Somewhere Only We Know (24 page)

Nadia laughed, sitting down gently on the opposite bed. Hers too rattled rather alarmingly, but the sheets were clean and the mattress soft and she was just so wonderfully happy there in that cheap little room. Tomorrow she’d be moving into a similar one down the corridor with Caro to make room for Rory to bunk in with Alex, but for tonight they’d be sleeping with barely a metre between them. She wondered what Lila thought about it, and knew she’d never bring herself to ask.

“You tell me, you were local here for three years,” she pointed out.

Alex turned on his side to face her, propping himself up slightly on one elbow. “Exactly. And those are your options. Shops. Aquarium. Beach. Pier. Chips. And chips usually do come last,” he advised in a matter-of-fact tone. “Because you’ll probably only vomit them up if you eat them before going on the rides at the end of the pier.”

Nadia screwed up her face at the thought. “Good to know!”

Alex gave her a lazy salute, touching one finger to his brow bone. “Local knowledge.”

“Come on then.” Nadia sat up and slipped her feet back into the flip-flops she’d only just kicked off.

“Where to?” Alex sat up too, twisting and stretching his arms behind him and up to the ceiling, making the shape of his torso strain against the fabric of his t-shirt and a pale corridor of skin appear between its hem and his jeans. Nadia barely swallowed the sigh that rose up inside her. This really would have been the most perfect romantic weekend. Too bad she was the only one of them with romance on the brain.

“You brought me to the seaside,” she shrugged, grabbing her little across-the-body-bag from where she’d thrown it down on the bed. “Let’s go see the sea.”

Alex

Nadia appeared to realise her rookie mistake very early on. They headed down the first set of stairs to the beach that they came across; the rough, grey concrete steps reminded him of the ones by the Thames. Almost immediately Nadia was slipping jerkily as she attempted to walk across the smooth dark stones in her loose shoes. He grabbed her by the elbow to steady her as she went over on her ankle. She looked up at him, laughing a little helplessly, the sheet of blonde hair that he really should have warned her to tie back whipping across her face in the wind.

“When I was a student, I saw girls doing this in five-inch heels and blind drunk,” he teased her. “Step up your game!” Nadia stuck her tongue out at him and – using his body for balance – moved to take off her flip-flops altogether. “No. Try and keep them on,” Alex urged her. “There’s shitloads of broken glass on this beach.”

Nadia rolled her eyes dramatically as she bent to slip her shoe back on. “And you couldn’t have taken me to Bali for the weekend, why?” she asked him, straight-faced.

Alex felt the dregs of his misgivings, that he’d somehow done something to upset Nadia, wash away under the tide of her gentle teasing. She must be scared out of her mind. No matter the outcome of the appeal hearing, how her life was going to play out was going to be decided one day soon, decided by a stranger in some whitewashed conference room.

She’d flat-out refused to come at first. On Thursday night she’d glared down both Holly and Alex, trying to play down the importance of her birthday, insisting she’d just wanted a quiet weekend in. What was the big deal? It was only after Alex had shown her that he’d already used an app on his phone to book their train tickets on his walk to her flat that she’d started to relent and he saw the excitement suddenly take root in her smile. She’d mentioned she’d never been to Brighton, and as an alumnus of the local university, who better to take her there than Alex?

They didn’t end up going shopping, see the Pavilion or visit the Aquarium in the end. They just walked the beach for hours, Nadia eventually getting the hang of how to place her feet on the rocks, eating fat chips, sharp and soggy with extra vinegar, the way they both liked them. Alex dragged out all of his best stories from his university years. He told her about one particular prankster he’d lived with as a fresher, whose idea of the height of comedy was to clingfilm across the toilet bowls. He explained how he’d studied for his final year exams on this very beach, sitting with his mates, hunched around one of those disposable barbecue foil trays – completely illegal and ridiculously ineffective, but seeming a good idea at the time. They’d fed the dying coals little strips of paper from the margins of their revision notes for hours before giving up and tossing the still-raw sausages in the bin.

He showed her how bloody amazing he was at skipping stones across the water, taught her which stones to use – the flatter and smoother the better, not too heavy, but with enough heft to travel a fair distance. He told her about how on his first date with Alice he’d taken her to walk along the pier, thinking that the retro romance of it outweighed the cheesiness. Alice had told him that there was a legend that couples who kissed at the end of the pier would be together always, and he’d grinned and claimed her mouth with his, pressing her up against the barriers that were all there was between them and the grey ocean beyond, unpremeditated and assured, the way he’d done everything in those days.

And when it was finally dark enough that the pier lit up in all its gaudy, flashing glory they automatically picked their way back along the windy beach and made their way there. They changed a five-pound note into 10ps, piled it all into the games machines in the arcade and somehow came out in credit. Nadia contorted herself and got completely in the way of tourists as she took photos of the lights, the rides overhead, the darkening swell of the sea in the background, asking his opinion on which Instagram filter looked the best, mocking him as an artistic Philistine when he admitted he couldn’t see the difference between them.

They changed their pocketfuls of arcade winnings into ride tokens, and rode the worst of them until they genuinely felt as if they might be sick. Alex was pleased to discover that Nadia’s favourite ride was his own: the Waltzer right at the back of the pier, and so they spent their remaining tokens just on that one, laughing stupidly every time the momentum made their bodies crash together, their heads whip back to the thin padding of the headrest.

Finally, Nadia pleaded no more and they wandered to the very end of the pier, at the rear of the noisy ride, only a few feet from where Alex’s fated first kiss with Alice Rhodes had occurred. Nadia plonked herself down on the ground, straightening her back against the pier-end railings, her hands busily working as she dragged her fingers through the knots the sea-wind was blowing into her hair; she’d been doing it on and off all day, swearing she’d remember to put a brush in her handbag for the rest of the weekend.

Alex leaned with his arms flat against the top of the barrier, looking across the night-time sea, calm and still beneath him, but churning far out in the distance. He hadn’t realised how he’d missed it until he’d returned: the smell of the water and fried junk food on his clothes, his hair being slightly tacky from the misting salt water. He’d left to make a life for himself in the capital city, he remembered; but being back here where his adulthood had begun, he couldn’t say that he’d managed a good enough job.

“Hey,” Nadia said, pulling him out of himself. He smiled down at her. He’d had such an ace day. He knew it more and more the more time they spent together; he flat-out adored this girl. He could make a sort of peace with the shitty years he’d spent merely existing after graduation – it was because of them that he’d met Nadia. She’d been the unexpected sunshine into the otherwise rainy bank holiday that had become his life.

“I’ve always wanted to ask you,” Nadia continued, her face slightly pinking with unexplained shyness. “Your arm.”

“My arm?” Alex repeated, nonplussed.

“Yeah.” Nadia gestured at her own shoulder and he realised immediately what she meant.

“Oh.” He felt stupid. “This?” He rolled up the sleeve of his t-shirt a little way to reveal the offending dark line on the curve where his shoulder became his arm.

“Yes.” Nadia got to her feet and came for a closer inspection. Alex jumped slightly as her fingertips grazed his skin, tracing ever-so-lightly along the mark. “What is it, a tattoo?”

“It was meant to be.” Alex wanted to roll down his top and cover the stupid thing up, but he couldn’t with Nadia’s hand there. “I basically chickened out at the very last minute – literally.”

She smothered a laugh. “Sorry,” she said, contrite.

Alex laughed too. “No, it’s okay. It’s just rather embarrassing. It was a knee-jerk reaction after uni, after Alice…”

Nadia nodded slowly; her fingertips were still there, feeling cool against his flushed skin. “What was it meant to be?”

“Words. I mean, a quote. From my favourite film.” He shrugged. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“Tattoos usually do,” Nadia teased. “What was the quote?”

Alex hesitated. He would have never told her in London, he would have made something up. But out here it almost didn’t seem as stupid as it had done. “Make your life extraordinary.”

He waited for her to laugh again, but she didn’t. She looked again at the little mark that was meant to have become an M and nodded slowly. “That’s a good quote.” She looked up and met his eyes. “
Dead Poet’s Society
, right?”

Alex broke into a grin. “Right.”

Nadia bit her lip lightly. “Alex,” she said again, as though she had another question for him.

“Mmm?”

And then as if it was the most natural thing in the world, she lifted her face to his and suddenly Nadia was kissing him.

Chapter 19

Nadia

Caro’s eyes were as wide as her mouth.

“No! You didn’t?” she squeaked. The occupants of the three nearest tables all turned around to eyeball them shamelessly. Nadia felt her face flush even darker; maybe she had been talking a little loudly there by the end…

“I’m guessing that the rest of this story isn’t so great,” Caro said, tilting her head sympathetically as she stirred the remainder of her half-forgotten latte. “Or I wouldn’t be sitting here hearing it.”

Nadia and Alex had met Rory and Caro off the train in from London with slightly manic smiles stretched over their faces. Grabbing her friend by the arm before she’d even properly got through the ticket barriers, Nadia had babbled about her urgent need for coffee – despite the sweltering mid-morning temperature and the fact that she had had two cups at breakfast – bundling Caro into the nearest Starbucks and telling Alex and Rory that they’d see them back at the B&B a little later on. And then, with lattes they didn’t really want cooling on the table top between them, Nadia had filled Caro in on last night’s epic lapse of control.

“So, was it super-awkward? Did he pull away?” Caro pressed, voice sympathetic.

Did he pull away? Nadia had lain awake all night preoccupied with that very question. Had he pulled away first? Had she? Maybe they’d both realised at the same time and moved apart together. She just didn’t know; it had been so damn quick – a sheet lightning of a kiss – nothing but lips and a handful of seconds.

Alex

Rory literally crowed with delight.

“You dog!” he said, reaching over the expanse between the twin beds to smack Alex admiringly on the shoulder. “I knew it was just a matter of time.” He paused, looking over at the weekend bag he’d half unpacked whilst listening to Alex tell his tale. “Do you want me to get another room?”

Alex raked his hair through his hands, stressed to the max. “No, it’s nothing like that. It was just… a friendly kiss.”

Rory arched his eyebrow scathingly. “A friendly kiss?”

“Yes.”

“A friendly kiss on the lips from a super-hot girl?”

“Something like that,” Alex managed through gritted teeth.

Rory laughed. “I need me some friends like that.” He shook his head as he continued unpacking.

Alex had only just about registered what was going on by the time Nadia had pulled away, the sea air rushing in cold between them where they’d just been pressed close. He’d just stared at her for a moment, punch-drunk and suddenly noticing things like how the freckles across her face were almost bleached out in the artificial lights of the pier, and the way those lips he’d just been kissing were slightly parted still, as though she was finding it hard to breathe.

And then, finally, she’d laughed: a sound so goddamn normal that it broke the spell.

“There you go,” she’d smiled, pressing her index finger to his chest, right between his ribs. “Now we’ll be friends forever.”

“What?” Alex still feeling sideswiped by what had just happened, wasn’t thinking quickly enough.

“You said it yourself. People who kiss at the end of the pier stay together forever,” Nadia had shrugged, turning her face to the sea, fidgeting with her hair again, completely normal, as if she hadn’t just dropped a grenade into his chest cavity and walked away.

Nadia

He’d been looking at her as if she’d just gone insane, and maybe she had. She couldn’t even blame being drunk – an always useful go-to excuse – as they hadn’t had a drop of alcohol. It had just been so damn romantic, what with the lights and the sound of the sea and Alex being all mellow and open to her in a way she’d never felt him before. She’d kissed him on instinct, for one crucial second not thinking of the consequences, unanchored from any future.

But he hadn’t taken her in his arms, hadn’t sought out her tongue with his, hadn’t pressed his long, lean body against hers like she was dying for him to. Maybe it had been her who’d pulled away first after all, unable to take his physical rejection. Even now, twelve hours separating her from the moment, Nadia’s heart ached at the thought. It had ached all night and kept her lying awake, knowing from his uneven breathing across the tiny room that Alex was doing the same, and that for one careless instant she may have ruined the best thing she had.

“I think I got away with it,” she told Caro, trying to force herself to be optimistic. “I played it off as a friendly thing.”