‘She’s a good friend, too, isn’t she? Your old boss?’
‘The best,’ Tilly agreed, warmly. ‘Friends are so important, aren’t they?’ Her smile was wry. ‘They last longer than a lot of relationships.’
‘Do they?’
Tilly gave him a startled glance. ‘Do you not think of your close friends as your chosen family?’
She should have been so used to seeing him frown by now but there was something different about the way the lines deepened around his eyes this time.
‘I have people that I call my friends but I’m not sure I have anyclosefriends.’
Ohh…
A corner of Tilly’s heart was breaking. The thought that Angus might be a lonely man made her want to put her arms around him and hold him tight. Had he been a lonely child too – with just the company of his dog instead of siblings and school friends?
Was he afraid to let people too close because he’d witnessed his father’s pain when the love he offered others had been rejected? Perhaps it wasn’t that he didn’t believe in the power of romance but that he’d learned the risk was too great.
‘I was thinking about that not so long ago,’ he said quietly. ‘The night before I came to France, in fact. When Moira told me that she’d only considered us to be friends. I didn’t think a friendship included sex.’
Oh lá lá…The thought of Angus and Moira having sex sent a pang of a very unpleasant sensation through Tilly. Jealousy?When she had no right to be feeling possessive. She pushed it aside with a sharp mental shove.
‘I believe that’s known as a friendship with benefits,’ she said.
‘Is that what we have?’ Angus asked. ‘Are we friends, Tilly?’
It felt like she had a lump in her throat that needed to be swallowed before she could speak. But then she managed to find a smile as well. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I think we’re friends. We enjoy each other’s company, yes?’
Angus nodded, smiling.
‘It’s easy to talk to each other and we like a lot of the same things and… and we can make each other laugh.’
That was possibly the thing that she found the most attractive about Angus. Had the first time he’d made her laugh, and feel better about the disastrous end to that balloon ride, been the moment she’d started to fall in love with him? Or was it the first time he’d kissed her in the wake of that laughter? Tilly suspected there might be some kind of alchemy in the combination that had created something out of thin air. If you already had the echoes of laughter in your heart when a man kissed you like he was drowning and only you could save him, surely the falling in love had been inevitable?
Tilly could feel a wash of emotion that she knew she had to hide.
‘And that means we like each other,’ she said crisply, as if it was no big deal. No romance included. Safe.
His eyes crinkled a little this time. ‘Aye,’ he said.
‘So yes, we’re friends,’ she added to finish the conversation. ‘With benefits. Close friends, even.’
She could give him that, couldn’t she? The knowledge that he had at least one close friend in his life? Would he remember her? He wasn’t taking many photographs on this trip but neither was she, and she was quite sure she was never going to forget asingle detail about Angus. She could feel just how deeply he was already embedded in her memory cells.
‘Speaking of friends,’ she said, more brightly, in a determined effort to fend off where her thoughts were trying to go, ‘Ellie lives just up the road from here. Would you mind if I text her and see if she’s home? I’d love to say hello and I’m sure she’d love to meet someone new who talks just like her.’
‘Och aye?’ Angus said, his accent suddenly much stronger. ‘That’d be grand, so it would.’
It made Tilly smile, and whatever emotional clouds had begun to gather with the idea of Angus only existing in her memories evaporated as she pulled out her phone. It was automatic to tuck the sound of his voice and that accent into the attraction account to be drawn on later. And the humour. Even the willingness to go along with something totally impromptu was impressive. Angry Airport Angus wouldn’t have been anything like so cooperative.
Maybe his life had changed as much as hers in the last few days?
* * *
Tilly and Ellie greeted each other with kisses on each other’s cheek and a quick hug.
‘Ça va?’
‘Oui. Ça va très bien. Et toi?’
