Probably the Best Kiss in the World

by Pernille Hughes

  He looked her up and down, but with concern as opposed to a leer. “Would you like some dry clothes?” Yes, so he had just suggested she get her kit off, but it hadn’t felt untoward, more like common sense. He grabbed a folded fleece blanket from a garden chair perched on the deck and handed it to her. “I think I can find a t-shirt and some shorts.” He nodded towards a set of glass doors, which Jen supposed to be the galley and wrapping the blanket around her middle, followed as he led the way. He stopped abruptly, causing her almost to walk into him as he turned.

  “I’m Yakob,” he said. There was the merest hint of an accent, but really only just.

  “I’m Jen.”

  “It’s great to meet you, Jen,” he said with a smile. It was a friendly smile; he had nice teeth, with one slightly crooked incisor which she particularly liked. Jen was quite happy with flawed perfection. Especially in lieu of those eyes. Being a realist, Jen knew she’d be scouring Well, Honestly!’s Pantone reference book until she found its match. She had plans for that blue. “It was nice of you to drop in.”

  She couldn’t help but roll her eyes. “That’s very funny, Yakob.” He laughed lightly, as he moved on again towards the galley, picking up her phone as they passed. A small piddle of water poured from it, and Jen tried not to sob.

  Apparently she’d just walked into a magazine spread. Think designer apartment, minimalist, white walled, but with the smooth curves of the ship’s hull to soften the starkness. The floor was covered in a pale wood and all the soft furnishings were in various greys, right down to the soft wool blanket hanging over the side of the wooden-framed sofa. Aside from a black cast iron wood-burner, every piece of furniture was modern, but it worked with the old walls. Jen knew she shouldn’t be surprised: she’d been seeing it all day around the city – modern and vintage design blended together with ease to give the city a guise of being comfortable in its own skin. Here, in his home, it appeared obscenely smart while still being unspeakably cosy. And it all looked so infuriatingly effortless.

  “Wow,” she breathed. “Makes my place look like a charity shop.” Years of curation by two floundering girls, desperate to hang on to every scrap their parents had ever touched, had rendered their home a showcase of shabby chic, with numerous projects they’d started but not quite finished. This place made her embarrassed about it. She so needed to sort it out when she got home.

  He’d walked into a room while she stood gobsmacked in the centre of the lounge area. Considering it was a boat, the space was still bright and airy owing to the full length of the ceiling being bisected by one long strip of glass, showing the early evening blue sky above along with glimpses of the tallest buildings on the canal side.

  “That’s amazing,” Jen breathed.

  “I wanted to have a feature window along the end wall,” he explained from the room beyond, “so I could look out at the canal, but then the tourist boats would also be looking in. So we did this instead. It’s very pretty at night too with the lights from the houses. I have blinds if I don’t want them to see in.” Jen’s mind wandered to what Yakob might be doing at night that he didn’t want the neighbours seeing. She felt some heat rise in her face. Dear God, what was the matter with her? She wasn’t normally prone to inappropriate thoughts like this.

  Blushing and flustered, she hustled to the pristine white and chrome kitchen. It was smart and functional rather than an ostentatious showpiece. A narrow window in the wall gave her a view up onto the quay and cobbles. The whole space had her enchanted and amazed, not least because he was a bloke and this place was immaculate. “We? That explains the tidiness. You’re married?” She thought it was a fair question, then checked herself with another blush – she was an uninvited guest and a complete stranger at that, it was none of her business.

  “Ha! No. No wife, no husband, no children,” he insisted, walking back out. She did her very best to keep her eyes on his face, not on his abs, but some things in life are tough. “I meant the architect and me. It’s tidy because I’m not here very often. I’ve left you a towel and some clothes. You can use the shower in there. The canal water isn’t the cleanest.”

  The thought of a shower was highly appealing – until she realised she was going to be naked in a stranger’s home. She tried to suppress her eye goggle: the Scandies were so much more relaxed about their bodies and she didn’t want to come across as a prude.

  “Great, thanks,” she managed, trying to sound as if she de-kitted in people’s houseboats all the time.

  He handed her his phone. “Text your sister, let her know you’re safe.” Jen looked at her own phone, a small skirt of water surrounding it on the counter top. She appreciated his tact at this difficult time.

  “Am I safe?” she asked, looking at him. Man, those eyes. She’d meant it to be jokey, but realised it came out slightly flirty and Jen did not generally deal in flirty.

  A slow smile spread across Yakob’s face making her suddenly scuttle off into the bedroom, to send her short, but not remotely sweet thoughts to Lydia and to take that shower – in this case a cold one.

  He wasn’t in the main room when she came out, damp clothes in hand. He’d found her a pair of drawstring shorts and a Kronegaard promotional t-shirt to wear, it’s huge logo now emblazoned right across her chest along with an image of the iconic green bottle uncapped and spraying foamy beer from the top. While advertising their wares was the last thing she wanted to do, requesting alternative clothing seemed rude and she already wasn’t feeling on her strongest footing.

  Creaking from outside told her he’d headed back out on deck. Following him, she saw a drying rack was optimistically primed in the setting sunlight and at the end of the deck, feet dangling off the side above the water sat her host, a cooler box and a bottle opener at his side. He looked back and sent her a beaming smile. It completely took her mind off wearing his clothes. She’d kept her underwear, having hung them off the open porthole handle as she’d showered. Thank god for the minimal fabric in underwear. For once she didn’t curse the extortionate pennies to fabric ratio.

  “Hello again,” she said, registering with a little dismay that he’d pulled on a short sleeved shirt in her absence.

  “Hello again.” There was that smile as he looked her over, assessing her as she wore his clothes. She was just going to have to accept he was amused by her. Shuffling aside he made space for Jen to join him in his twilight sun spot. She noted that he hadn’t done the buttons on his shirt. Well, it was a warm evening, so totally understandable and Jen approved.

  “Beer?” he asked, taking his phone back as she offered it to him.

  “Love one,” she replied, following his nod to the cooler. There was a range of bottles inside, all Kronegaard she noticed, but then she supposed it was their home territory, so she could make allowances. She picked one in a brown bottle to match his. It wasn’t one she’d seen before. The only Kronegaard beers she knew came in their famous green bottles.

  She settled into her spot next to him and at first sat in awkward silence. He didn’t appear to feel awkward however. He seemed completely relaxed, simply enjoying the setting sun and calm of the ending day. Gradually, she tried to follow his lead on the relaxation as they sank the first of their beers. A couple of kayakers paddled past them and a few more GoBoats, the passing picnic tables increasingly stocked with evening drinks. Finally, ready to talk again, she pointed to a Tupperware box at his side which he’d regularly move to be directly in the receding sunlight.

  “What’s that?”

  “Your phone,” he said. “I’ve switched it off, removed the SIM and put all of it in rice to draw out the water. Keeping it warm helps too. In a couple of days, you might get lucky and have it working again.”

  “Really?” She’d been trying to hold onto her grief until she was back in her hotel room, her panic locked away in her head until then. “Does that work?”

  “Did for me when I dropped mine in a toilet. Worth a try.”

  Delighted there was a pl
an afoot she held up her bottle to clink it with him.

  “Skaal,” he said. It sounded like Skorl, and she returned it to the best of her ability, which made him smile again. He obviously found her entertaining, and not generally having that role when in company, Jen didn’t quite know what to make of it.

  “So Jen, is this your first time in Copenhagen?”

  “It is,” she said with a nod, “it’s been on my wish list for years, but you know, ‘life gets in the way’.”

  “And other than the underside of a GoBoat, what have you seen?”

  “Well, I did have a to-see list on my …” she barely managed to point at the Tupperware box, feeling a lump beginning to form in her throat but reining it in so as not to completely overreach her prat quota for the day by crying in front of him, “however, as you’ve seen, my travel-mates are a rather unruly bunch and do not respect lists and planning.” His chuckle was somewhat disconcerting. Clearly he thought she was being funny and actually she wasn’t, not about the value of planning. Robert would have been nodding with her. Perhaps Danes were different. She gave him the benefit of the doubt. “I had a detailed plan on my laptop, but … well, I had to cobble together a replacement on the plane.” She reeled off the points of interest she could remember, which was all of them, probably mangling the pronunciation of some.

  “That is very … comprehensive,” he said. She couldn’t quite work out whether he was impressed or amused.

  “Well, if you only have a couple of days, you need to be efficient,” Jen said seriously. Some people – Lydia, Alice and Max for example – apparently didn’t get that.

  “And what about free time?” he asked. His eyes had a twinkle to them.

  She didn’t know what he meant. “The whole weekend is free time. It’s … well it’s the weekend.” That was the same in Danish, surely? “Weekend” was one of those universal words, wasn’t it?

  “Yes,” he said, “but I do not hear any time allocated to simply walking through the streets, along the canals, looking and breathing.” He gave a light wave to their surroundings.

  Jen could only blink at him. It made him laugh. “I am teasing you, Jen.” She released a slightly unnerved laugh. Other than Lydia, no one ever teased her. “It is a good list of things to do,” he said placating her, “but perhaps you should not walk too fast between the sights. You might miss some lovely things; the buildings, the hidden courtyards, quirky fountains, the balconies.”

  Well yes, that did make sense, she thought, scanning the canal in front of them and the quaysides. There was lots to see when you took a moment to look. Tall hollyhocks in the cobbled doorways, carved wooden double doors, bicycles meandering along everywhere. Perhaps, she should assign some meandering time in her numerous trip lists at home. She was pretty sure though that breathing would come naturally.

  “But most importantly,” she continued, keen to move him on from the teasing and regain her footing, “I managed to see the Kronegaard museum this morning.”

  He gave her an odd look. “Kronegaard? Really?” He pronounced it the Danish way, krorn-gorr, rolling the kr.

  “Oh yes. I’ve always wanted to go. The guide book said it would take two hours, but I took three. It was wonderful. Have you been?”

  “I have,” he replied, his eyebrows slightly raised.

  “Are you from Copenhagen?” she asked.

  “Born and bred.” It struck her as a British phrase, but then from what she’d experienced so far all the Danes’ English was excellent. “And what did you think of the museum?”

  And then she was off; waxing lyrical about how inspiring it had been and how the corporate story had changed her perception, not of the brand per se, but of the business choices. She gushed about Henrik, his hard work and his legacy. Mouth going ten to the dozen, her eyes kept flicking to his face, noting how his expression kept changing as she shared her opinions.

  “You’ve been lots of times, haven’t you?” she said.

  “How could you tell?”

  “Your face. While I described it all, your face was this mix of pride and concentration. Pride at the bits I liked and concentration at the bits I didn’t. It was interesting to watch. You could have got all defensive at the criticism.”

  He shrugged. “It’s good to hear what visitors think. I guess when you come from a small city, in a very small country, you do feel a huge sense of pride in a success story. And the criticism? Well, there is nothing to learn by getting angry.”

  “I think you Copenhageners have lots to be proud of,” she said, nodding out at the current view.

  “Do you recognise the barge?” he asked. “It’s one of the old Kronegaard delivery barges, it took beer across the city’s canals, or brought in the raw supplies.” He looked up at Jen, his eyes dancing. “Once it would have reeked of beer. In some spaces I can still smell the hops.”

  “Really? I saw pictures of them in the museum, I just hadn’t made the connection.”

  “So are you a Kronegaard fan?” he asked. He did a very good job of making his interest appear genuine. Lord knew she was rarely faced with any when she talked to her friends about her passion for beer. They were happy just to drink it.

  “Ha! No.” Was it wrong to enjoy the surprise on his face? It clearly wasn’t the answer he was expecting after her gushing about the museum. Jen took another swig of her beer. “From what I saw today, I like the Krone family, their tenacity, their vision, I’m just not a fan of what the brand has become. It’s just another conglomerate, chomping its way through smaller brewers and plundering the market for the biggest share. There’s no heart in that. It’s nothing personal against the family, although before today I figured it was all corporate-owned now. One of the boards in the museum said the family are still major shareholders.”

  His expression had turned somewhat more concentrated. She liked that look too.

  “It’s a huge family, many of them have jobs there.”

  “Well, what’s family for, if they can’t land you a job?” she said, blithely.

  “No, they all have to be fully qualified in some field before they are let in,” he said, before adding, “from what I understand.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” she said, leaning back on her elbow.

  “It’s an established family, Jen, you can’t run a business like that, or uphold the standards and credibility in society like they have, without enforcing some tough rules.” His voice was slightly tight and it made her look up at him. “I know someone who works there.” Fair enough.

  “So, the boat?” she prompted him, eager to get him back to his barge story, because she liked the way he talked about it. As she’d hoped his face lit up again as he recounted how he’d got a tip-off the brewery was clearing out an old dock property and a couple of barges were due to be scrapped.

  “I fell in love with this one and over three years spent weekends working on her, finally finding a suitable mooring spot and moving in.”

  “Wait a minute, you mean you did all this? Yourself?”

  “Well, no,” he said, which sounded more likely. “The hull repairs needed a boat builder, but the water-proofing and the building and the decorating, that was me. And some friends helped, though some were more useful than others. Some I’d make sit in the floor with a beer and a guitar, so they kept their hands off any tools.”

  “You’re obviously very creative,” she said. She was still blown away by the interior.

  “Ha! I don’t know about that.” He stroked his hand fondly on the deck as he spoke. “It was a labour of love, though. I’ve had my happiest times here.”

  “Oh Lord, it’s some secret shag-pad, isn’t it?” Jen asked, the beer and the encroaching night curbing her filters. He laughed.

  “Secret yes, shag-pad no. I just travel a lot and I’m not in Copenhagen so often. I wanted somewhere special to come to.”

  “Oh right.”

  “And I haven’t got an ex-wife hidden in the suburbs with numerous children, if that is what you�
��re thinking. This is it. This is me.” He held his hands out from his sides, palms up. Jen was touched by the gesture which was both humble and offering at the same time. And for some reason she was pleased about the no wife thing.

  His phone dinged. Glancing at it, he barked a laugh and showed it to her. Lydia had replied to her stroppy text. The message read Wish you were beer! It took a moment for Jen to clock it was a selfie. Lydia’s mouth was open in a scream, and yet her eyes weren’t filled with terror. Her hair was also standing upright. It made no sense, until Jen saw that the background was the ground.

  “Oh dear God,” she gasped. Lydia was taking selfies upside down on very high fairground rides. Just the thought made her stomach turn. A second message dinged in to ask whether Jen was joining them in Tivoli. Jen shuddered.

  “Would you like to stay for dinner, Jen?” Yakob laughed. “I was planning to get sushi delivered.”

  In her head it was a no brainer. Staying here, calmly enjoying the evening on a beer barge was a million times more appealing than dodging hellish rides with her traitorous sister. Normally, she’d have reluctantly gone to keep an eye on Lydia, but considering they’d ditched her, she figured Alice and Max could have the pleasure. However, there was a nagging in her conscience that perhaps newly engaged women shouldn’t be having dinner with strange men. She questioned whether Robert would see it as a necessary part of thanking a good Samaritan. Possibly an old, wizened Samaritan, but not this buff one next to her.

  Jen weighed it up. Technically, staying a bit longer, having some food could be classed as part of getting over her canal shock. He was still Samaritan-ing her and such kindness shouldn’t be snubbed, in her book. It wasn’t like it was a date, which would be a complete no-no. And of course her clothes were still drying, so it made sense to stay until she could take them with her. That was just practical.