‘Oh, sure.’
Lisa tried hard to remember what it was Babs had said she needed. Matt busied himself behind a deskadjacent to the large changing room, which looked somewhat like an après-ski lodge, with a sixty-inch LED television on the wall showing extreme action shots, and two more brown, leather sofas for those waiting for cubicles. Through an archway beyond, Lisa could see a display of bodyboards and surfboards. Grateful she didn’t need one of those, because she wouldn’t know where to start, she turned herattention back to the wetsuit room.
She walked between the displays and noticed a whole section dedicated to dry gear for kayaking. She knew she needed some for dog walking in the wet weather and picked up a jacket.
‘That’s not a wetsuit,’ Matt called across.
Lisa laughed, realising he was teasing her. ‘Thanks, Matt, even I, a wetsuit novice, know that.’
‘Ah, soyou are a novice.’ He grinned. ‘Would you like some help then?’
With Matt’s guidance – wetsuits seemed to be his mastermind subject – Lisa was soon in a section of ‘smooth skin’ wetsuits, apparently so the dog’s claws didn’t snag the material so easily, looking for the suit that would allow the ‘greatest flexibility’ for swimming. Lisa felt Matt was being over optimistic about the extentof actual swimming she intended to do with Toby, but happily played along, taking three wetsuits to the changing room.
Wondering how on earth Babs managed, Lisa heaved and wiggled her size twelve figure, into the first, her favourite because it had a purple trim – wetsuits were not Lisa’s mastermind subject. She wanted to get a better view of what she looked like. It wasn’t that Toby wouldparticularly care how she looked, it was just that personal pride wouldn’t allow her to look like a hippopotamus in public. The only way to obtain a better view was to open the curtain of the cubicle and stand further back from the surfboard shaped mirror. Deciding it was better to embarrass herself now in front of Matt, who she would never see again, than everybody at Toby’s swimming class,who she would have to see on a regular basis, she pushed back the curtain.
Taking in the now clearer view of herself, she screwed up her face and squinted.Hmmm.Well, it wasn’t exactly unflattering, it did a bit of squashing here and there and she might have to stay off the DrOetker, but otherwise it wasn’t too bad.
‘So this is where you’ve been hiding!’
‘Bloody hell!’Nathan Baker was the last person Lisa expected to see when she had stepped out of the cubicle. ‘I mean… Nathan… you’re… you’re here.’ Her heart was pounding too fast through the ‘smooth skin’ of her wetsuit and her cheeks were firing up to beacon heat. She attempted to rein her reaction in as she took in the sight of him, despite the fact he looked even better in the flesh than he had when shehad been snooping on his Facebook photos.
With fine stubble across his chin and ruffled hair, he looked every bit the rugged outdoor man. He was wearing a T-shirt with a surfboard on it and light-blue Levi 501 jeans, the way he used to, though his muscular legs clearly filled them out better than Lisa remembered. His jeans had a lived-in look that probably belied their real age. Even asa teenager, Nathan had liked dressing well. Lisa had spent many Saturday afternoons taking the train to Brighton with him and wandering round the clothes shops; trips that always seemed to involve him coming home with more bags than her.
‘So, why have you been hiding from me, Lisa?’ He smiled as he walked towards her with the clear intention of giving her a hug.
The fact she waswearing a wetsuit meant the contact was more intimate than she was prepared for. She hoped he couldn’t feel how rapidly her heart was beating. ‘Oh, I haven’t been hiding,’ she offered with an overly light laugh.
‘Well, clearly you are not hiding now,’ Nathan raised an eyebrow, stepped back and looked Lisa up and down in her wetsuit, ‘but you have been ignoring my messages.’
Lisacouldn’t quite believe it. The thing about pivotal moments in your life, especially ones involving a rejected declaration of love and a heart-wrenching farewell was that they were never meant to be followed up over a decade later by meeting in a surf shop while inappropriately dressed in a wetsuit. Lisa had seen enough films to know that disappearing into the sunset meant the credits rolled. Andyet here they were.
‘I haven’t been ignoring you,’ Lisa protested. ‘I’ve…’been thinking about you a lot recently, got no idea what to say to you‘…I’ve just, you know, been busy.’ She hoped that would be enough to excuse the fact she hadn’t answered, not even when he had invited her out for a drink.
Nathan grinned at her.
Oh Lord!If only he hadn’t grown quite so verywell into his looks.
‘Too busy for me?’
Lisa smiled, hoping her cheeks weren’t turning purple. ‘Just busy.’ She felt as if her nerve endings were all tingling as her body reacted to the shock of being back in the proximity of Nathan Baker. It reminded her of being back at school when just glimpsing him across the dinner hall could send every cell of her being into a frenzy. Shefound she could barely speak, the wetsuit was constricting her chest, her body felt too hot inside the rubber and more than anything she needed to make an emergency call to Felicity, just like she had the first time Nathan Baker had asked her out.
‘You know, I get busy too, working shifts; I’m a fireman.’
Lisa nodded and congratulated herself on not letting slip she thought hewas a male stripper and attempted to push away the – unhelpful in her already over-heated state – image she still had of him in his uniform in her head from her evening of snooping on Facebook.
‘But I’d make time for you,’ he added, unleashing a very lovely smile.
‘Oh!’ was all she could manage to utter, wishing she wasn’t feeling quite so weak at the knees, and caught off guardby her feelings and the situation.
Realising Lisa wasn’t going to say any more, Nathan changed the subject. ‘So what brings you here?’
Lisa looked down, seeing as she was standing in a shop called Wild, Wet and Windy in a wetsuit it seemed a bit of a stupid question. She laughed, welcoming the release from the tension she could feel inside. ‘I needed to get some groceries.’
‘Ha ha! But I think you know exactly what I meant.’
She didn’t.
‘What sport are you into? Your shorty wetsuit, while mighty fine on you, could be used in… many ways.’
