Page 18 of Always, in December

Josie lifted her camera, twisting the lens to focus in on Max, who now had his back to her, looking out at the horizon. It was a wonderfully clear day, a few wispy clouds the only marring of the vast expanse of blue above them. The water sparkled, ripples of diamonds that constantly adapted to the swell of the ocean. Josie took her time with the photo, wanting to get it just right, then snapped a few shots, catching Max’s outline as he turned to look at her, his jaw soft, the hint of a smile evident in the photo. She’d brought her camera on a whim, being as how Max had refused to tell her the plan until they got off the train, but she was glad now that she had.

Max trudged up the sand to join her, flexing his toes when he stopped. Josie shook her head. ‘You’re mad.’

His eyes were bright, and although they were a far cry from the blue of the ocean, they seemed to absorb some of its shimmer, the green outweighing the amber today. He ran a hand through his hair – it was the kind of hair that suited the wind and salt, and the sparkle of the sunlight today made it look more coppery than usual. ‘Well, you never know when you’ll have the chance to do something again, right?’

‘Mmm, I’m not sure having your toes frozen off is on anyone’s bucket list.’

He prodded her in the ribs and she laughed, batting his hand away. She lost her footing slightly as she did so, stumbling backwards on the uneven sand, and he grabbed her free hand – the one not holding the camera – to steady her. Only, of course, being her, she overbalanced too much the other way and practically fell into his chest. He laughed softly and took the sides of her arms in his hands, cocking one eyebrow as he looked down at her. She cleared her throat, suddenly intensely aware of how close they now were, and how her heartbeat had picked up, ever so slightly.

She took a step back. ‘Thanks.’

He bent down and rubbed his feet dry before slipping on his socks and trainers again. When he stood up, he hooked his arm companionably through hers as they walked. She fell into the rhythm of his long stride and slung the strap of her camera over the other shoulder. It felt so easy to fall into step beside him, and unlike the last few days she didn’t feel the pressure to say anything, comfortable to listen to the waves lapping the shore, the laughter of a child behind them.

‘Get any good photos?’ He nodded at her camera and she shrugged. ‘It’s an impressive beast, I’m not even sure I’d know how to work it – it’s an iPhone camera all the way for me.’

‘I love it,’ she admitted. ‘I brought it last year. It cost far too much money to justify, but I did it anyway.’ She couldn’t really explain it, how right she felt behind the lens, how she felt like that was when she was most relaxed, and most herself. ‘I used to dream of being a professional photographer,’ she said, smiling a little at the memory – when her friends at school were planning on being vets, doctors or actresses, she was instructing people where to stand so she could take photos of them. The one time she was really bossy, her mum used to say. She preferred wildlife and landscape photography to photos of people now, but it was one thing that hadn’t changed as she’d grown up.

‘What stopped you?’

Josie gave him an incredulous look. ‘Well, it’s not exactly a stable career path, is it?’ Max gave a little half shrug, like it shouldn’t matter, though Josie knew that was a romantic’s view of the world and had no place in reality.

‘Do you like what you do now? Marketing?’

Josie hesitated, then sighed. ‘No, I guess not. Not really. I went into it because it can be creative sometimes – the social media stuff especially – but my company is quite strict on what they want out there and it sort of . . . takes the fun away, I guess.’ She brushed her hair away from her face – they were walking with the wind behind them so it kept flying around and blocking her line of sight. She probably would have tied it up if she’d known where they were going, but still, it was actually a nice sensation, the wind tangling its fingers through her hair. ‘Currently, my job seems to mainly involve looking at different shots of models in swimwear.’

‘Doesn’t sound so bad.’ She poked him in the ribs with her elbow and he laughed. ‘Still,’ he said, ‘if you hate it, why do you do it?’

‘I don’t hate it.’ She paused, staring out at the sea for a moment. ‘Actually, they’re making my role redundant as of January, so I might not have a choice whether to hate it or not.’ Her stomach squirmed uncomfortably – it was the first time she’d actually allowed herself to say it out loud, and though it wasn’t right to say that this made it feel more real, it certainly made it feel like more of a problem.

Max frowned, and didn’t answer right away, like he couldn’t quite figure out what to say. ‘That’s shit,’ he said eventually, which made Josie laugh.

‘Quite. I have a choice, though.’ She scowled when she thought of Janice’s face, teeth showing in a fake smile, as she’d offered her said choice. ‘I can take a “sideways”’ – she struggled to get her hands up to do the air quotes because one of her arms was still entwined with Max’s – ‘move, or I can take the redundancy package.’

‘What’s the “sideways”’ – he copied her air quotes – ‘move?’

Josie waved her free hand, wishing she’d remembered gloves as her fingers sliced the cold air. ‘They’re calling it an Exec, but basically it’s doing the same job for less money, with more of a focus on the digital side of things.’

‘Sounds like you should get out while you can.’ He steered her up the next ramp onto the pavement, heading towards the pier.

‘Yeah, but then I’d have no job and no money . . .’ The circle was going round her mind in a loop, continuously playing in the background. She could take the new role they were offering and look for other things at the same time, or she could take the package and just hope she got offered something before her money ran out. But then what if the new job was worse than her current one? At least she knew what she was doing there, and had friends, including Laura, which sort of counterbalanced the Oliver issue. She hadn’t figured out yet if she was brave enough to take the risk, though saying that out loud would sound all kinds of pathetic.

‘Life’s too short to not do what you want,’ Max said simply, as if it were that easy, as if everyone did something they enjoyed.

‘Do you love being an architect then?’

He smiled, though for some reason it didn’t seem as bright as before, like he was losing some of the ocean’s energy now they weren’t down on the sand. ‘I do. I geek out on buildings. And I do get the creative thing. It took me a while to get to the point where I was allowed to . . . imprint . . . my own personality on a building. But I knew I’d get there, so I didn’t mind the grafting so much.’ He glanced down at her. ‘Sounds to me like you don’t envisage your future in marketing, though, so it’s different.’

She chewed her lip as she considered it. She’d just assumed she’d work her way up through the ranks, but did she really want to be a Marketing Director in ten or twenty years? She shook her head. So not today’s problem. ‘Did you always want to be an architect?’ she asked, trying to steer attention back onto him.

‘Well, it’s not like I was announcing in the school playground aged six that I wanted to design buildings, but I got set on it as a teenager, I guess, and never looked back. My mum and dad hated the idea at first,’ he added, but as a smile was playing round his lips, this clearly wasn’t cause for resentment anymore.

‘Really? Why?’ It seemed like a perfectly respectable career choice to her, and wasn’t it one of those careers where you could make loads of money?

‘They’re the cliché, my parents. Both doctors – that’s how they met. They’re both great at what they do – and my mum loves it so much that she’s keeping up some consultancy work in New York. They assumed I’d go into medicine too, and had to suffer the disappointment when they couldn’t impart all their wisdom, I suppose.’

‘But they’re ok with it now?’ Max was now steering them to the other side of the road, towards a run-down-looking fish and chip shop, the faded blue and white lettering on the shopfront a testament to better times gone by.

‘I used to get fish and chips here as a kid,’ he said by way of explanation. ‘We came on holiday here every year without fail, the week of the August bank holiday. Haven’t been here in years,’ he said, sounding slightly nostalgic. He held the door open for her, and she stepped in, surprised that it was even open in the middle of December. The smell of grease filled the air, and, while it couldn’t be described as toasty, it was still warm enough to be a welcome interlude from the chill outside. There was a skinny man behind the counter, who certainly mustn’t try much of his produce, with a sharp angular face and a receding hairline. ‘Chips as we walk, or are you hungrier than that?’ Max asked her.