“I think it went that way naturally,” I pointed out, and I nearly said, “And I thought that meant something,” but didn’t.
I watched her for a while before speaking again. The warm light from the candles and fairy lights illuminated her face. God, she was still so sexy. Her dark hair brought out the color of her eyes, accentuated her features, and drew my eyes to that soft curve of her neck. The shape of her body was still the same, although she had filled out in places in the sexiest way possible. She’d had the body of a girl before. Now she was all woman.
“What?” she asked.
“You look . . .” I paused. Beautiful, perfect, amazing. I could travel the entire world twice looking for the most beautiful woman and it would be a total waste of time because she was standing right in front of me . . . “Different.” I could have kicked myself at that, because her face scrunched up in clear confusion. Of all the things I could have said, that had not even been on the long list.
“That was a compliment, by the way, just in case you thought it wasn’t,” I quickly qualified.
“You look different too,” she said. But hers did not sound like a compliment. She looked around at all the decorations. I could see she was frantically weighing something up in her mind. She was frantically fanning herself with her hand too. The weighing came to an end and she delivered her verdict. “I think I’ll ask them to bring my dinner to my room. This is way too weirdly romantic and I have officially given up on romance, so this would be like a romance relapse.” She began turning.
“What do you meana romance relapse?” I asked, but before she could answer she walked straight into the manager holding two champagne glasses.
“Oh my God, sorry, I—” She fell backwards into a seated position on the smooth boulder and then began slipping gently down it as if on a slide. I tried not to laugh as I watched her head disappear. I walked to the edge of the boulder and looked down. The man with the champagne looked panic-stricken and was busy looking for a place to put the champagne. I jumped off the boulder and walked up to her. She was still in a seated position.
“Well, that was . . .” I started, unable to conceal my smile, but stopped immediately when she shot me a look over her shoulder. “Sorry, did it hurt?”
“Not physically.” She stood up, sweeping the debris off the back of her shorts. I wish she hadn’t done that, because now my eyes were fixated on a part of her that they really should not have been.
“I am so sorry about that,” the manager said, running back over.
“Not a problem—that was me. I seem to be falling a lot lately.” She looked over at me and I tried to quickly avert my gaze from her ass.
“Hey!” she scolded, clicking her fingers at me. “I know that look. Stop it, immediately. And now I’ll definitely be taking my dinner in my room, thanks,” she said.
“Are you not feeling well?” the manager asked.
“I’m fine, thank you,” she said.
“Do you not like it out here? We could move it all inside if you like, or onto the balcony?”
I watched her tense shoulders slump and she shook her head. Ash was the kind of person who would never hurt someone’s feelings. She was the kind of person who went out of her way to make sure everyone around her was okay, and she had this way of making everyone around her feel good. She would give someone the shirt off her back.
“No, please don’t move anything. It’s absolutely gorgeous. You guys have done a great job.” She dazzled the man with a smile. She had the greatest smile. A smile you could disappear into for days. It had always been her best feature. I hadn’t seen that smile in thirteen years, and I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed it. But it wasn’t for me this time.
The man smiled back at her and then went to fetch the champagne glasses he’d balanced on a tree stump.
Ash looked down at the champagne with suspicion, and then looked back at me. I knew what she was thinking—the champagne had been part of the problem last time.
“Maybe we could ask for wine?” I said, a small smile playing at the corner of my mouth.
“Stop joking about it.” When she took the glasses from the manager, he excused himself, and I became acutely aware that the two of us were alone again. Ash took a sip of champagne and then turned round and glared at me.
“You were looking at my ass,” she said after swallowing.
“Only to make sure it was okay,” I replied quickly.
She looked at me oddly and ran her free hand through her hair again.
“It looks good,” I added, and her eyes widened in shock. “Your hair! Your hair I mean, not your ass, which, uh also . . .” I closed my mouth before I finished that sentence. “It always knotted when it was long. I used to have to brush it for you.”
“Did you? I don’t remember that.” She took another sip of her champagne and looked away from me quickly. Of course she remembered. She pressed the cool glass of champagne to her neck, then held it against her forehead.
“You know what . . .” I jumped into action. “I’m going to blow these candles out. And we don’t need these petals either.” I picked up the petal heart off the picnic rug and scattered them randomly on the rock, then I went to work on all the millions of candles. God, there were a lot, and halfway through I was starting to regret my decision, but I carried on until the giant heart-shaped ring of candle lights was gone. I finally stood up and looked at her. “I’m not going to take the fairy lights down if you don’t mind, thorns and all, but there,” I gestured to the rock, “it’s less romantic now.”
She eyed me incredulously.
“Look, you need food. I need food. There’s food here. Not to mention an ice bucket full of cool, cool, frozen cubes of water.”
