Rye’s eyes open wide. ‘Whatthe heckwas that?’
Plum holds her nose. ‘Time for a clean nappy, Bud?’
Clemmie reaches for the rucksack. ‘That’ll be a head-to-toe poonami. If you come with me, Plum, we can take them up to the bathroom and change Arnie at the same time.’
Plum’s on her feet. ‘If you don’t mind making the coffee, Floss?’
Rye’s up too. ‘Did I see a machine?’
‘Americanos all round?’ As we move inside and head behind the gallery counter it’s obvious I can’t compete with Rye’s barista skills, so I pass him the cups, and put some saucers on a tray. I’m counting out plates for the cake when he turns to me.
‘You do know how much Kit likes you?’
I cover my horror with a joke. ‘I should hope he does, the number of Bakewell blondies I make him.’
‘It’s way more than that.’ Rye gives me a hard stare. ‘It’s the real deal for Kit. Always has been.’
My stomach has dropped like a high-speed lift with each successive revelation, but I know to take my time with this. ‘Excuse me?’
‘He’s been head over heels ever since you moved here.’ Rye looks at me more closely. ‘Youmusthave noticed, the guy practically took up residence on your deck. You surely didn’t think begging for ice cream and cake at all hours was him just being hungry?’
I’m opening and closing my mouth, trying to take it in. ‘But that was months ago! And he blamed the cake on you!’ My mind races forward, and I finally land on a sensible argument. ‘Kit and I talked about it and we both agreed – neither of us is up for commitment when we’re still picking up the pieces after previous relationships.’
Rye shrugs. ‘It’s a big risk telling someone you care until you know they do too. But if youdon’tfeel the same it’s best that you know – there are definitely feelings on his side.’
How can I have got this so wrong when I’ve checked so often? Even if a tiny part of what Rye says is true, I can’t leave things as they are. ‘Kit getting hurt is the last thing I want.’
Rye gives a grimace. ‘I’m pleased you think that too. I hope you don’t mind me saying?’
This is the funny thing with St Aidan – every time I think things are going right, something happens and the bottom drops out of my life. I’m shaking my head. ‘Not at all. I’m very grateful you told me.’
I put down the spoons I’m holding, whistle for Shadow and look at Rye. ‘I need to go.’ There are things I need to do. Places I need to be. Worse still, my chest feels like it’s imploding. ‘The milk is in the fridge under the counter. Can you say goodbye to Clemmie and Plum for me?’
This is all a terrible mess. There’s only one way to make it right, and I have to do it as soon as I can.
43
The Studio, Latitude One, High Tides Hotel
Ninety miles an hour in reverse gear
Monday
That first evening Kit and I hung out at the hotel, when we talked about why we weren’t up for attachments, my thinking was chaotic, my head bursting with a million random reasons – and I’d also drunk a lot of Prosecco. But as I walk back along the beach with Shadow and think about this solely in relation to Kit and me, with every footprint I leave in the sand my mind is clearing. This has nothing to do with hangovers from the past. What Dillon and I had doesn’t even come into it. All that’s left in very clear focus here is that if Kit and I everdidget to the stage of considering a future for the two of us, there is an elephant-sized obstacle standing in our way. I inhabit the present because the future is too uncertain to go there. However I look at it, I’d be short-changing Kit to ask for any more than we have now.
It was a completely accidental anomaly that we ever got off the ground at all. If my dating rules had been more rigorous, or even more tested, it might never have happened. I mean, you learn from experience, and reading between the lines this sounds like it could be shaping up to be an all-out catastrophe.
With that decided I go on to think about what Rye was saying about Kit. And when I put Kit’s recent behaviour under a microscope, and look at his actions rather than his words, I have to admit there’s a lot to support Rye’s view. They’re tiny signs rather than huge ones. A laugh here, a smile there. Looking comfortable, when he should have looked appalled. When I think back to the day Milla’s group made rings, or when we talked about things later, I must have been blind not to notice them more. But if there’s any doubt at all, I have to face up to it.
It’s completely possible Kit’s real feelings might be different from what he’s actually said. I only have to think back to all the words of denial I’ve said to him myself, when every time my body was screaming the opposite. I’ve done a pretty good job of deluding myself, because I was selfish, and I liked what was happening, and I wanted to grab as much of it as I could.
When I think of hurting Kit by inadvertently leading him on, by accidentally implying that we could carry on for longer, it’s the last thing I want to do. I’d hate to do wrong by him. Not only that, but the idea of causing him pain is abhorrent because I care about him so much. Which only goes to show how attached I have become, and how these things can grow while all the time I’ve been fooling myself that it’s fine because I didn’t give a damn.
And the final proof is when I turn the spotlight onto myself.
When Rye said that Kit liked me, my tummy plummeted. But in the split second before that, there was a moment when my heart leaped so high it could have cleared the moon. It was as if knowing Kit might like me more than we’d talked about was the most amazing feeling. As if that was all I’d been waiting for to let my own feelings explode. It’s one thing having a rush of blood to the head every time someone appears. Recognising that crazy out-of-control sensation as something huge and real – a substantial, bona fide, straight-from-the-heart emotion – is something else.
What the actual eff have I done here? Falling in lust was fine, but falling in anything more is a total disaster.
