We stand face-to-face, close enough to breathe each other’s air, and something ignites inside me. I feel it like an electric current, shocking and thrilling.
A shadow passes overhead, blocking out the sun. Then the sky rips open, and it starts to pour.
Chapter 38
Mark looks up, not quite believing his eyes.
‘Rain inJuly?’
I’m frozen to the spot, watching big splodges of rain turning his hair black and making his white shirt translucent. The warm rain splatters on my arms, bouncing on my head and rolling down my face.
Lightning flashes, followed by an ear-splitting thunderclap, and it jerks us into action.
‘The shed,’ he yells, pulling me towards it. ‘We can’t stay out in an electrical storm.’
I resist. ‘My phone!’
I rush towards where I’ve left it in the grass, but I can’t see it anywhere.
I’m feeling around under the sunbed when Mark appears and crouches by my side. He’s taken off his shirt and is holding it over our heads.
‘Got it,’ I yell.
A bolt of lightning flashes, immediately followed by a rumble of thunder.
‘It’s close,’ he shouts, centimetres from my face but still barely audible above the driving rain. ‘The shed. Come on.’
We pelt across the lawn. He swings the old door open and pushes me inside.
I try to catch my breath and wait for my eyes to adjust to the gloom. The rain hammers on the wooden roof, and a few dropsland inside where the ceiling isn’t watertight, but there aren’t any gaping holes, so we should be safe from lightning.
He stays near the door, but I shuffle a few metres further in so I’ve got space to shake the excess water from my hair.
We don’t have storms like this in London. This feels biblical.
Neither of us speaks for a few moments, the rap of rain now joined by the torrents of water sloshing along the ancient gutters.
He wrings out his shirt, then hangs it on the doorknob. My sarong is stuck uncomfortably to my legs, but I’m not going to take it off. His chest is glistening wet, a detail that looms very large.
Another crack of thunder makes me jump.
‘Pen was outside,’ I say, anxiety stabbing my gut.
Mark shakes his head. ‘She’ll have gone into the house.’
‘But what if she was asleep?’
‘No one could sleep through this.’
‘But …’ I’m about to make a feeble argument about what a heavy sleeper she is, but I know it won’t wash with him.
‘Send her a text,’ he says. ‘If it will put your mind to rest.’
I punch out a hasty message and wait.
A few seconds later, I see the tell-tale three dots, and she replies that she’s fine.
‘You do that a lot,’ says Mark.
