The softness of her lips was as comforting as coming home.
Her responsiveness made him feel taller. Desirable. Genuinely wanted.
Enough.
Angus had the warmth of sunshine on his hair and the ripples of cool water on his feet but every other part of him, his body and brain and heart – maybe even his soul – were totally lost in this moment and it felt…
…as if he was getting his first glimpse of what really living, if not true happiness, actually was.
12
Slipping into Alfie’s low seat was beginning to feel as familiar as climbing onto Pesto the Vespa or into Maeve the van but it was a whole lot more fun.
Especially when the roof was down and they were on a road like the Corniche Sublime that clung to the cliffs on the side of the Gorge du Verdon. There were guard rails in places but, in others, they could see the sharp drop into the gorge a little too close to the road for comfort. There were tight bends and short tunnels that had been carved into the rock and… Angus was clearly loving the drive and the engine sounds of hugging the curves and then putting his foot down a little.
‘I feel like I’m in a Bond movie,’ he told Tilly. ‘OrMission: Impossible.’ He was grinning. ‘Let me know if someone starts shooting at us. Or if you see a car rolling off the edge and bouncing down the cliff.’
‘Dick flicks,’ Tilly said.
Angus gave a surprised shout of laughter. ‘Where on earth did you learn that term?’
‘Probably from my best friend, Sophie. But it’s true, isn’t it? They are mostly the favourite movies for men?’
‘And romcoms are for women. Chick flicks.’
‘Also true.’
‘So what’s your favourite?’
‘Titanic,’ Tilly said promptly. ‘Notting Hill.Chocolat.’ She was counting them off on her fingers. ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral.Amélie.’
‘I haven’t heard ofAmélie.’
Tilly gasped. ‘C’est choquant! That is one of the most loved romantic French movies and they are the best.’
‘I’ve heard people say they have weird endings.’
‘People expect happy endings. Love is not always like that, as you know. ButAméliedoes have a happy ending. Perhaps you’d like to watch it?’
‘Maybe. For now, I’m going to watch the road. Can you find some music for us to listen to? I can drive faster when the road straightens and it will be harder to talk.’
‘But I might find something romantic.’
‘Just no saxophones,’ Angus said sternly. ‘It’s a rule.’
Perhaps ‘it’s a rule’ was going to be added to their personal vocabulary, like ‘picturesque’. Did Angus realise that developing a private code could also be considered romantic? And it wasn’t just words. Was he learning the kind of nonverbal signals she was collecting without even noticing? Like the way she could tell if Angus liked his food just by the way he closed his eyes in a long blink when he tasted it. And see an embryonic smile when it was no more than an almost invisible twitch of his lips.
Tilly scrolled through her music app and found she was actively seeking a romantic song that she thought she could get away with.
What if, she thought, she could teach Angus, bit by bit, how important romance was? That he might discover that it was what his father was talking about when he’d said how important it was to really live? If she could show him the sparkle well enoughfor him to be convinced, it might make all the difference for his future. He might be able to find his true love and have the happy ever after that his father had missed out on.
What a gift that would be to give someone.
It might even be a gift to herself as well, to restore her faith that she wasn’t wasting her life waiting for The One. Her prince.
A good place to start would be a romantic song that sounded nothing like the clichéd crooning that Angus associated with love songs.
A rock god like Jon Bon Jovi, perhaps – with ‘Always’?
