Page 64 of The Cornish Cream Tea Holiday
‘I’m not being,’ he protested. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘Ben!’ She raised her eyes to the ceiling, which reflected the light and the water, the movement of the waves dancing patterns across it. ‘You were basically monosyllabic when we met, apart from making that comment about me taking selfies and losing my soul—’ she was gratified to see him wince at that, ‘—and you’re way too handsome, with that jawline and your physique, and I thought:I am not going to speak to him.He’ll give me this one, disparaging assessment and then pretend I don’t exist, and that’s fine.I really thought it was fine.’
‘That is …’ he wiped a hand over his mouth. ‘That is a lot. I’m sorry about the selfie comment. I get stuck, sometimes: I get inside my head and a gloom descends,and sometimes I can’t snap out of it. It’s happening less and less, the more time passes since Damien and Allie, but I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. I’m sorry I said that. The rest of it, though …’
‘What about the rest of it?’
‘Am I really unapproachable?’
‘You mean, are you really intimidatingly handsome? Yes, that is entirely true.’
He shook his head, took a long swallow of wine. A cluster of seagulls flew past, cawing and screeching, and Thea wanted to stand up, to walk to the other side of their circular holding cell, because it felt exposing, admitting that to him – even though it was true. Instead, she sat and waited for his response.
‘Thea,’ he said.
‘Ben.’
‘Thea.’
She smiled. ‘Ben?’
‘I never wanted you to feel uncomfortable.’ He was the one who looked uncomfortable now. ‘What can I do, to make it up to you?’
‘Oh, it’s fine now. I’ve seen you try and make a house out of sand, and obviously there’s this ultimate move of stupidity.’
The side of his mouth kicked up. ‘You mean going on about how easy it is to get cut off here, then totally failing to pay attention to my own warnings?’
‘Exactly. I’m much more comfortable now I know you’re completely fallible.’
‘You know,’ he said, then paused to take a sip of his drink. ‘I could easily blame you for this predicament.’
‘You could, but it would be both shameless and rude. How could you possibly justify it?’
‘Because you distracted me,’ he said. ‘You’re very distracting.’ He said it in a soft voice that did funny things to Thea’s insides, and she stared at his free hand, resting gently in his lap. His tone was much less certain when he added, ‘You listened to me. Finn and Meredith have heard my sob story, and I’m lucky that I’ve made friends in Port Karadow, but it’s usually such a hard thing to talk about. I didn’t find it hard, talking to you.’ When she raised her eyes, there was a rawness in his expression that she felt all the way through her.
She took his hand. ‘I’ll listen any time you want.’
Ben wrapped his long fingers around hers, and Thea wanted to take a mental snapshot of the moment. The sensations running through her were far more important than the image, and, she knew, even harder to hold on to.
