Page 97 of Be More Capybara

It’s what you wanted to hear, so why prolong this any longer? ‘Thank you.’ She hugged him.

It was Nigel’s turn to relax in her arms. ‘Am I forgiven?’

‘Yes. And I’m sorry I jumped to the wrong conclusion. I shouldn’t have ghosted you, but that message looked like a red flag. I was terrified I’d fallen for another lying rogue. And I’m sorry I read your email. Can you forgive me?’

He put his hand up to her cheek and carefully caressed it before kissing her slowly and gently, as if he were savouring every moment. She was breathless when he finally pulled away.

‘Was that a yes?’ she whispered.

He smiled. ‘I’d hate to think what a no looks like.’

She leaned in and kissed him again. ‘I love you.’

‘I love you too. Do you want that massage now?’

‘I think you should finish shaving first.’

75

NIGEL

Nigel looked at his watch. 3.19 pm. ‘Any minute now.’ He looked up at the sky. Still cloudless.

‘I’m bored, and it’s cold,’ Wilf complained. To be fair, they had all been out in the garden since two o’clock. He’d been very excited when Nigel had shown him the first chunk of the sun disappearing, but after over an hour of it slowly getting darker, his interest had waned. And despite the fire pit that Nigel had lit half an hour ago, the temperature had dropped considerably.

‘Not much longer, darling,’ Nancy reassured him. ‘You’ll remember this moment for the rest of your life.’

‘I’m looking forward to it, Granny,’ Mabel said.

Nigel smiled to himself.

‘What’s amused you?’ Helen whispered to him.

‘Standard sibling behaviour,’ he whispered back. ‘When one’s whinging, the other will play the role of the angel. My girls were exactly the same at that age.’

‘Callum and Harry just fought. So if this is a Farnham thing, when you were young, which one were you?’

He grinned. ‘The angel, of course.’

‘I bet Mark would say differently.’

‘He’s not here to argue,’ he said, pulling her into a kiss.

‘I thought we were waiting for totality before you did that again.’

‘A few practice runs won’t hurt.’ He kissed her again.

‘Urghh, why do you keep doing that?’ Wilf was glaring at them.

‘Because we love one another,’ Helen said.

‘I’m never kissing anyone when I grow up.’

Nigel grinned. ‘I used to say that. Anyway, you need to look over there, because there’s going to be a big shadow rolling across the countryside any moment now.’

76

HELEN