I hear Jennifer, who must be the one wearing the sash, cackling.
Ooh, maybe Hamish could even be divorced, I think wistfully before thoroughly telling myself off.
Don’t be ridiculous, Nina!
Whatever his situation, it will be so good to catch up after all these years.
Annoyingly, Hamish has been taken further back into the plane and I can’t see him anymore. I take one last glance over the back of my seat, at a flash of baggy jeans and a loose-fitting shirt disappearing off into the distance. He’s still dressing like a surfer, just like he used to, I think happily to myself.
The plane starts to taxi, its engines roaring as it begins to pick up pace on the runway. I glance out of the window and watch the tarmac rumbling past, body tilting back as we head up into the sky. It’s a bright and balmy September day in London, the city growing smaller before we break through the clouds, into the blue skies above.
With thirteen full hours still to go, I decide not to pick up my new book just yet. I’m not a lunatic, I will not be raw-dogging this flight, but I should try to pace myself in terms of entertainment. Besides, what better entertainment than drifting back to my happy place? Memories of the past.
Penny says I do this a lot and she’s not wrong.
If I’m trying to get to sleep but my mind is racing, I’ll pick a memory of one of my dates with Hamish and walk through it, bit by bit. I find it calming, soothing, and it helps me to drift off.
I still can’t believe he is on this flight. Anticipation builds in my stomach and I close my eyes, deciding to head all the way back to our meet-cute for today’s daydream.
There’d been a sense of possibility in the air when I got back to Cornwall after graduating from university. I knew where I wanted to be (London) and what I wanted to do (event planning) but I also needed to build up some money before making the big move. So, while I applied for jobs, I moved back in with Mum and took a job at a coffee shop in Newquay for one last summer at home.
What a summer it turned out to be.
I remember the day I met Hamish so clearly. The weather hadn’t been great, which meant the café was absolutely packed with holidaymakers retreating from the drizzly beach. I didn’t get a break all day and by the time we waved goodbye to the final stragglers and hung the closed sign on the door, I was starving. On my way home, I decided that I couldn’t possibly make the ten-minute walk back to Mum’s without some dry-roasted peanuts to take the edge off my hunger, so I popped into the corner shop.
I’d got my earphones in as I made a beeline for the shop’s dwindling nut supplies, humming along to some NSYNC as I reached out to grab the last packet at the exact same time as somebody else did.
I remember pausing, looking over at this person about to steal my nuts.
A beautiful, blond Adonis.
We got a lot of cute surfers in Newquay, especially over the summer months, so it’s not like I wasn’t used to seeing them popping up all over the place. But there was something about this guy. A mischievous look in his eyes. A ten-out-of-ten smile.
We stared at each other for a couple of seconds.
‘Looks like we have a problem here,’ he said brightly.
‘Yes, it looks like you’re trying to steal my nuts,’ I replied, pulling out my earphones and letting them dangle around my neck.
He looked like he was weighing this up before he said: ‘Only one packet left. We could share?’
‘And how do you propose that would work?’
‘How about this. I buy the nuts, then we take them down to the beach and share the packet?’
‘Slight problem,’ I said. ‘The rain?’
‘Didn’t you notice? The sun’s come out. It’s beautiful now.’
One glance out of the corner shop’s front window told me he was right, and it took me milliseconds to decide that this was a great idea. So what if he was a stranger? There was somethingabout him that made me think I’d be foolish to pass up on this offer. Besides, I was single and had no plans that night. Why not?
He introduced himself as Hamish.
‘Down for the summer,’ I said.
‘Is it that obvious?’
‘Well, your Scottish accent was my first clue,’ I laughed. ‘I’m Nina. Back for the summer. I grew up here.’
