I look over my shoulder at him. He’s lying taut, his arms folded behind his head, the pale underside of his biceps where the sun hasn’t caught is straining against the cotton of his black T-shirt, his face is turned away from me, and his eyes are squeezed shut.
I reach back and touch his bicep, trailing my fingers down the line where untanned skin meets the golden glow of his upper arms while I try to figure out the best thing to say. ‘I hate it when people have been conditioned to apologise for loving something they love,’ I settle on eventually.
His breath judders and I turn to face him, shifting around on my bum until I’m sitting cross-legged, then I shuffle forwards until my knees press against his sides, determined to get him to talk to me. ‘You shouldn’t ever have to apologise for being yourself, Nath, and if you ever have had to, then you don’t have to with me.’ I let my hand trail from his bicep to his left shoulder and settle there.
He bites his lip and the lines around his eyes uncrinkle as they go from squeezed tight shut to just closed. A few long minutes pass in silence, but I don’t push him. Instead, I keep my hand on his left shoulder, rubbing the sun-warmed material of his T-shirt under my fingers.
‘I’m kind of the black sheep of the family,’ he says, still refusing to turn in my direction.
‘You?’ I say in surprise. He’s the kind of guy any girl would be overjoyed to take home to meet their parents. He’s kind, funny, and respectful, with an interesting job and a charm that makes him impossible not to like. ‘I can’t imagine you being the black sheep of anything.’
‘Well, let’s just say you don’t repair old carousels for the money or the prestige.’
I squeeze his shoulder. ‘What do you mean?’
He shakes his head. ‘My father was a barrister. Even now, years after he retired, he still does consulting work for big, important cases. My brother’s a solicitor, owned his own firm before he was thirty, and my mother is the head of the board of governors for one of the top schools in the country. And I’m a repairman.’
‘The whole world would fall apart without repairmen.’
His eyes finally open and he turns towards me, blinking in the bright afternoon sun. He gives me a grateful smile. ‘Maybe so, but according to my father, they’re not meant to come from my family.’
‘But you love what you do.’
‘Yes, I do.’ He smiles like he’s completely unable to stop himself. ‘I really do. Until I get into a room with my family and hear yet another chorus of “when are you going to get a proper job?” and my dad asking my brother if he couldn’t possibly find a position for me at his marvellous firm, my brother patiently explaining that there’s nothing quite menial enough in a tone that suggests one of those monkeys that fling their own poo at other monkeys would have a better suited skillset, and my father then loudly enquiring about the latest extension my brother’s built on his mansion and how those sailing lessons for the yacht are coming along.’
‘Carousels are a million times more interesting than yachts and extensions.’
‘Yeah, well, whenever he introduces us to someone, he spends ten minutes gushing over my brother and his achievements, and then if – and only if – the person looks at me curiously, I get a perfunctory “and this is my other son, Nathaniel,” like using my three-syllable name is long enough to cover any mention of my embarrassing job.’
He turns away again and closes his eyes, and I suddenly understand why he doesn’t like using his full name.
My hand tightens on his shoulder, trying to resist the temptation to touch his skin again. His tanned neck is stretched out where he’s turned away from me, and my thumb brushes his collarbone, running over the indentation he let me feel in the pub the other night. I let my fingers wander back to the edge of his T-shirt and graze his bicep where skin meets sleeve, when all I really want to do is lie down beside him and give him a hug.
My knees are still pressing against his sides, and I shift closer still, looking at the red scratches covering his arms from the brambles because he wouldn’t let me get near them. He hasn’t shaved today because he didn’t have time between going to the shop for fresh supplies, making lunch for us, feeding the birds, and packing up the bag with water and sun cream and other essentials. Who could possibly care about what he does for a living? I think repairing old carousels is pretty damn special. ‘You make things better for a living. You restore joy that was lost. That’s an incredible job. And you love it. How could anything be more important than that?’
‘You don’t know my family. My father has worked every day of his life and hated every hour of it, but he liked the respect that such an important job got him. To me, that’s no way to live. I’m so lucky to do this job because I love it, but it’s never going to make me rich. In my father’s world, all he cares about is what people think of him. That’s more important than being happy.’
‘So you trained yourself to stop talking about your job? Every time you get excited, you force yourself to stop. And sometimes you forget, and every part of you illuminates as you talk and it’s inspiring to see how happy it makes you, and then suddenly you remember and cut yourself off.’
‘It’s boring, Ness. No one wants to hear it.’ His eyes are still closed and he’s facing away again, and I wish he’d look at me and see how much I love hearing it.
My hand tightens on his shoulder hard enough to hurt. ‘Yes, they do. And do you have any idea how heartbreaking it is to know you think that?’
He’s quiet for a while. ‘My brother is the golden boy. He’s never done anything he regrets or made any mistakes. He’s got two perfect children, a well-behaved dog, and a huge house with a white picket fence. I’m divorced, I’ve got no career prospects, and to be honest, even if I did have marriage and kids in mind, my father would think they were better off being raised by actual wolves. I’m an embarrassment to them, and I only make it worse when I talk about my “job”, and yes, you can hear the inverted commas when they say it.’
I can feel my nose burning and my eyes starting to fill up. ‘Part of being a family is loving and supporting each other, accepting your differences, and celebrating the other people’s joys and successes and commiserating when things go wrong. I can’t imagine ever being bored or embarrassed by someone I loved loving something.’
‘Then you’re lucky to have a family who behaves like a family should. Not everyone is that fortunate.’
He still won’t look at me, so I nudge his side with my knee and turn around so I can lie down on the blanket beside him.
The gingham-patterned fleece is warm against my back and it feels nice even though the sun is beating down on us. There’s a strong breeze up here that makes it pleasant.
I can feel his eyes on me as I wriggle around until I’m comfortable, and when I look over at him, he smiles, and the butterflies that are almost permanently twitching their wings when I’m with him get all aflutter again.
‘You’re amazingly good at what you do, Nath. You can tell so much from such little things. You can look at something and instantly see how to make it better. If they can’t appreciate that, it says far more about them than it’ll ever say about you. I would be so proud to introduce you to anyone. My parents would love you, my friends would love you, Daph would think you’re kind of dorky but that’s okay because I am too. You’re fun to be around, and your job is fascinating, and you’re just bloody lovely.’
Maybe I shouldn’t have been that forthright. I crack an eye open and risk a glance towards him, and his eyes are closed again but he’s smiling so widely that it makes my embarrassment slip away. He is bloody lovely, and he clearly needs to hear it occasionally.
My arms are by my sides on the blanket and his left hand creeps over towards my right, his fingers brushing against mine, giving me a chance to pull away if I want to. I hook my little finger over the top of his, and he moves his over my ring finger. I turn my hand over so my palm meets his, but instead of entwining his fingers with mine in the usua
l way, he lifts mine one at a time and runs his thumb and forefinger up and down them. It’s kind of holding hands, but dorkier somehow, and it makes me smile because it’s so perfectly Nathan. I glance towards him and he’s still got his eyes closed but he’s smiling too, and we just lie there listening to the rustle of the wind, playing with each other’s fingers, until his are in between mine and he’s drawing mindless patterns on my palm with his thumb.
I think he’s got some kind of magical hand-masseuse powers or something because I’m pretty sure I’m so relaxed I could just slide back down this hill like a puddle of Fairy Liquid, and I can’t remember the last time I ever felt this peaceful. I might have drifted off for a minute with my hand in his because the call of a gull makes me realise we’ve been lying there for far too long, not really speaking, our fingers toying with each other’s. I disentangle my hand from his and sit up to try to wrestle my ponytail back into place where it’s come loose, but quickly give up and pull my hairband out altogether. Nathan sits up while I’ve got both hands behind my head, pulling my hair back through the band and wrapping it round.
Before I even realise what’s happening, his lips touch my cheek. ‘Thank you,’ he whispers, his skin warm against mine. ‘I’ve never said that to anyone before.’
I freeze as his stubble burns in the sexiest way possible and the urge to drop my ponytail, grab his face and turn my lips to meet his is overwhelming. The pull of kissing him, properly kissing him, is so strong, and I get the feeling that he wouldn’t mind – he didn’t seem opposed to it when we nearly kissed in the sand earlier.
I feel the heat cross his skin and thankfully he scrambles to his feet before I’ve had a chance to do anything other than sit there like a lemon, because I can’t pluck up the courage to do it. He doesn’t want a relationship, and neither do I. And in the back of my mind, I know I need to talk to him about the article. It’s the sole reason I’m here, and I feel like I’m hiding something from him by not mentioning it. What if he stumbles across it online? It’s possible because it’s still being widely shared on Twitter. My name is on it. He’d know he’s Train Man.
I can’t kiss him when I haven’t even told him that.
* * *
At least gravity’s in our favour on the return trek. Once we get past the brambles, Nathan gets the picnic blanket out of his backpack again and folds it so it’s just big enough for us both to sit on.
‘What are you doing?’
‘We’re sliding the rest of the way.’
‘On that?’ I raise an eyebrow.
‘If it’s good enough for Aladdin …’
‘Aladdin had a magic carpet and a cute monkey! Oh, and a genie to save his life when he inevitably crashed!’
‘We’ve got a picnic blanket and plenty of room to brake before we go flying off the edge and end up in the sea.’ He sits down on the blanket and holds his hand out. ‘Come on, do you trust me?’
The fact that he’s just quoted Aladdin again makes me soften. It’s a fact that humans are physically incapable of saying no to someone who can quote Aladdin.
He wriggles back on the blanket and pats the empty space between his legs, looking up at me with such a childlike grin that I can’t refuse. I sit in front of him like we’re on a sledge about to go down a snowy hill. But warmer. And probably more dangerous.
I glance back at him. ‘You know this is never going to work, don’t you?’
He grins. ‘It’s worth trying. When I was young, I would’ve tried this, and you make me feel like acting like a child again.’
I think of the daft race up the dunes today, the crisp sandwich, paddling in the sea the other day, the carousel like the ones I loved riding when I was little. He makes me feel young and carefree in a way I haven’t for many years too— ‘Argh!’ I squeal as he leans past me to lift the bottom corners of the blanket and uses his legs to push us off.
He laughs as he wraps his legs around mine and slides his arms around my waist, holding me so I don’t fall off. Instead of a zooming whiz as we go flying off down the mountain in a whoosh and finish with a cartoon plop into the sea while the picnic blanket comes floating down on our heads, we start haltingly inching down the sandy dune, sliding occasionally, but mostly with Nathan using his foot to push off every time we stall yet again. To be honest, it would be easier and quicker just to walk down, but I’m kind of enjoying sitting between Nathan’s legs with his arms around me, so I go along with it, enjoying the way his chin is against my hair and his laughter is shaking through me too, and the way he shouts in delight and holds me tighter every time we pick up enough speed to actually slide an inch or two.
It’s when he starts singing ‘A Whole New World’ that it really does me in. I cling on to his strong thighs and try not to double over with laughter. He carries on singing even though he’s giggling too, which somehow makes it even funnier, because just when I think he can’t get any more painfully adorable, he proves me wrong.
We eventually come to a stop on a flat bit before the last dune down to the grassy hills that lead back towards Pearlholme, and we’re both out of breath from laughing.
He clambers to his feet and holds out a hand to pull me up, and even though it’s gone so well the other times we’ve tried it today, I’m unable to resist sliding my hand into his and letting him pull me to my feet. And I can’t help watching the flex of muscle as he bends over to shake out the sandy blanket and stuff it back into his rucksack.
He shoulders it again and looks up just in time to catch me appreciating the way his biceps move and his tanned forearms flex.
I blush and he grins like he knows exactly what I was looking at.
He nod towards the bottom of the dunes, the last patch of sand we’ll have to struggle through today. ‘Race ya.’
‘No, you won’t—’
He takes off running and I shriek and take off after him, wondering how I can possibly still be moving after doing so much exercise today. I should have been at home with my aching feet in a foot spa at least eight hours ago, and yet somehow, I still find the energy to chase him down the last bit of cliff.
He wins, of course, and stands panting at the bottom while my legs are still sinking knee-deep in sand with every step as I try to half-slip, half-slide, and mostly not fall flat on my face. Sledging down on a blanket would’ve been more dignified than this.
I barely have time to shout a warning before I barrel straight into him, but he catches me easily. His arms wrap around my waist and he pulls me to him and lifts me up, turning us both in a circle. I loop my arms around his neck because my heart is suddenly pounding even harder than it was from the exercise, and I feel all unsteady and overheated. And it’s definitely not from the running.
‘Best day ever,’ he says in my ear. He’s stopped turning but he’s still holding me against him. ‘Thanks for coming, Ness. It was amazing to share that with someone.’
I squeeze him tighter, letting my hands rub across his upper back and rest on the top of his backpack. There are so many things I want to say – I want to thank him for making me feel young and excited again, for making me not afraid to be myself. I spend most of my working life constantly afraid of making a fool of myself, but it’s different with him. He makes me celebrate being a clumsy idiot because he’s a clumsy idiot too, but I don’t know how to word it without snogging his face off, and he doesn’t want that, so I settle for a squeeze of his left shoulder instead.
‘Sorry, I’m all sweaty.’ He puts me down and steps back, readjusting the bag on his shoulders.
‘So am I.’ I grin at him. Being sweaty in the presence of hot men is not usually something to smile about. Well, unless it’s a certain type of sweat caused by a certain type of activity with said hot man. Thinking about that certain type of activity and this particular hot man is doing nothing to help the pounding heart and boiling red face. ‘Thank you for getting us down in one piece before we died and vultures ate our corpses.’
He laughs. ‘Thank you for ri
sking death with me.’
‘Ah, it was worth it.’ I glance behind me up the hill we’ve just slid down. ‘And I can’t remember the last time I said exercise was worth it, not even when I ran two whole aisles of Sainsbury’s to grab the last tub of Ben & Jerry’s Cookie Dough.’
He lets out a moan of desire. ‘Do you think the ice cream parlour on the promenade will still be open? If you’re not rushing back, I think we deserve at least one ice cream to end this day.’
‘Just in case both of us are aching so much that we’re unable to walk tomorrow?’
He grins. ‘Exactly.’
‘In that case, I think we deserve two. Just in case.’
‘I’d say we’ve walked off the calories of at least three.’
‘I love the way your mind works, Nath.’
We’re both giggling as we make our way back towards Pearlholme, and despite the fact my lungs are still rattling from all the exercise, I can’t remember the last time I felt this happy and at ease with myself or with someone else.
Chapter 13
‘You did what?’ Daph says in disbelief when I talk to her the next night. ‘And why does every conversation we have about this man involve me sitting here with my mouth agape in shock asking questions like that?’
I hear her shifting around and trying to get more comfortable as she settles in for some gossip.
‘So, let me get this straight, you did actual outdoor pursuits with this man? Like, outside? In the fresh air? That involved walking?’
‘Yep.’ I feel a bit smug at how surprisingly un-achy I am today. I expected to be stiff and hurting, but other than a slight burn in my thighs from the climbing, I’m fine. Maybe exercise isn’t so evil after all. ‘We climbed a mountain to where this carousel he’s working on was found. I know they say Everest is the world’s tallest mountain, but I think they’ve got it wrong.’
‘Bloody hell, Ness. We’ve been best friends for, what, fifteen years? And the furthest you’ve ever walked with me is to the rail replacement bus service.’
The Little Vintage Carousel by the Sea Page 18