Mine for the Summer

by Larissa Vine

  EVERNIGHT PUBLISHING ®

  www.evernightpublishing.com

  Copyright© 2016 Larissa Vine

  ISBN: 978-1-77339-036-9

  Cover Artist: Jay Aheer

  Editor: Karyn White

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  DEDICATION

  To Chicken and Chelsea, my new writing companions.

  And to Mark for his unswerving loyalty.

  MINE FOR THE SUMMER

  Larissa Vine

  Copyright © 2016

  Chapter One

  Tess stared at Matt across the restaurant table and watched him fiddle with his phone. He stared at the screen. His blond eyebrows were furrowed in concentration on his chiseled face. His blue eyes had stopped dancing.

  "Damn thing," he cursed. "I can't get it to lock automatically. It's never been the same since I had it in my pocket in that storm. Here." He held the phone out to Tess across the linen tablecloth. "You have a go. You have the knack for these things."

  Tess took the phone from him and clicked onto the settings mode. She selected a couple of options, but no matter what she did, she couldn't get the screen to lock.

  "What a pain," she said. "You're going to have to drive it all the way back to the store."

  Matt jumped down from the seat. "I'm going to use the washroom."

  He held out his hand for the phone.

  Tess shook her head. "Uh-uh, let me keep playing with it. I must be able to figure it out somehow."

  A look that Tess couldn't read rippled across Matt's face.

  "Don't worry," he said.

  "No, let me keep trying."

  "It's no big deal," he snapped.

  "Sh. Don't be a goose."

  Matt laughed, but his laughter sounded forced.

  He turned and started to trek toward the washroom at the back of the restaurant. Tess watched him go. Her Matt. State badminton champion. Employee of the year at RL Watt & Co. for the third time in a row. Life was sweet with him.

  She glanced around the restaurant. Arrangements of peonies stood on the tables. The sunlight shone onto the polished wood of the mini grand piano in the corner. She was glad that she'd suggested this little lunch date and was pleased that she'd picked La Grenouille. It seemed impossible that a restaurant so nice could exist in the crappy London suburb that she lived in.

  When she'd told Matt that she'd booked them a table at La Grenouille, he'd raised his Nordic blond eyebrows, but they deserved somewhere good, didn't they? She hardly saw him these days. He was always working, even though the deadline for filing tax returns had long since passed.

  A waiter came up and topped up Tess's glass of iced water before gliding away again. Tess glanced at herself in the nearby mirror. She was having one of her good days. Or maybe it was just the light. Perhaps La Grenouille had conjured up a special light to make everyone and everything in it appear to be at their finest.

  Certainly, her skin looked more honey-toned than it ever had before. Her green eyes sparkled. Even her hair was behaving itself. The brown curls bobbed nicely around her shoulders. They weren't tousled like she'd crawled out of a hedge.

  She was a big girl, well, big for a yoga teacher. Most women who taught yoga were under a size eight, but now, looking in the mirror, Tess decided that she loved her curves.

  And were things about to get more perfect? Even more perfect than they already were? Maybe Matt hadn't gone to the washroom to use the loo. Perhaps right now, he was staring, damp palmed, into the washroom mirror as he practiced his lines. Maybe he had a ring in his pocket.

  Of course, she'd say “yes” to him. They'd been sweethearts since high school, ever since he'd asked her out at the bus stop on that rainy day in November. He was the only boyfriend that she'd ever had. The only guy that she'd ever slept with. Everyone knew that they were destined to marry. It was just a question of time, and at twenty-five, she was more than ready. Some of her friends like Audra and Anna had been married for years.

  Matt's phone vibrated in Tess' hand. She jumped and stared down at the screen. A gasp flew from her lips. She held the phone closer to her face, not believing what she seeing but it was there alright. Close and in focus and in eight million pixels of color. It was the female equivalent of a dick pic. It was a photo of someone flashing her breasts.

  There was no text beneath the picture, but with an image like that, Tess thought, who needed words? The boobs were different from hers. Different not better, she told herself quickly. These breasts were perky with tiny acorn-colored nipples—Tess was a D cup. Her nipples were wine-colored and dominated her breasts.

  A shaking gripped Tess's body. Around her, the restaurant started to pulse as it moved in and out of focus. It took her several seconds to realize that Matt was strolling back toward the table. He looked so pleased with himself that he could almost have been whistling.

  He came up to the table.

  "What?" he said mildly. "Still no starters? I thought you said that this place was Michelin starred."

  Tess thrust the phone towards him.

  He stared down at the screen. The color wiped from his face.

  "Christ, Tess," he said. "It's not what you—"

  "What? It's not what I think?"

  "She's just a fr—"

  Tess gave a howl. "Are you frigging kidding me? Were you seriously about to say that she's just a friend?"

  Matt's Adam's apple bobbed down then up as he swallowed.

  There was a long, sickening silence.

  "I'm sorry," he said at last.

  His words felt like pebbles dropping into a very deep well.

  Tess sprang up from the seat. Her palm itched to slap him. She thought about chucking her £15 glass of Chablis into his face. But she would hate him to see that he'd broken her. She refused to give him the satisfaction.

  Her handbag hung from the back of her chair. She picked it up. Then she rolled back her shoulders and stuck up her chin. With measured steps, she started to walk out of the restaurant—through the reverent voices of the waiters, and the hum of the diners, and the chink of the crystal glasses. She half expected Matt to follow her, but he didn't.

  She made it outside onto the pavement and stopped in the patchy sunlight. Her shoulders crumpled. A noise rose up from the pit of her belly. It was an animal sound, deep and guttural. How could he have done that to her?

  Time passed. How much of it, Tess didn't know. It could have been one minute or five. Suddenly, she became aware that she was still clutching Matt's phone. She stared down at the screen. There were those breasts again, still mocking her with their perky cheeriness. Tess ground her teeth together.

  She was about to throw the phone across the pavement, so that she could hear the satisfying thunk as it hit the concrete and watch the case warp and the screen splinter into zillions of unmendable pieces. Then she noticed a gang of school kids coming toward her down the street. They stuck together in a huddle. They'd probably snuck out of the playground during lunch.

  Tess stepped in front of them, blocking their way. They came to a stop. She held the phone out to the lankiest boy, who had an acne-marked face.

  "Here," she said, "have it."

  The boy shot her a suspicious look.

  "Go on, take it," Tess urged, still holding out the phone. "It's a 6S, and it's unlocked."
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  Chapter Two

  Tess sat in the nail salon on the High Street with the massage chair kneading the knots out of her back. Her feet were submerged in a bowl of sudsy water. She was waiting for her best friend Alannah to arrive. Alannah had just returned from Canada. When she'd called Tess the previous night and had found out about Matt, she'd suggested that they go for a pedicure together. Tess guessed this was Alannah's way of cheering her up.

  It had been two weeks since the split. Fourteen hellish days. After Tess had stormed out of the restaurant, she'd driven to the flat that she and Matt had rented and had loaded as much of her stuff as she could into her car before heading to her mum's place.

  Her mum had been so kind to her. Of course Tess could stay, she'd said, and for as long as she wanted. "It had only been a matter of time," her mother had claimed, before Matt had cheated on her.

  Tess had returned to the flat while Matt had been at work and had fetched the rest of her things. Then she had laid low in the little yellow room that she'd had when she'd been growing up. Posters of boy bands were still tacked to its walls.

  She'd stayed in that room away from the I-knew-its from her mum and from the sympathetic glances from her friends. If they'd have told her that everything would be all right, she would have screamed at them. Because it could never be all right. Matt was dead to her. He hadn't even tried to contact her.

  She was never going to feel the snugness of his body again or the tickle of his chest hair as she rested her head on his chest. She cried for him until her throat was raw and her face itched from the salt from her tears.

  Then on the eleventh day, something happened. The crying jag stopped. It was like there were no more tears left inside her. An anger took over, so cold that it burned. How dare Matt have cheated on her? After all of his promises and his goo-goo eyes.

  Working late, that's what he'd said. God, she'd been such an idiot to have fallen for that line. Hook and bloody sinker. She bet that he'd even screwed Miss Tiny Tits in their top-of-the-range Sleep Country bed while she'd been out teaching yoga.

  Tess felt her foot being touched. The sensation snapped her out of her thoughts. She looked down. The nail technician was lifting one of her feet up onto a towel draped along the edge of the basin.

  The technician looked up at Tess, her dark hair fanning her face. "You choose your color?"

  Tess picked up the bottle of nail polish from the armrest. "I thought I'd go for red. Fiery red."

  Just as she'd said the word “fiery”, the salon door swung open and Alannah hurried into the shop. Her eyeliner was out to her ears as usual. She wore high-waisted rockabilly-style jeans. She'd coaxed the fringe of her dyed black hair into a pompadour.

  She came up to Tess and kissed her on the cheek. Then she kicked off her flip-flops and plunked herself down at the neighboring basin.

  "So," she said. "Have you made a voodoo doll of the prick yet?"

  Tess laughed. She'd met Alannah at a meditation class five years ago. Alannah always had a way of making her laugh.

  Alannah peered at Tess's face then pursed her cherry red lips. "You look pale."

  Tess groaned. "It's a nightmare. It's like he's everywhere. I pass the shoe shop and see the wingtip shoes that he was going to buy in the window. Then I get to the taxi line and I start thinking about how he once kissed me there so hard that this old guy gave us a round of applause." Tess's face tightened. "But that was in the good old days, mind you, before he was always working."

  Alannah flicked through the swatches of nail polish colors that the technician had given her.

  "What you need," she said, "is to get away for a bit. To go somewhere completely different where you won't be thinking about him all of the time."

  "But where would I go?"

  Alannah waved an expansive hand. "Anywhere. Away. Somewhere to have fun. Who knows? You might meet someone else."

  Tess shook her head. "All men are pigs."

  Alannah arched one of her perfectly plucked eyebrows. "Don't be such a man-hater."

  "I'm never going to date again."

  "I didn't say date." Alannah laughed. "I meant a little sexy-sexy. Did she really send him a tit pic? That's so 2012."

  Tess wanted to laugh, but she couldn't. She felt far too raw.

  Alannah must have seen her grief-stricken face because she changed the subject. While the two friends were having their pedis, she spouted on about her time in Vancouver. She'd been born in Vancouver and went back every year to visit her only Canadian relative, Granny P.

  "She's amazing," Alannah continued. "She's ninety. Ninety. Can you believe it? Yet she's still as sharp as a blade. She's booked herself on a cruise around Mexico starting from Seattle. It's going to take all summer." Alannah frowned. "The problem is, she's got no one to watch over her cat while she's gone. She's worried that Widget will get lonely without her. They spend so much time together. Oh." Alannah clapped her hand over her mouth.

  "That's it," she shrieked.

  She reached across to Tess's seat and tried to give Tess a knuckle bump.

  Tess stared at her friend, torn between laughter and horror.

  "I've got it." Alannah carried on. Her voice was high-pitched with excitement. "You move to Vancouver for the summer. You stay at Granny P's place and look after Widget. You get over Matt by having a summer fling."

  "But what about my job?"

  Alannah snorted. "Think about it. You're always moaning about how dead your classes are in the summer because all of the university students go back home. And besides, yoga studios are chill. They're bound to let you take a sabbatical. It's a rock solid plan."

  Tess rolled her eyes. Fly to Vancouver and have a summer fling? She'd never heard of anything so ludicrous.

  Chapter Three

  Tess stared out of the taxi window past the raindrops which juddered in lines against the glass. So this was Vancouver. The place of her summer fling. It wasn't remotely summery. The rain hit the highway so hard that it bounced back up again several feet into the air. She imagined rain like this in the tropics. Only there, the rain would be warm not freezing. It was even wetter and gloomier than it was in London.

  She shivered then wrapped her arms around herself. What was she doing? She knew nothing about Canada. Alannah had said that the men were hot. But Alannah's version of hot was different than Tess's. Alannah liked guys with rough hands, who could open beer bottle caps with their teeth. Tess liked her men slim and sophisticated like Matt. But maybe her type had changed. So much had altered in the past month.

  The taxi carried on along the highway over a bridge. Hundreds of logs, which were as straight as telegraph poles, bobbed in the river below. They were held close to the bank by a section of rope. They bashed together as the water swelled around them then they drifted apart again. The logs were like her, Tess thought. Untethered.

  She yawned. She was exhausted. The run up to the flight had been so tiring. At least she'd been so busy that she hadn't had time to dwell on Matt. That had been one good thing.

  First, she had spoken to Sage at the studio about taking a break for the summer. Sage had agreed, thank goodness, because she cared about Tess's “wellbeing”. Then there had been the flight to book. The Canadian visa to get. Summer clothes to try on and buy.

  Even the flight had been draining. Tess had sat crammed into a tiny seat too wired to sleep. She had nodded off eventually. When she'd woken up, her head had been resting on the shoulder of the woman next to her. The woman had refused to make eye contact for the rest of the flight.

  The highway ended. The taxi cruised past mansions set far back from the road. Fountains burbled in their manicured gardens. Everything was so lush and green. But of course it would be green, Tess thought, if it rained this much.

  The cab came to the main street. It was wider than an English High Street and the buildings were blander and boxier. Tess spotted sushi bars—she'd only bought sushi from Marks & Spencer before—and, absurdly, what looked like a day c
are center for dogs.

  She scanned the passers-by. Where were the hot Canadian men? It was hard to even tell what sex they were. They were just miserable figures bundled up in rain jackets with their shoulders hunched against the downpour.

  The taxi turned into a quieter street. It stopped on the corner of a block outside a two story house that was covered in brilliant blue stucco. Geraniums bloomed in the flower boxes. Tess smiled. So this was Granny P's home. It would be the perfect place to spend the summer. If summer ever started, that was.

  She paid the driver—it took her a while to work out the notes—and climbed out of the cab. The driver fetched her case from the trunk. Tess thanked him, then wheeled the case around the puddles and through the front gate. She bumped the bag along the path and over the cobbles, past banks of rhododendron bushes. Tiredness washed over her. Everything seemed blurry. She felt disoriented from the jet lag.

  She seemed to be watching herself from above as she lugged her bag up the steps, step after step after step. Rain dripped from her nose. The stairs were so steep. How did Granny P manage them? She had to be seriously sprightly for a ninety year old.

  Panting, Tess reached the top stair. She stared at two front doors. They stood side-by-side and were both painted in the same brilliant blue as the stucco. The house was a duplex that was split vertically down the middle. The door on the left had a cat flap cut into its bottom panels. Tess guessed this was where Granny P lived.

  She fumbled in her handbag and got out the key that Alannah had given her. Then she tried it in the lock. With a click, the door swung open. She stepped into a living room. The smell of talcum powder filled her nostrils. It smelled sweet, like lilies of the valley.

  After parking her suitcase by the front door, she took off her sneakers and let her feet sink into the powder blue carpet. The place was as cute inside as outside. China plates hung on the walls. The sideboard was filled with figurines of shepherdesses, pipers, and china kittens in china baskets.