‘Oh, sweet niblets.’
‘Is that a good type of “oh, sweet niblets” or the “oh, sweet niblets, I’m going to die of food poisoning” type?’
‘Oh, sweet niblets, that ismagic.’ When he opens his eyes, they’re wet with unshed tears, and my heart constricts in my chest.
‘It’s perfect.’ His voice is rough and he sounds like he’s holding on to his emotions by a thread. ‘It tastes just like my mum’s used to. The meringue is sweeter than you find in shops, the filling is perfect, and the slightly burnt bits are what make it authentic because my mum always used to leave it in the oven just a bit too long too. I haven’t had anything even close to this in years.’
He takes another forkful and savours it, and I’ve totally forgotten about the plate I’m holding because I’m transfixed by the evocative joy playing across his face.
I take a forkful of mine too, and although I don’t have the memories attached to it that he does, it’s better than I expected, being my first attemptandmy first try at baking in Campervan.
I don’t realise I’ve closed my eyes until I open them to find he’s looking at me with an expression that makes my knees feel unsteady.
‘No one’s ever made me anything like this before. No one’s ever made me get emotional over a pie before either.’ He lets out a wet laugh and transfers the plate and fork to one hand so he can swipe at his eyes before putting another forkful in his mouth. ‘I feel like a kid again, like my mum’s still alive and I’ve just come in from school with an A+ result. This tastes like my childhood.’
I can feel emotion clawing its way up my throat too and I bite the inside of my cheek to force it down. This is what my grandma wanted to achieve with her baking. She always said that food could transport people to a different place, and watching that happen in real-time, making that happen for someone I’m realising Ireallycare about, is giving me a sense of happiness bigger than I can ever remember feeling, andI’vedone that, just me and my campervan.
‘Thank you.’ Reece is taking his time and devouring every bite. ‘I never thought I’d taste that again.’
‘I had a little help. Madge hand-selected all my ingredients, the yellow paint job infused me with self-belief, and I think Campervan helped in her own little way.’
‘You and Campervan make a good team. If I had any money, I’d be your first investor.’
‘In what?’ I almost laugh at how off-balance that makes me feel. Both the feeling that the van and I are somehow in this together, and the fact that he feelsthatstrongly about it. It’s a nice vote of confidence, even though I don’t have anything to investin.
‘I don’t know. The Nostalgia Café in whatever form it may take in the future. Because this is special and you can’t give up on a dream like this. You could sell this pie out of the campervan window and people would queue up for it.’
Vickie and I were on our own with The Nostalgia Café, and it felt lonely, but since the moment I ran him over, Reece has made me feel like I’m not alone, and that is what’s making me realise how alone I’ve been until now. With Jared, I felt isolated and ignored. Maybe I invested too much into my friendship with Vickie as a way of counteracting that, but Reece effortlessly makes me feel likeImatter.
Like he can read the emotions on my face, he stands up and crosses the small space between us, and then his arms are around me and I’m pressed against his chest, breathing in the fabric softener scent of his soft jumper.
It starts as a thank you hug, friendly, innocent enough, but his hand moves to the small of my back, and I feel his breath against my hair, and suddenly there’s nothing innocent about the way my body is responding to his touch. I pull back slightly to look at him, and the expression on his face makes my pulse race. His eyes are dark and focused entirely on me, and there’s something in them that makes the air between us feel electric.
If I pushed myself up and pulled him down right now, it wouldnotbe an almost-kiss. We’re standing close enough that I feel the way his breathing changes, becomes uneven, and his hand comes up, his fingers grazing along my jaw, tracing across my shoulder and downwards, making goosebumps rise in their wake as he crosses from my T-shirt sleeve to the bare skin of my arm, all the way down, until his fingers tangle with mine, and he holds on to my hand for a delicious moment before finally, finally stepping back far enough that he can lift my hand to his mouth and press a kiss to the back of it.
His lips are blisteringly hot, and although he looks clean-shaven, there’s a fine layer of stubble that burns across my hand in the most tantalising way, and I have to take a step away until my hip is leaning against the sink unit to keep myself upright.
‘Told you I might have to kiss you.’ His eyes are filled with mischief as he lets my hand drift back down, my fingers still loosely held between his, and I’m certain he knows exactly how hot that was.
Admittedly, that’s certainly an interesting interpretation of what he said earlier, but it’s probably for the best. He could have snogged me senseless and it wouldn’t have felt as intimate as that.
He’s smiling, but I can see his chest heaving and his cheeks burning, and I know I’m not the only one affected by that seemingly innocent gesture. It feels like the air is zinging between us, silently challenging either of us to come up with the next move afterthat.
It’s Reece who comes to his senses first and steps away, pushing a hand through his hair, looking around the small space until his eyes fall on another purchase from the village shop this morning. ‘You have wine.’
‘Yeah, apparently I’m supposed to ply you with it to get the best gossip.’
He laughs so hard that the van rocks. ‘Better get started then, because I want another slice of that while it’s still warm, and then I might be too full to move for a while. If you don’t want that, throw me out now.’
‘I want…’ You.You. Don’t saythatout loud, for goodness’ sake. I swallow hard. ‘…that.’
He smiles. Whether I said it aloud or not, heheardthat ‘you’.
I edge around him to cut another slice for us both, and he opens a cupboard, looking for glasses, but only finds the mismatched coffee mugs. He opens the bottle and fills two of them, and hands one to me. ‘Cheers.’
‘Cheers.’ I clink my mug against his. ‘And I won’t, you know. If you get tipsy and pour all your secrets out, I won’t share them with a soul.’
‘Somehow, I know that.’ His eyes are dark, and the urge to kiss him hasnotgone away. ‘And as the ladies have realised, it’ll take more than a mug of wine to get me to spill anything, but I appreciate their tenacity.’
