Page 129 of Love Letters on Hazel Lane

‘Yeah, they must have,’ Jo said, but she couldn’t really see how that could have happened; they were always careful not to muddle sets up when they packed away after Scrabble club. She frowned at the board. ‘There are definitely tiles in here from another box. There’s three Ws as well. We’ll have to check every set. We don’t want Florence and Mr B getting extra letters. All hell will break loose and she’ll accuse him of cheating.’

‘Yeah, imagine,’ he said, placing an M in front of the E of WIDGET to make ME. He looked at the board, then looked at Jo expectantly. ‘Come on, Jo. Have you ever known me play so badly?’

Suddenly she clocked the words he’d been making. ‘WILL – YOU – GO – POT – OUT – WITH – ME,’ she read out loud.

Will you go out with me?

‘You rather ruined it putting POT when I wanted to put OUT,’ he said.

Her heart was pounding. She gaped at the board. ‘Did you plan this?’

He smiled. ‘I might have done.’

He was asking her out.

Actually asking her out.

As in, on a proper date and not just going out with friends.

And he hadn’t asked her in a boring old text message like anyone else would do.

‘How did you know you’d pick the right letters?’ she said.

‘I had spares in my pocket and my sling. Getting them out without you spotting me was the tricky bit.’

She couldn’t quite believe this. He’d gone to so much effort. For her.

‘You don’t really have hay fever?’

‘No, no hay fever. And no itch. I was trying to find the W in the sling. I wanted to ask you out and this seemed like a good way.’

Jo remembered the photo she’d taken earlier. ‘Great minds think alike. I nearly sent you this. Not exactly asking you out, but a strong hint.’

She pulled out her phone, found the stockings-and-Scrabble image and clicked send. Razz’s phone beeped and he opened the message, his face creasing with laughter.

‘Brilliant,’ he said. ‘You’re so creative, Jo. I wish you’d sent it. It would have saved me a lot of effort. And the humiliation of losing so badly. I’ve been wanting to ask you out again for so long. But I wasn’t sure how you felt about me.’

‘And I wasn’t sure how you felt about me.’ Her voice came out in a kind of squeak. ‘So why didn’t you?’

‘Because I didn’t think there was a cat in hell’s chance you’d say yes. Like I told you before, I was convinced I’d blown it when you sailed down Gaping Gill like it was nothing, and came back up with a beaming smile on your face, whilst I sat at the top like a quivering wreck. And even when you admitted you’d told a bit of a fib…’

‘That’s being generous. It was an out-and-out lie.’

‘…a bit of a fib, well, I still felt like I’d been a complete wuss that day. I thought I’d conquered my phobia of heights, but I clearly hadn’t.’

‘But when the shit hit the fan today and I fell in that ravine and hurt myself, you put your fear aside to help me.’

She thought back to earlier that day. To the shock of tumbling down. Her throbbing ankle and aching head. Looking up at Kate and wondering how on earth she was going to get out of there. And the relief when he was beside her: strong, reassuring, comforting. And also wincing at his own pain, but still, he had been there for her. The next moment, her eyes were welling up and the tears began to roll. They were tears of joy, relief, delayed shock – she wasn’t sure what.

Razz walked round the table and knelt beside her. With his good arm, he pulled her in, holding her against his sweater. Cashmere – 15 points. If you were going to weep against knitwear, cashmere was best as it was softer against sore eyes. He took his arm away, pulled a tissue from his pocket, and offered it to her, scattering two letter tiles onto the carpet.

She reached out to pick them up: P and A.

‘Was there another word?’ she blubbed.

‘PLEASE. I wanted to spell out, “Will you go out with me please”. Shame there’s no question mark. I wasn’t clever enough to think of a back-to-front C with an added dot.’

Jo buried her face in his sweater again. He planted small kisses on the bruise above her eyebrow. Much as she wanted him to kiss her lips, rather than her forehead, she had little desire to move from her comfortable position resting against his chest. It was the calmest place she had ever been in her whole life. He was shorter than she was, his hair was scruffy and his dress sense was even worse than hers – although this jumper was rather nice – but none of those things mattered. Jo wanted this man to stay by her side like this. Forever, probably. But she wasn’t going to rush into things. She knew she had to take it slowly this time and planned to savour every moment. She breathed in his scent: eau de fabric conditioner and shower gel with a definite hint of manliness.