to anyone before. But Charlie Hobson, I love you.’ I’m sniffing as I say the words and it hits me how much. When he pulls me into a snog it’s salty with tears.
He’s sniffing too. ‘Thank you. I love you too, Clemmie penguin.’
I brush my hand across my eyes. ‘You did make my heart flip that first day when you were eating macaroons. And a lot when we were baking. But the more I got to know you, the more I thought I couldn’t have you.’
His voice is all low and gravely. ‘Thank you for coming home, Clems. I promise you won’t regret it.’ He pulls me into the lightest of kisses, that makes my body explode into rainbows, and leaves me aching for more. If there weren’t so many people wandering round us, I wouldn’t let him go this easily.
Then he gets up, sidesteps a hurtling toddler, and pulls me up off the grass. ‘Come on Clemmie Kitchen, let’s get you back to your garden party.’
As we walk back across the garden to Sophie and Plum, they’re grinning at us. And I know this is why I’m home. With friends who go to these lengths for me, how could I ever have left?
40
Sophie’s house warming party at Siren House
Driftwood and bottle tops
Sunday, three weeks later
‘Iknew you two were destined to be together the night you hooked her tail.’
This is Nell, and somehow she’s managing to hang on to George, hold a handful of cupcakes, swig her alcoholic pink lemonadeandbeam at Charlie and me across the garden terrace at Siren House.
Charlie’s laughing at her as he swigs his Peroni. ‘Funny you should say that.’ The bottle is glinting against the line where the cloudless autumn sky merges with the deep blue of the sea. I shift my feet as I watch because the way his throat moves as he swallows always makes my knees feel like they could collapse at any moment. Even when I’m sitting down.
Nell laughs. ‘That first glance you shot across the room at Clems said it all, Charlie. It’ssoexciting when that happens.’
Plum and I are glossing over our brief spectacular misreading of Nell’s enthusiasm for Charlie. Okay, we hold our hands up and admit it – maybe we aren’t the world’s best matchmakers. At least we did our bit with George and Nell. Although Charlie was the real mastermind there.
Charlie grins. ‘Clemmie dressed as a mermaid, it gets me every time.’ He leans over and adjusts the starfish in my hair.
There’s no point hiding it. Another party of Sophie’s, and whatever we said after the last one, we’re all here again in our bridesmaid’s dresses, with our netting, seaweed and starfish tail additions. Because even if the dresses are even tighter than they were back in April, we mermaids could hardly come to the mini housewarming bash at Siren House dressed any other way. As Sophie was the bride she doesn’t have a bridesmaid dress so she’s tied her tail net over aqua capri pants.
I have to point it out. ‘These tails are an upgraded design, Plum’s added elastic this time so we can move our feet.’
Plum’s laughing. ‘We couldn’t risk you falling over this close to the cliff edge.’
Nell’s teasing Charlie. ‘I’ve never known you take so long to seal a deal.’
He’s straight back at her. ‘Clems was very slippery to catch, but now I’ve got her I won’t be letting go.’ He loops his hand round my neck and comes in for the kind of teasing kiss that makes me glad I’m a girl not a mermaid.
I smile up at him. ‘You might have to hold on tight.’ I’m joking, obviously, but it’s good to tease him. ‘Not really, now I’ve swum home, I’m here to stay.’ I didn’t know what I was missing out on all these years, but I’m so pleased I’ve found it now. As for not being able to keep my hands off Charlie, we’ve barely left the flat since I got back. Obviously, I’ve been nipping downstairs to decorate the Little Cornish Kitchen’s next home. Milla’s been helping me with colours, and even if Sophie’s proud of the way I’m stalking vintage interiors sites so far I’m buying my velvet sofas from eBay and finding my mismatched chairs on Gumtree. I can’t bear to take anything from upstairs because somehow it’s important for Laura’s flat to stay as it is forever. However much Charlie teases me about making it a media room extension to his flat, I won’t be giving in.
Sophie and Nate got the keys to the castle last week. They stripped out the carpets and ripped off the wallpaper, then sent in Dainty Dusters and their floor scrubbing machines – oh, yes, those really are a thing. It’s as far as they can take it for now, and they’re going to live with it. And to celebrate moving in with the basics until they save up for the bigger restoration work, they’re throwing a lovely relaxed ‘at home’ afternoon for the mermaids and close friends. Sophie’s flopped on one of the sun loungers from the farm courtyard, Maisie in her arms, Tilly and Marcus kneeling playing scissors paper stone across her legs – or should that be tail – while Milla’s in her own mermaid outfit, headphones on, tapping out a dance at the edge of the decking.
As the late afternoon sun pops out from behind a fluffy cloud, Sophie holds up a macaroon and nods at me. ‘Blue and lavender, for old time’s sake.’
