Holly would laugh her cute little pop socks off.
Particularly as it’s all so unlike me. Seriously. I’m Miss Practical, a sensible, problem-solving kind of gal. This was not my style. I didn’t fall in love at the drop of a hat, or in this case the chink of a beer bottle against a Prosecco glass. In fact, I wasn’t sure I’d ever really been in love.
I think, in the quiet moments, when I was completely honest with myself, I was a little bit scared of love. Perhaps frightened of what loving can do to someone when it all goes pear-shaped. My dad left my mum when I was eight; she took it extremely badly and never really got over it. I’m probably guilty of keeping a shield up to protect myself from what I see as the fallout, the collateral damage, and the eviscerating wounds that not being loved anymore can leave. I’ve seen it first-hand and it’s not pretty. I think it put me off opening myself to the possibility of falling in love. I’d had a couple of boyfriends. Long-term, too. But no one who’d ever made me feel quite like I’d felt in the company of Sam.
Being of a pragmatic bent, I didn’t believe in fairy tales and certainly not love at first sight but there was definitely something about him that had left an impression that was proving difficult to dislodge. I looked at my phone again. Ingrained politeness forbade me to ignore the text, which is really what I should have done, and I’ll admit that that little bit of ego that said, he likes you too, pushed my better judgement aside.
Lovely to meet you too.
My finger hovered over the keyboard, tempted to say more. God, I really wanted to. I liked him. More than liked him. But he belonged to someone else. I had no business here. It was wrong to even be thinking about him. Should I even send this polite innocuous text? But it said nothing really. I pressed send.
Three hours later, when there’d been no return text, I sadly acknowledged that I liked Sam even more. He was abiding by the rules. A good man who hadn’t strayed when temptation beckoned. Damn. It really did make me like him. Our text conversation was at an end and I knew it made sense. I wouldn’t contact him again. It was the right thing to do.
Chapter Three
‘I thought I recognised those pins,’ said a voice coming alongside me as I puffed my way along the dirt track, my feet crunching on the impacted soil of the avenue leading up to Nell Gwynn’s monument.
Flicking my glance sideways I almost stumbled at the sight of Sam easing alongside me with a delighted grin on his face.
‘Oh, hi,’ I said in a ridiculously girlish high-pitched voice, but it’s not easy being surprised and breathing at the same time, as well as wondering just what shade of tomato you’re approximating. I was guessing anywhere between overripe and sunburned-to-buggery. ‘Fancy seeing you here. Still housesitting for your folks?’ Except it came out more like ‘Fan … cy see … ing you … heeeeere,’ between pants. I sounded more like a rusty old swing.
He grinned at me. ‘No, I’ve been relieved of dog-sitting duty and been awarded the Légion d’Honneur medal for services to plant watering and recycling. My dad had a bet on that I would forget to put out the right bins for collection.’ He beamed again. ‘He never needs to know that Mum texted me reminders both weeks.’
‘What if I tell?’ I teased, managing to get it out in one exhalation. My memory had failed me; it had forgotten Sam’s golden glow of effervescent energy and that aura of glad-to-be-aliveness that seemed to envelop him. God, yes, I know I sound ridiculously fantastical. He was a mere man and not some immortal Greek god, but he certainly had some presence about him. And he was just so easy to talk to.
‘You wouldn’t, would you?’ His eyes widened dramatically and he clutched his hands to his chest, which made me laugh.
‘Remind me, what was it I was telling?’ I asked, enjoying the silliness between us. I’d thought about him quite a few times over the week. A memory I took out and stroked, like a child with its comfort blanket. I knew nothing was ever going to come of it but meeting a nice guy had been a pleasant reminder that there were still some out there.
He laughed, and for the next few minutes we fell into a silent rhythm, the pad, pad of our trainer-clad feet and the extension of our legs in perfect sync with each other and our breaths coming out in short energy-conserving pants as we matched each other step for step. I’d never thought about it before but there was something quite personal about running so in sync with another person.
We ran on in silence, which was only broken when I slipped unexpectedly on some loose dirt on the path. Sam’s arm shot out to grab me, otherwise I would have gone down. I stumbled but managed to stay upright.
‘You all right?’ he asked slowing his pace to wait for me.
‘Yeah,’ I panted, my heart pounding even harder with the sudden surge of adrenaline the near-fall had released. He jogged on the spot for a minute, his blue eyes completely focused on me, and for a moment it was as if everything else around us receded and we were only aware of each other.
That pesky adrenaline rocketed back into place and I could feel my heart dancing about all over my chest. I did that eyes-widening thing, which was probably what scared him off. That or licking my lips – completely inadvertently. I was running. They were dry.
There was no denying the electrical charge between us and he looked away, his mouth tightening, alarm skittering in his eyes.
It was as if I’d suddenly scalded him.
After that, he ran a pace ahead of me, as if he felt it would be rude to sprint off but he no longer wanted to run with me. I didn’t blame him. Another fall like that and I could take him out.
Gradually, he stretched out ahead of me and there was no way I could keep up with him. He passed me with a jolly wave on his downward leg as I was panting up the final hill before the turn around to come back on ourselves.
When I finished the course and picked up my sweatshirt and keys from the tarpaulin near the finish funnel, I saw him up ahead leaving the course without a backward glance. With a sigh, I said goodbye to a couple of people and walked back across the bridge over the dual carriageway, stopping in the middle to watch the cars whizz past under the bridge. They were like me and the man called Sam. Cars that passed each other, both headed in completely opposite directions. It had been nice bumping into him again – a bit too nice. Like when you spot a fabulous dress and you hunger for it but don’t buy it because you either really don’t need it or can’t afford it, so you’re good … although you can’t stop thinking about it. And yet you know that if you went back, it wouldn’t be as nice as you remembered; it’s not the dress for you. Well, unfortunately Sam was not that dress. He was still every bit as gorgeous as I’d remembered. And still as unavailable.
Later that day he invited me to be friends with him on Facebook.
‘Well, I binned him after that. Seriously? The man wanted me to wax his back after the second date. He’d even brought along a pack of wax strips!’ My cousin Shelley’s shrill indignation rang out in a quiet moment in the courtyard of the King’s Arms where we and my friend Bel, short for Annabel, were all nursing rather delicious gin and tonics on a school night, which felt horribly decadent.