Page 35 of The Bookshop at the Cornish Cove

As he came back to reality, I turned away, pretending that I hadn’t been staring at him for the last minute or so.

When we arrived back at our house, where he insisted he should return the bike, he offered to take the helmet home to clean it. ‘I’m sure your brother doesn’t want my sweat inside the next time he wants to wear this.’

‘It’s fine, honestly. He won’t mind at all. We’re used to having sweaty helmets in our house!’

The smirk on his face was enough to make me blush and I looked away, removing my own helmet and trying to fluff up my hair which I’m sure was plastered to my head and sticking up in all the wrong places.

‘Well, you still look gorgeous to me, Nancy.’

I giggled in response, thinking he was taking the mickey out of me, but when I looked over at him, he looked deadly serious. I couldn’t work him out at all.

‘I really have had fun today,’ he continued. ‘Thank you for showing me what I could be doing with my life instead of working all the time. You’ve really opened my eyes, you know. There’s a whole new world outside.’

‘You’re welcome, Dennis.’

‘Dennie. I think I’ll definitely be Dennie from now on in Driftwood Bay. He feels more at home here than he’s ever felt in his life before. And he has you to thank for that.’

‘Well, that’s what friends do for each other, right?’

‘Yeah, that’s what friends do.’

To my sheer surprise, he handed me back my brother’s helmet then leaned across and kissed me on the cheek.

As he walked away and I touched the place where his gentle lips had brushed against my skin, I shivered. That did not feel like something a friend would do.

Before I went to bed that night, I flicked through the photos I’d snapped along the way today. The autumn heathers that gave purple colour to the lush green landscape. The birds that were circling around us. The views across the bay. My finger stoppedat the picture I’d taken of Dennie and I lingered, drinking in all of his features – the way his eyebrows were in perfect symmetry with each other, the way his nose ever so slightly turned up at the end, at the little dimple in his chin that was so tiny it was hardly noticeable and the freckle on the brow of his nose. The thoughts that were going through my mind right then were not thoughts of things that friends should be doing with each other. I had a feeling that I might be in a little bit of trouble.

20

We’d settled into an easy routine. Every day I would arrive at the shop and have an hour of cosy reading in the window, and I’d get a pot of coffee ready for when Dennie arrived around nine. The mornings were normally quiet and we could chat around the customers who came in and I’d also try to spend some time painting, although the shells were going down really well and I was nearly running out of my stock. The nights were drawing in and it was getting darker earlier so there wasn’t as much time in the day to go and do the things that I wanted to do, and my weekends were full of beach angel work and finding shells to paint. I wasn’t sure what Dennie got up to normally on a weekend. He said that he’d been enjoying spending real quality time with his nan and he told me that she loved reminiscing and sharing stories about his parents when they were younger and less selfish. He didn’t speak about his parents much and didn’t seem to give anything away about them. He had shared that he loved listening to those stories even though they seemed to be about people he didn’t know and said that he could understand a little more about why she liked reading fiction, because it was as if she was telling him fictional stories.

‘So, today, my friend, we’re going to be learning all about manifesting.’

Dennie put his head in his hands but I immediately reached out to him and removed his hands, holding on to them for a split second too long before I realised what I was doing. I had, however, in that short time, realised how soft his hands were, and felt like I could probably count every single one of the light brown hairs on the back of them. I dropped them back onto his lap and smiled sweetly.

After I’d explained what manifesting was, he paraphrased it back to me.

‘So, I tell the universe what I want, and it listens and through its vibrations, it sends me back the thing that I want. Is that it?’

‘Yep, that’s about it,’ I said. ‘I told the universe that I wanted a bookshop, and then a few weeks later, I got a letter telling me that Aunty Theresa had left me some money in her will and wished that I would be able to follow my dream.’

‘And you don’t just think that was a bloody great big coincidence?’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘But why?’

‘Because the universe doesn’t work like that. That’s why.’

He scorned, huffing out loud.

‘OK, let’s try this. Close your eyes. Now think of something you’d really like right now.’

His left eyebrow lifted ever so slightly. So slightly that I wondered if I’d imagined it. He opened one eye and smirked at me.

‘Be serious. It won’t work if you don’t.’

‘Yes, miss!’

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