Page 72 of The Happy Hour
‘Oh, I love it there,’ Jess said.
‘Excellent. I’m going to stop trying to be quirky and just aim for traditional. Let’s pretend the last half-hour never happened, that I am capable of planning a vaguely successful date with a woman I care about.’
‘I don’t think I can do that,’ Jess said, but her heart skipped at his words. ‘Didn’t you enjoy – oh, hello Margaret!’
The woman who had bought her first-ever print in No Vase Like Home was walking towards them along the pavement, and Jess added a cheery wave to her greeting.
‘Hello...’ Margaret said, then her smile fell away, replaced by confusion. ‘Ash?’
Ash’s steps faltered, then he came to an abrupt halt, dropping Jess’s hand. ‘Peggy.’
Jess looked between them.Peggy?
‘It’s good to see you,’ Margaret said. ‘Both of you. I just hadn’t...’ She laughed awkwardly. ‘Things hadn’t clicked for me. But they should have. I should have realised – the print with the kite on it!’ She shook her head. ‘But I need to be off now, anyway. Take care.’ She hurried past Jess, their shoulders brushing, and Jess got a wave of peony perfume.
Once she’d gone, Jess and Ash stared at each other in silence. Jess couldn’t work it out. Ash knew Margaret. From the place he went after seeing her on Sundays? But wasn’t she a nurse? The uniform Jess had seen her in looked like a nurse’s uniform. She wished she knew more about her – but she didn’t need to wish: she could just ask.
‘You know Margaret?’
Ash had stiffened, his curls blowing in the breeze the only soft part of him. ‘I know her as Peggy.’
‘From where?’
‘From the thing I...’ He glanced behind him, but Margaret – Peggy – had disappeared into the Friday evening crowd.
‘What is your thing?’ Jess asked. ‘Can you tell me now? I feel as if we’ve gone way beyond stolen moments of time.’
‘What about back there?’ He thumbed in the direction of the Queen’s House. ‘That doorway felt like a stolen moment.’
‘You know what I mean.’ They were in the middle of the path, people swarming around them, and Ash took her arm and pulled them to the side, against the metal fence that surrounded the grounds of the Old Royal Naval College.
He looked away from her for several long moments, his jaw tight. Then he met her gaze. ‘I don’t want to tell you.’
Jess scrunched her hands into fists. ‘Why not?’
‘Because tonight is aboutus.’ Ash sounded as frustrated as she felt. ‘And I don’t want that to... toinfectthis.’
‘Infectit?’ She laughed. ‘Are you part of a disease control study? A strain of blood poisoning that turns people into zombies to be used as weapons for the state? Are you, Ash Faulkner, part zombie? Is that why you wanted to take me into the tunnel?’
‘Don’t be flippant!’ he snapped.
‘Don’t keep things from me,’ she shot back.
He leaned against the fence. ‘This is our time, Jess. We don’t get enough as it is, and I don’t think it’s wrong of me to keep this to myself.’
She swallowed. She didn’t want this to fall apart. ‘But if tonight is about us,then don’t you think we should be sharing more of ourselves? I don’t want...’
‘What?’ His voice was softer.
‘I don’t want you to be the version of yourself that you think I need.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I want all of you, Ash. I know I have this need for self-preservation, and that I like being on my own sometimes, but I’ve opened up to you more than I have to anyone else in a long time. I want you to feel comfortable enough with me to do the same.’ She took his hand and squeezed it gently.
He huffed out a breath. ‘Iamcomfortable with you. I don’t hold anything back, except...’ He shook his head. ‘Look, you don’t want me to talk about this, believe me. It isn’t first-date material, and I don’t want to... to burden you with it, or the part of me you’ll get when I open the floodgates.’
‘I just said I want all of you. And I know we haven’t had much time, but tonight’s supposed to change that.’
