by KE Payne
“Of course I enjoy it.” Nat took a sip from her drink, apparently snapped out of her reverie. “Like I’m sure you enjoy yours.”
So she was a mind reader after all.
“But…”
“But…?” Again, Ash sensed Nat’s confidence wobbling, and had the notion that she was holding back some important truth from her. The frustration was infuriating.
“Nothing.” Nat smiled. “Have some more food, won’t you? I think I bought enough to feed an army.”
With the memory of her McDonald’s still sitting dumpily in her stomach, and her uneaten morsel of food still staring up at her from her plate, Ash nevertheless leaned forward and took some dim sum. When had Nat bought all this food, anyway? On her way home from Claridge’s earlier? Immediately, the thought of Nat making a special effort—unless Nat ate party food all the time, it was blindingly obvious it had been bought for Ash—pricked at Ash’s conscience and she felt embarrassed all over again for her attempts to goad Nat into an argument earlier, and for pushing her now into telling her something Nat obviously didn’t want to confess. Equally, she was touched that Nat would think to buy beer, rather than trying to foist wine onto her, and her shame in her petulance increased. Nat, she guessed, probably didn’t buy beer too much.
“The beer’s good.” Ash voiced her thoughts. “The food too.” She paused. “Thanks for it all. Totally unexpected, so thanks.”
“I didn’t know what beer to buy.” Nat rolled a hand towards Ash’s bottle. “I hope it’s okay.”
Ash’s lips twisted into a smile. “I figured you might not buy this stuff much.” She lifted her bottle. “It’s perfect. Thanks.”
“Remember when I wanted to take you to that wine bar in Soho for your eighteenth?” Nat asked.
“Oh God, yes!” Ash widened her eyes back at her. “How could I forget?”
Nat smiled and studied Ash long enough to make Ash feel the need to look away.
“And I said if you loved me…” The words died on Ash’s lips. She frowned and stared at the label on her bottle, then cleared her throat. “I said if you loved me you’d not put me through that,” she continued.
“So that’s why I took you to Planet Hollywood instead,” Nat said. “Because I loved you.”
“You hated it there.” Ash laughed. Still staring at her bottle, she rubbed at her temple as if encouraging the memories to come flowing back. “You were never a Planet Hollywood kind of girl, were you?”
“I loved you.”
Ash looked up at Nat’s unexpected declaration.
“You told me the other night at dinner that you’d loved me, and I didn’t reply,” Nat continued. “So I’m telling you now. I loved you.”
“I know you did. Once upon a time.” Ash looked up, catching Nat’s eye, and suddenly once upon a time didn’t seem like so long ago.
“Didn’t we get ourselves in a terrible jumble, though?” Nat laughed through her nose.
“Jumble?” Nat’s analogy had caught Ash off guard and she felt unable to answer properly.
“But I think it all worked out for the best, don’t you?” Nat said. “I think if we’d stayed together—”
“I’d have held you back?” Ash offered, sensing a hardening in her tone. “Isn’t that what you told me at the time?”
“We’d have been on a collision course,” Nat corrected. “It was so…intense.”
“Love is intense.”
“But at eighteen?” Nat asked. “When we wanted so much from life?”
“When you wanted so much, you mean,” Ash said. “I was just in love. My ambitions back then were just to love you wholeheartedly.” She thought for a moment. “And you really can love someone wholeheartedly at eighteen, you know. Love wasn’t and isn’t just the privilege of non-teens.”
“I know—”
“You make it sound like we were kids experimenting,” Ash said, her mouth saying the words even though her brain was telling her not to, “but I know what I feel—felt—for you was real.”
“Our lives were always going to take different paths, Ash,” Nat said. “My parents. You remember what they were like.”
Ash sat back. Of course she remembered Nat’s parents, because Nat’s parents were everything her own weren’t.
“You still in touch with them?” Ash asked. “Livvy said—”
“No.” Nat’s answer was firm. “It was one thing after the other, until…”
“Enough was enough?”
That made Nat look back at her, and in that split second Ash felt desperately sorry for her. She’d spent her life being scared of her parents, always wanting to impress them. It had never been enough.
“It was when I left Richard,” Nat said slowly, “and everything that followed afterwards.” She paused. “Well, that seemed to be the final straw. For all of us.”
“Because you had the audacity to divorce someone you allegedly never loved?”
“Not allegedly,” Nat said. “I didn’t even particularly like him.” She looked at Ash. “It was when I told them about me and you. That was when we stopped speaking.”
“You told them?” Ash moved in her chair. She leaned closer to Nat, her beer bottle still grasped in her hands. “Even though…” Her mind was in turmoil. Nat telling her parents was the last thing she would have ever done.
“You never left me,” Nat said. “The loving wholeheartedly thing? It was the same for me too.”
“But it still wasn’t enough to stop you leaving me.”
“Don’t you think I’ve had to live with that all these years?” Nat asked. “Don’t you think I haven’t wondered how things might have been different if I hadn’t been so scared of my parents?”
“I know you dumped me because of them,” Ash said. “It just astonishes me and always has done that you would ruin everything we had, ruin my future plans, because of what you thought your parents might say.”
“Did I ruin your life, though?” Nat asked. “Really? From where I’m sitting, you’ve done okay for yourself.”
“I could have been a doctor.” Ash’s voice raised a notch. “I wanted to be a doctor. But my head was so fucked-up—by you—that I could barely hold a pen in my hand, let alone sit my exams.”
The argumentative Ash returned as the bitterness that she’d kept under control for the past few days rose in her throat, and she had to slam down the rest of her beer in order to calm her anger again.
She stared at Nat, angry that a few simple words from her could rake the past up so vividly. She was over it all now. Nat surely no longer had the ability to stimulate any kind of emotion in her—not anger, nor bitterness, nor resentment. Nothing.
Nat’s gaze met hers, sparking a flint inside Ash that was anger mixed in with…with what? Ash broke eye contact, her confusion terrifying her. She was so over Nat, wasn’t she? She just had to be.
Chapter Eleven
“Tell me some more about your life in Cornwall.” Nat wanted to change the subject. Defuse the growing tension that threatened to splinter the atmosphere between her and Ash. She hadn’t meant to start raking over the past again, and the look on Ash’s face right now told her she should have stopped at her talk of wholehearted love. Why had she even thought to say that anyway? Because Ash had already said it?
“Cornwall’s the best.”
Nat sensed Ash pull in her breath, almost as if to calm herself. Now, the hint of the smile that touched Ash’s face after her previous annoyance was enchanting, Nat thought.
“It’s everything I hoped it might be,” Ash continued, “and more.”
“And your business is doing well?” Nat wanted to know. It was important to her that Ash liked her life.
“Very well.” Ash nodded. “Better in the summer, naturally,” she said, “but you’d be surprised at the number of people who still want to get out on the sea in the winter too.”
“When the weather cooperates?”
“The sun always shines in Cornwall.” Ash grinned. “Wel
l, nearly always.” She shrugged sheepishly.
“You sound like you’re happy there.”
“I am,” Ash said. “I suppose…”
“You suppose…?” Nat dipped her head to catch Ash’s eye.
“Well, I wonder sometimes if I’m not happier doing this than I would have been being a doctor.”
“You wanted to be a doctor, remember?” Nat echoed Ash’s words from before.
“I did.” Ash’s answer was firm. “But would I have been as happy?”
Nat sat back, the anxiety that had been clutching at her for the last few minutes easing its grip on her stomach slightly. Would she have been happier if she’d taken a different path in life? Nat shook the thought away. “That’s good to hear,” she finally said.
“Mm.”
Nat watched as Ash finished the last of her beer.
“You can see for yourself next week anyway,” Ash said. “I guarantee in the short time that you’re there you’ll fall in love with the place too.”
Ash was happy. The iron grip inside Nat eased some more. Ash’s life hadn’t been blighted as much as Nat had often feared over the years, and now to hear it from her directly and see it in her eyes made her guilt over everything she’d done to Ash lessen. Albeit only slightly.
“I’m looking forward to it.” The conviction in her statement was as much as a surprise to Nat as it seemed to be for Ash. But she meant it. After spending the last four days in Ash’s company, going down to Cornwall—to Ash’s stomping ground—didn’t seem like the daunting task it had seemed last week. “Depending on what Livvy has in store for us,” she added quickly.
“We have to get through tomorrow first,” Ash said.
Livvy’s fourth and final London letter. Nat threw a look to Ash, her anger no longer apparent. Had the mention of returning to Cornwall mellowed her again? Now, annoyed Ash had been replaced with relaxed Ash, her head resting against the back of her chair, empty beer bottle nestled between her knees, her cleared plate in front of her. Over the course of the evening, Nat had completely forgotten about the reason for Ash being with her. She glanced up at her clock, dismayed to see it was past ten o’clock already. She didn’t want the evening to end, but she knew they had to open their letters soon, and that once they had, Ash would leave.
Not that Ash looked like she wanted to go anywhere. Nat soaked up the unusual sight of having someone sitting with her in her lounge after dark. Sure, colleagues came and went—usually with their partners while Nat flew solo—but no one Nat genuinely wanted to be there. Colleagues were…colleagues. She had Maddie—wonderful, supportive Maddie—but she had a husband and family of her own who all took up her time, and that was absolutely understandable. Nat’s other colleagues, she knew, only came by because sometimes the easiest place to talk about work was far away from the workplace. But they’d talk shop endlessly. Discuss which particular research they were currently working on. Moan about their kids. Then they’d wait a respectable amount of time after coffee had been finished before they’d make their excuses and leave again, thanking Nat for her hospitality and stressing that next time they’d be the ones to invite her over so that she could meet David, or Tom, or whichever other poor singleton they’d drag along just to make up the numbers. Nat shuddered. The downside of keeping her private life just that—private—was that others assumed things about her. Marrying Richard had never helped, either.
Nat sighed. Now wasn’t the time to start picking over the broken glass of her solitary life. She stood, sensing Ash watching her, and crossed the room to where her bag was slung over the back of a dining chair. Nat pulled out Livvy’s letter, returning just in time to see Ash pull hers from the back pocket of her jeans.
“What do you think?” Nat flopped back into her chair. “Opera? Fine dining at the Ivy? Or another trip out to the West End?”
“You could just kill me now.”
Nat laughed as Ash shuddered. She flipped open the envelope, thumbed the letter out and shook it open.
“Shall I?” Nat nodded her head to the letter, smoothing it out flatter when she saw Ash give her the thumbs up in response.
“Dear Crackles,” she read aloud. “Well, this is it. Your fourth and final letter for your London jaunts. How’s it been? Has Flash grumbled incessantly about having to spend nearly a week in the capital? I do hope so! If she reads this, tell her that was a joke, by the way.” Nat lifted her eyes to Ash’s, relieved to see her smiling. She returned Ash’s smile, pleased by the shared joke between them, then resumed reading. “Remember when we were thirteen and Ash got that magnificent bike for her birthday? And we were both terribly jealous of her?” Nat looked up to Ash again. “Bike?” She frowned.
“BMX.” Ash grinned. “I bugged my parents for months about it. It was yellow, with these fab blue flecks all over it. Livvy was jealous as hell because she wanted one but her parents were worried about her cycling in London.”
“I remember.” Nat sat back, crossing one leg over the other. “I put a sticker on the crossbar about a week after you got it and you wouldn’t speak to me for three days.”
“It was my pride and joy, that bike.”
“You were obsessed with it.”
“Then you slapped some damn pink stickers all over it.”
“One sticker!” Nat laughed. “You exaggerate so much.”
“One sticker too many,” Ash replied. “And…hello? Did I ever look like I liked pink?”
Nat loved the look of feigned indignation on Ash’s face. The years peeled back: the banter, the jokes, the looks. All here now. She held Ash’s look, her gaze finally dropping away before Ash’s.
“In hindsight,” Nat said, a smile tugging at her lips, “pink wasn’t the best colour for you.”
“I rest my case.”
Nat returned to Livvy’s letter. “I never got a bike. Cue sad music,” she read, “but I did cycle round Oxford an awful lot when I finally got to uni. I know you never had time for the whole two-wheel business, Crackles, but trust me, it’s huge fun! So, with that in mind, I wondered if you’d take Clo cycling round Richmond Park. She was always like you—adamant that it was boring—but I did finally persuade her that she and I ought to hire some bikes one day and have a blast round the parks of London, and she was really up for it. Of course, like with most of the other things we’d planned to do, time ran out. For me, anyway. I never got to go cycling with her. So will you two? Will you convince her that it’s a darn sight better than sitting on a grubby Tube, or being slumped in front of her iPad twenty-four seven?”
“Sounds right up my street, that,” Ash said, her voice pulling Nat’s attention away from the letter.
“Still the adventurer?” Nat asked.
“Every bit of it.”
Nat watched as Ash stretched her legs out straight in front of her and stifled a yawn. Nat checked the clock. Ten fifteen.
“Guess that’s tomorrow sorted then.” Ash stretched again. She lifted herself slightly from her chair, stuffed her still-unopened letter back into her pocket, and flopped back down.
Nat watched her, wondering if she ought to ask her when she was going. Or would that make it sound as though she wanted her to leave? Her brain waged a war, but before it had a chance to outwit her, she blurted out, “Fancy another beer?” then felt relieved, happy, and grateful in equal measures when Ash nodded.
She walked to her kitchen, tossing another look over her shoulder to Ash as she went. If she could squeeze another half an hour of Ash’s company, then she’d be happy. Make it an hour and she’d be happier still. Nat lurked in the doorway of her kitchen and studied the back of Ash’s head, the thought of being alone again once Ash finally went deadening her heart.
Finally she pushed away from the door frame. The thought of being alone at all just deadened her heart further.
Chapter Twelve
“I am not riding that.” Ash pointed to a line of bikes on a rack. “All it needs is a basket on the front. I’ll look like bloody Mi
ss Marple pootling around on that thing.”
“When Mum said cycling round the park,” Chloe said, “I think maybe she meant mountain biking.”
“Now you’re talking.” Ash looped an arm round Chloe’s shoulders. “I always said you were smart.”
“Ash, I’m thirty-five,” Nat said.
Ash raised an eyebrow at Nat’s concerned face. “Thirty-five, not eighty-five,” Ash replied.
“Even so, I’m not dressed for mountain biking,” Nat argued.
“You’re wearing Lycra.” Ash flitted a hand in Nat’s direction. “Of course you’re dressed for mountain biking.”
Ash heard an audible sigh. She struggled to stop the smile that was threatening to escape. Why was an indignant Nat so funny? Her pique was hilarious but curiously cute at the same time. And her Lycra? Ash bit back another smile. Nat in Lycra took cuteness to a whole different level. She worked out, that much was obvious. Nat’s figure, hitherto partially hidden beneath a range of loose-fitting jackets, tops, and trousers, was perfection now it was clad in her tight-fitting cycle clothes.
“Okay, but if I fall off I’m suing your arse.”
Nat’s voice pulled Ash’s attention away from her body and back to her face. Ash wondered if she’d been staring. If she had, nothing in Nat’s expression suggested that she’d minded one little bit.
“Deal.” Ash grinned. “Although I’ll make sure you don’t fall off.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
“By all means.”
“So when you two are finished winding each other up,” Chloe said, “can we go get us some bikes to ride?”
Ash moved her arm as Chloe stepped away from her.
“Were you two always like that, by the way?” Chloe asked, waggling a finger in Nat’s direction. “Like some kind of comedy act?”
“That, Clo,” Ash said, ruffling her hair as she passed her, “was nothing. Just wait until we get onto the bikes. That’s all I’m saying.”