She took a moment of looking him square in the face before she gave her answer. “Sounds great,” she said. It was what Lydia would have wanted her to do, and Lydia was in charge this weekend after all, not her.
Chapter 9
There was a seating area at the other end of the boat; a bench seat and table, complete with more fleecy IKEA blankets for the cool of the evening. Being quite far north, night had fallen now and the windows around them were illuminating. Table laid, Jen took a seat and watched the canal traffic, in this instance a pair of swans gliding past. The air was full of the laughter of passing groups and the murmurs of hand-holding couples. She wondered when the last time she’d done this was, kicking back during the day without a list to guide her or dictate her time. She couldn’t recall. And yet it didn’t make her feel anxious, or perturbed. Quite the opposite in fact.
He sat down beside her on the bench and settled a platter of sushi in front of them, before leaning to the cool box and grabbing a couple of beers for them.
At such close proximity she got acquainted with the scent of his aftershave. Pine, lemon and something else. Very nice
“So, Jen,” he asked, musing over the food for a moment, before plucking out a California roll and nodding for her to tuck in, “what is it you do for a living?”
“Marketing. In Westhampton. In the UK.” Thinking about her real life was suddenly unwelcome. Here in this unexpected cocoon of calm she was feeling a sense of welcome respite. Bullet point answers felt like the best way to deflect, along with turning the question back to him. “You?”
“Corporate Finance, Denmark and the UK,” he fired back, clearly taking the micky. She stuck her tongue out at him. He was funny. It was clear he found her funnier. “And what is it you market, Jen?”
Jen wished he hadn’t asked. She took a long swig of her beer, but he waited.
“Um, so I don’t want to tell you. It’s the least sexy thing ever.” She filled her mouth with a small maki roll, but that didn’t save her either.
“Now I’m really intrigued. Come on. Tell me.” Those gorgeous eyes were wide with anticipation and his mouth was mischievously pinched. That and his firm tone was irresistible.
Defeated and wishing the light had faded completely now, Jen hung her head and mumbled, “Inco pads.” Marketing manager or not, she was incapable of projecting any pizazz regarding her own job.
His brow furrowed. “Inco pads? What is that?”
Jen could only groan and sink further into her seat, hoping the blankets would swallow her.
“I can Google it, Jen,” he said, “or you can put your best spin on it.”
She let herself deflate melodramatically.
“Stow the Google threats, Yakob. I’ll confess.” She took another swallow of the beer as if to brace herself.
“Well firstly, yay for you for not knowing what they are. Inco pads are incontinence pads, personal hygiene aids to save people the embarrassment of involuntary uterine leaks. Heard of Tena pants? Well we aren’t them, but we’re growing, and ours are organic, made using Fairtrade biodegradable materials.” There, that was the corporate spiel. The cringe was all her own.
He was stunned. She’d rendered him speechless with talk of disposable pants and wee pads. Jen almost – almost – felt a sense of achievement.
“That’s very … commendable,” he managed. “That’s work that changes lives.”
“Don’t take the piss,” she spluttered, because clearly he was, but he was doing it so sincerely, it made her laugh. He made her sound like the Mother Theresa of weak bladders. “See, now,” she scolded, “you’ve made me make a wee pun.”
“I’m not! It is important work, that hopefully I won’t ever need, but if I do, it’ll be the Fairtrade ones I go for.” He was trying to be serious, but he was clearly utterly tickled by the conversation.
“Stop it! Look, it was my first job out of uni and the company is growing, so I can’t be doing too badly …” Jen wondered why she was getting defensive. She wasn’t a fan of her job, why should he be? To be fair the job had been in the right place at the exact time she needed it.
He held up his hands in surrender. “I’m not teasing, honestly. It just wasn’t what I expected, that’s all.”
“Don’t worry, I haven’t taken offence,” she let him off the hook, but it was funny watching him back-pedal. “It’s a job. It pays the bills. But it isn’t a passion. God, that would be sad, wouldn’t it?” She took the last slug of her bottle and on cue he produced a new one from the cooler and uncapped it for her. She scoffed some sashimi in the meantime.
“And the passion is?” Yakob asked, quirking an eyebrow. No way was she going there. It wasn’t that she was ashamed of her passion, just that after the inco pad confession, she was reluctant to offer up another opportunity to be ridiculed.
He noticed her reluctance to answer. “Everything OK?”
“I’m just wondering where you get all these different Kronegaard beers from,” she said, considering the label, buying time and perhaps a segue to a different subject. “We only have the standard lager in the UK, the one in the green bottle. These are different recipes, more crafty, and in brown bottles.”
“Kronegaard sell a wider range in Denmark,” he said then added, “you’re very discerning with your beer taste.” She waited for him to add “for a girl,” but he didn’t. He made it sound like praise.
Jen dropped her eyes and supplied quietly, “That’s the passion,” before hurriedly taking a sip and waiting for the laughter.
“Beer?” He wasn’t laughing.
“Beer.”
“Really?”
She nodded and waited for his response, which when it came wasn’t what she’d been expecting.
“What made you pick the first bottle from the cooler? They were all Kronegaard. It’s what my local shop stocks.”
“Primarily I chose the bottle,” she shrugged. “It’s brown.”
“Favourite colour?”
“No,” she said emphatically. “I’m not eight, and who picks brown as a favourite colour? Brown glass keeps the beer better. The flavour that is. Green glass not so much. Beer in a green bottle is more liable to skunking; being lightstruck and going off. Take Kronegaard for example,” she went on, pointing to the logo and bottle on her top, then hastily withdrawing her hand as she realised she was drawing attention to her chest, “their green bottle might be identifiable worldwide, but if you’re about the flavour, you’ll pick brown glass every time.” Jen saw a look of interest spread across his face, and it cheered her. In her experience blokes liked talking about beer, and Yakob apparently was no exception.
“Interesting coming from a marketing person. You are in fact saying, in spite of Kronegaard having an iconic bottle, you’d still pick a different beer, because of the icon.”
Jen had to think about it, but, “Yup. Pretty much. The icon thing – it’s all about style not substance. These corporate beers are pretty soulless.”
“Soulless? Harsh.” She assumed he was playing devil’s advocate.
“Oh, don’t get me started. Really, I could spout about the corporate giants and their ditching flavour for profits, but it’s a nice evening.” Turned in her seat to face him, Jen was relaxing into her beer spiel. She’d had this discussion many times with Robert’s friends, trying to educate them.
“So what do you suggest they do?” he asked. He was now turned to face her, mirroring her posture. Anyone passing would have assumed they were a couple.
“Oh nothing,” Jen replied, surprising him. “They’re the beer equivalent of the latest boy-band. The music is pap, but it brings the new audience through for better bands to win over later. So the Kronegaards out there can be the lagers to start their palates – and a low bench mark it is too – and the craft beers can impress them later. The big guns can continue doing what they do, and leave the rest of the market to us. The key is to show them there’s better to be had. People like to find ‘better’ things. It’s a
bout one-upmanship and looking smarter.”
“Us?” This time his eyebrows didn’t quirk – they jumped simultaneously. “You said ‘leave the market to us’.”
“Oh, so well yes,” she said flustered. The focus was back on her. She could pontificate merrily about beer as a concept, but her participation in it had her on less confident ground. And yet, his attention ignited a spark of boldness. She wasn’t likely to see him after tonight, so what did it matter what he thought of her? She should put herself out there and own it. “My passion. I brew beer. Craft beer. Just from home, as a hobby in my spare time. I’ve been doing it for years. My dad taught me, and I’m OK at it.” She stopped and reconsidered. “No, actually, I’m good at it. I’ve won awards.”
There. She’d said it, and she’d explained it with pride and honestly, it felt bloody great. Somewhere over time she’d come to feel shy about telling people about it. Mentioning her awards felt like bigging herself up or showing off. Why was that? After all, nobody looked down on women who baked. It was all making, crafting, wasn’t it? Women had been brewing for over ten thousand years. It wasn’t like she was suggesting establishing a unicorn farm now, was it? Unusual perhaps, but ridiculous, no. She looked up prepared to take any flak from Yakob, but he was looking at her with an expression of … well, from what she could garner, a sort of awe or at least mighty impressed. It occurred to her she should mention her passion was coming to an end, that she was about to pack it all away. But that would have sounded odd, considering her arms had been waving about with excitement during her speech.
“You’re right, that is passion,” he said, carefully. Jen nodded. In spite of working on the assumption she didn’t care what he, a total stranger, thought, it turned out to have been a fib, as she was now experiencing some trepidation as to his opinion.
“Come on then,” she said, defiantly. “Hit me with the abuse.”
“What abuse?” He cocked his head, questioning.
“Whenever I tell guys I brew, they scoff because ‘girls don’t know about beer’, or say I should stick to knitting, or they suggest coming round to sample it and offer their advice. Come on Yakob, just get it over with.”
“Nope, not doing any of that, but I have to admit I am tempted to come around and try it.” The thought of him in her home threatened to send her slightly a dither. The silence between them as they gazed at each other was thick and Jen found herself on the verge of extending him a breathy invite. He broke it before she did so. “My Morfar, my mother’s father, he brewed too.” From the change in his expression, Jen could immediately see that Yakob had been very fond of his grandfather, the tenderness of whatever memories he was running through was obvious. “He used to let me choose the hops we would use in his experimenting, talking me through the differences they’d make. He let me have free rein and try whatever I liked.” Yakob appeared lost in the reminiscing, his voice almost wistful. “The smell of hops remind me of him and our experimenting. Maybe that’s why I love this barge so much.”
“I know exactly what that’s like,” Jen gushed, amazed they were having this conversation. “I have a small brewing shed, and the scents in there, they’re the scents of my childhood and sharing that time with my dad as we moved through each step of each brew. It’s like … it’s like he’s with me.”
“It sounds like we had the same connection with them, you with your dad, me with my Morfar. It was the purest thing making something together.”
For a while they both sat lost in their own thoughts and perhaps the pleasure of a kindred experience. Then Yakob leaned away. For a second Jen thought the conversation had upset him, the memories of his grandfather being too much. Lord knew she could get teary thinking about her parents at the slightest thing. As it turned out, Yakob had other plans to add to the moment. Suddenly, at the flick of a switch she was surrounded with tiny white lights, and for a moment she thought she’d been transported into a chandelier. Several tourists on the opposite bank stopped to stare.
“A bit much?” Yakob asked, his voice a little deeper, than before. The entire deck was covered with fairy lights, it was almost covered in sparkle. “The first sets were gifts from my nieces, and then other family members kept bringing more. It’s become a bit of a joke for them now.”
“It’s magical,” Jen whispered.
“Good, my nieces will be pleased when I tell them you thought so. They’ll tell me they already knew. They are a precocious pair of ten-year-olds.” He popped some rice and salmon in his mouth, still grinning at the thought of them. “Tell me about your family, Jen,” he said, once he’d finished chewing. His tone was tender. “I know about your ex-sister.”
Jen shovelled another piece of tuna in, stalling for time. She was used to everyone knowing what had happened to them, and if others asked she usually artfully turned the questions on them without really answering. People were generally happy to talk about themselves. But now she thought about that “this is me” gesture he’d made. He’d been open with her, and after the “passion” reveal and the knicker-flashing, she had half exposed herself to him already. Besides, it wasn’t as if she was going to see him again after this weekend. Telling him wasn’t so very difficult, especially if she focused on the comforting flicker of the tealights on the table.
She told him about the death of their parents, giving up her graduate job at the brewery before she’d even started and looking after Lydia. It didn’t sound like a sob story, but she wasn’t glossing over it either, like she tended to do, like it was nothing. Because it hadn’t been nothing. It had been terribly, terribly hard.
“Do you feel you missed out?” he asked. He wasn’t giving her platitudes or shying away from the conversation. His plate was empty now, and Jen was mopping up the last dregs of soy sauce.
“The job, yes. A social life? Maybe, but I was never really a party girl.” She felt she’d said enough. “And what about you? On the subject of family, you insist there’s no partner, and I can’t see any signs of anyone here, so why are you single, Yakob?” At first he didn’t say anything, like he hadn’t really thought about it before. Jen gave him the time. She wasn’t in a hurry, enjoying the relaxed cosy ambiance which she instinctively knew was the hygge everyone wanged on about. There was music coming from an open window above them, slow and sultry. It entertained her while she waited. However, instead of answering he got to his feet and extended his hand.
“Dance?” She looked around confused, then realised the deck was a perfect dance floor and the lights against the balmy night air made for the perfect mood. She let him off the confession hook. It could keep. Taking his hand she let him pull her up and across to him, where he draped it lightly on his shoulder before loosely holding her waist. They moved slowly in time to the music, his soft tuneful humming by her ear making her skin tingle and yearn.
“I seem to have a knack of attracting women who are less than honest,” he said with a sigh. “It has left me slightly burned.” That made sense. “Maybe,” he suggested, sounding more upbeat, “I’m now only interested in women I fish out of the canal.” His smile was wolfish. It made her feel funny in her knickers.
“Understandable,” Jen said with a nod, “Copenhagen’s famous for its mermaid. They’re probably in constant supply.”
She was expecting a quick reply, but he didn’t say anything. He was simply gazing at her. It made her eyes widen.
He spun her then, making her laugh and feel dizzy all at once. “Jen? Can I ask you something?” He sounded quite serious.
“Certainly,” she said, “but I’ve been drinking so I reserve the right to lie.” She was at that tipsy but lucid point where comebacks came easily.
“Fair,” he said, with an understanding dip of his brow. “But then I reserve the right to ask you again later.”
“Fair,” she agreed.
He dipped her, and though surprised by it, she didn’t yelp as she felt completely safe in his strong arms. “Would you like to stay tonight?”
; She opened her mouth but couldn’t answer.
When the moment became too long. He righted her and spun her out from him and then back in.
“Don’t worry, Jen. It doesn’t matter. It was just an idea.” He didn’t seem offended.
But it did matter, because her head was in a spin and it wasn’t from the dancing. Every inch of her body wanted to say yes. She instinctively desired to stay in his company and see where it led. She stopped the dancing, and took a step back, though not releasing his hand. Letting go right then might have felled her.
“That would be lovely, Yakob,” she said carefully and faltered a moment as his eyes flared, “but I can’t. I’m sorry.” His tender stroking of the knuckles on her left hand focused her mind. Dinner with a man she’d just met was dodgy enough, staying over was a not part of her moral code. She’d made a promise to Robert. Jen prided herself on being a woman of her word and she was already walking a fine line. If the tables were turned she’d obviously expect Robert to decline, too.
Looking about her, at the lights, the reflections on the water, at the cosy seat with the blankets where they could sit for hours yet with it becoming harder and harder for her to stick to her resolve, Jen saw she needed to leave. It was all too lovely. All too tempting.
“I should go,” she said. He started to protest, but she stopped him. “It’s been a wonderful evening, Yakob. More than I can express, but I can’t stay.” He held her gaze for a short moment, then gave her a tiny nod.
“I’ll walk you back.” He wasn’t cross, or making her feel guilty, but while she didn’t feel she deserved an escort, she sensed this wasn’t a point he was going to be swayed on. Which was fine, as she had no idea of the way back to her hotel and more importantly having passed up other things this evening, any extra time in his company wasn’t going to be added to that list.
Probably the Best Kiss in the World Page 8