CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Date Six: Hot DAMN, Harry!
Abank holiday heatwave! Everyone bring a dish! Let’s have Pimm’s even though we all secretly hate it! Plans in place, you spend a good few days dreaming about sausages and grilled halloumi before the day arrives, the weather takes a turn and some poor fool bravely battles a gale-force wind to present soggy burgers while the rest of the gang get pissed on boxed wine inside. At least, that’s how most of the BBQs I’ve been to back home have turned out, wbu?
The Danish BBQ is a little different. I’m in the middle of a forest, the sun still high in the sky even though it’s getting late. A table laden with salads, rye breads and quite a lot of potato-based foods has pulled in a crowd of people, rather than a swarm of angry wasps. There’s not a disposable BBQ or an incinerated sausage in sight. Instead Harry stands by a brick-built firepit expertly turning a huge slab of meat. A guy with a guitar plays a tune while a woman in a loose-fitting dress sings beautifully to the beat. The low hum of chatter fills the air and positively no one is wearing a slogan apron with the words ‘burning bangers since 2009’ on it.
It is bliss.
I’mchatting to a bunch of obviously beautiful people and secretly wondering if I could just move here full stop. Everyone seems so happy, so at ease in their skin, it’s infectious. One girl is telling me all about her own love of photography and we’re flicking through her Instagram when Harry comes over, handing me a plate of ribs and whispering, ‘Let’s go somewhere more quiet.’
‘Okay!’ That was too keen but we’re all going to have to deal with it. Somewhere more quiet with broad, blond Harry sounds even more delicious than my plate of food looks. He leads me through the trees to a hidden lake and we walk to the end of a jetty, letting our feet hang off the side, toes dipped in the cool water.
I tackle my ribs while Harry tells me more about how he started up Jump. How he had no idea that the brand would be such a success across Scandinavia. How he didn’t expect to have done so well by his mid-twenties. How it’s meant that he can donate money to charity and set up his own foundation, promoting the use of recycled products in fashion. How he doesn’t believe in what-ifs, or regrets, because life should be about looking forward, not glancing back. Everything he says is with modesty and I listen in silence, completely impressed by his attitude, his ambition and also his abs. I can see them poking through his t-shirt and I’m trying not to stare, because had I realised quite how hot damn fine Harry is, I don’t think I’d have plucked up the courage to ask him out.
Worried that I’m already a plate of ribs down, I start chatting away about myself to give him the chance to tuck in, but after a couple of bites of rib and one solitary new potato, he puts his plate back down.
‘Are you not eating that?’
‘I’vebeen working to a new food philosophy recently. Eat until you are 80 per cent full. There’s a place in Japan where people do just that and they all live until they’re over a hundred.’
‘Wow, that’s really playing the long game,’ I scooch towards Harry and his discarded plate. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’
‘Of course not! You know your own macros.’
I pause mid-bite. I’m not entirely sure what a macro is. Violet banged on about them for a while, something to do with finding the perfect carb to fat balance? Tbh I spent a lot of those conversations dreaming about glazed donuts. Don’t get me wrong, it’s great to look after yourself, but there’s a spare rib winking at me right now and I’ll be damned if some macro maths is going to come between us.
‘Yeah. . . no. I’m just not that disciplined,’ I say to Harry.
He licks the last of his food from his fingers while he smiles at me and I realise that said spare rib is now almost falling from my grip. I’m mesmerised by Harry’s hotness. His butter blond hair is pulled back into a ponytail, stubble frames his jawline. This is exactly the kind of description I’d have avoided in a date just a month or two ago. A ponytail!! Only, this Norse superhuman has got my heart pounding, loud. I let go of my (his) food and throw caution to the wind, burrowing into his broad body. He stretches his arm around me and we fall silent, watching the lake, listening to the hum of happy BBQ chatter wisping around our ears in the gentle breeze.
‘Do you fancy a swim?’ Harry asks after a while.
‘I didn’t bring any swimwear.’
‘You don’t need any swimwear.’ His eyes fire hot-ass lightning bolts in my direction.
‘You want to swim naked?’ My voice has gone terribly British.
‘Sure,’he replies like it’s the most natural thing in the world. He doesn’t wait for me to answer. I watch as Harry starts peeling off his top. The belt is being unbuckled. The shorts are coming off. I’m sitting on a jetty with the remnants of spare rib smeared around my chops staring at the most sculpted man-god I have ever seen strip off. He is naked. I can seeeverything, you guys. I’m pretty sure I’m blushing. I pretend to stare wistfully off into the distance while, out of the corner of my eye, I watch Harry taking a Tom-Daley-grade dive off the jetty and into the lake. He’s under there for ages and I scramble to the edge, peering into the water and hoping that he hasn’t got tangled up in some weeds. Or eaten by eels. Or any other naked swimming perils.
Suddenly his head breaks through the glistening water and he uses his hands to push his hair back from his face.
‘Come and join me. It’s amazing in here.’
So, apparently some aliens kidnapped Jasmine and replaced her with a CRAZY LUNATIC. I know this because I’m currently peeling off my own clothes with a smile on my face. I’ve lost my mind in Denmark. I’m butt naked on a jetty with a whole load of people just moments away. Obviously I didn’t wear matching underwear. Obviously I never did find time to sort outthatheart-shaped bikini wax. Obviously I. . . am not even worried?!
Harry’s watching me from the water and it feels incredibly sexy. I generally consider getting naked a task that should be done with speed and under soft lighting. Candles ideal. Here it’s almost 11pm and through some kind of Scandi witchcraft the sun is still blazing down on my bare body and I’m not even self-conscious. I step over my discarded clothes. I ease into the water because diving definitely isn’t my forte and I haven’tcompletelylost control of my senses.
‘IT’S SO FUCKING COLD!’ I gasp.
Ithink I lost the sexiness?
Harry laughs, thankfully not put off by my expletives.
‘It’s so fuckingamazing,’ he replies.
Mils, I can’t even speak. I just got naked with a hot Dane for date number six. HOT DAMN, HARRY! It was AMAZING. Seriously, I don’t think I’ve ever felt so sexy. We went skinny dipping! In a lake! He had a ponytail and I liked it!
Did you see his Danish pastry? (Winky face)She taps back instantly.
SMUT. Yes, I saw the whole Danish bakery.
ERMERGERRRDD sounds delicious! Score?
Oh, 77 / 7? Now how are you please?
I’m honestly good and I am not fobbing you off I promise. Let’s meet for drinks when you’re back?
Yes please xxx
