‘Okay,’ said Joe, rubbing his hands together and taking a deep breath, ‘Okay.’
Sam sat back in his chair and shook his head.
‘I’m doing it,’ Joe told him, ‘I’m doing it. Just give me a minute, all right.’
‘Don’t let him bully you, Joe,’ said Hope, giving Sam a sharp nudge. ‘I don’t know what’s gone on between you two today, but—’
‘Just shush for a minute will you,’ Sam cut in. ‘Let the man speak.’
‘Okay,’ Joe said for the third time. ‘The thing is—’
‘Just spit it out man,’ Sam cajoled. ‘Don’t worry about how you say it, just bloody get it out!’
Joe closed his eyes and when he opened them, he was looking at Hope.
‘I’m still in love with you, Hope,’ he blurted out. ‘I always have been and I always will be. I didn’t know how I would feel when I came back to Wynmouth, but the second I caught sight of you again, I knew I was still as smitten as I always had been.’
Well, if Sam hadn’t worked it out before, the look on Hope’s face was proof enough that Joe’s feelings were well and truly reciprocated. That said, it was Sam who had just encouraged Joe to make this declaration and, given the look on his face, I got the distinct impression that a whole lot more had been talked about than just the Sunny Shores deal after I had rushed back to the sanctuary of the cottage.
‘Oh Joe . . .’ Hope whispered, cutting off my train of thought.
‘And I know I said always way too many times just then,’ Joe blushed, ‘but Sam hardly gave me time to rehearse it, did he? And anyway, it is the right word. It’s always been you, Hope. Always.’
‘Joe,’ Hope said again, this time with tears in her eyes.
‘I should never have let you go,’ Joe carried on. ‘I should never have been so jealous of you wanting to look out for Sam after the crash and if I hadn’t let my stupid imagination get the better of me, I would have known you were nothing more than friends.’
Sam nodded and my thoughts rolled on, only I wasn’t sure I believed them. Was Joe suggesting that Hope and Sam had always been just friends?
‘And I need to apologize to you too, Tess,’ Joe then said, making me jump.
‘Do you?’ I asked.
Sam shifted in his seat.
‘Joe,’ he said.
‘No,’ said Joe, looking at him, ‘we need to get this sorted.’
‘What are you talking about?’ I frowned.
‘I recognized you, Tess,’ Joe stunned me by saying, ‘the very second I stopped you tumbling over the top of the cliff.’
‘What?’ I squeaked.
‘I knew you were the girl who used to holiday here with your parents all those years ago, because you’d hardly changed at all.’
‘Joe,’ Sam said again.
‘You were the very one I’d promised to kiss behind the beach huts,’ Joe went on, ‘but the thing was, Hope had arrived back in town just after I’d made that promise and as it was love at first sight, I found I didn’t want to kiss anyone else.’
‘So, what did you do?’ Hope asked, going straight for the heart of the matter, rather than trying to fill in the details.
‘Well,’ Joe smiled. ‘Sam here had the biggest crush on Tess back then, but he was beyond shy and couldn’t even bring himself to talk to her. He used to disappear whenever she turned up on the beach.’
Poor Sam was puce. I’d had absolutely no idea, but then if he’d always ducked out of the way, it was hardly surprising that I hadn’t remembered him.
‘Jesus, Joe,’ he cursed, pushing his hands into his hair and dropping his gaze to the table.
‘So,’ Joe carried on in spite of Sam’s discomfiture, ‘we swapped places.’
‘You did what?’ Hope gasped.
I didn’t need to ask the question, because courtesy of the solstice snog, I’d already worked out that Sam was my first blistering kiss, but at least now, I knew why they’d traded.
‘It was late,’ Sam said, huskily, still staring at the table, ‘and it was dark, so Tess didn’t realize and I can’t begin to tell you how guilty I’ve always felt about doing it. It was a disgraceful thing to do, inexcusable, but it was also—’
‘The best kiss of your life,’ I cut in, unable to stop the words. ‘The one kiss you’ve never been able to forget.’
‘Yes,’ Sam said, finally looking up, ‘the very best kiss of my life and certainly one I’ve never been able to forget.’
‘Well,’ said Hope, ‘it was the best one until the night of the party on the beach.’
My eyes snapped back to her.
‘You know about that?’
‘Of course,’ she grinned, ‘Sam’s not stopped going on about it.’
Oh my god! There was no way Sam would have mentioned it if he and Hope were a couple. I had got it wrong! They were just friends.
‘Hope,’ Sam squirmed, and Joe began to laugh.
‘Apparently,’ Hope added with relish, ‘it was even better than the first one.’
‘So, you recognized me too?’ I asked Sam as multiple cogs in my head began to shift and settle my memories of the last few weeks into a brand-new pattern.
‘Of course I did,’ he said, ‘as soon as you walked in here, but as you didn’t seem to know me, I thought I’d save myself the embarrassment and awkward explanation and not say anything. I had no idea why you wanted to keep it a secret that you’d visited Wynmouth before but when that letter turned up, I thought I’d worked it out. It hasn’t stopped me fancying you though. Where you’re concerned, Tess, I just can’t seem to help myself.’
He turned an even brighter shade of red and I started doing a very passable goldfish impression. His admittance that he fancied me had me floating on cloud nine, but I was still in shock that another assumption I’d made had been so wide of the mark.
‘And you fancy him too, don’t you?’ Hope beamed.
I couldn’t believe she was going to out me like that.
‘Yes,’ I swallowed, ‘I do actually, but I had kind of assumed . . .’
‘What?’ asked Sam.
‘Well . . . I assumed that you and Hope were a couple,’ I said sheepishly.
‘If it makes you feel any better, until this afternoon, so did I,’ Joe admitted.
‘But we’re not,’ said Hope, looking shocked. ‘We never have been.’
‘But the day you came back from your travels,’ I said to Hope. ‘You and Sam were—’
‘Hugging,’ she cut in. ‘Because we hadn’t seen each other for ages.’
‘Oh,’ said Sam, clicking his fingers before pointing at me, ‘now I get it. At last, it all makes sense.’
‘What do you get?’ I asked, my thoughts freefalling.
‘You changed,’ he said, biting his lip, ‘when Hope got back, you were different, Tess.’
‘Was I?’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘to start with, when she wasn’t here, I thought you might fancy me and I was beginning to think that I could finally act on that crush I had all those years ago, but then when Hope came back you became more distant. Was that because you thought we were together?’