Page 56

‘Some Bond you’d be. Fine, let me.’ Without thinking, Temperance stepped into the cubicle, toe to toe with Abel. Her hands set to work pushing the buttons out through tiny, stiff holes. She could feel the warmth of Abel’s breath hitting the bridge of her nose. His back seemed to stiffen, making him stand even taller.

With the buttons undone, she pushed the collar open and arranged the ends of the tie just so, smoothing them down over his pecs for maybe a second too long. Temperance was so far into her ‘work’ mode, that it took a minute for her to clock just how totally she had put herself in Abel’s personal space, and this was no dream – she was actually doing it. She should really pull her hands away. She should really put distance between them. But Abel wasn’t moving. He was just watching her fingers as they pressed the tie into his shirt, picking up his body heat. All at once she had his smell in her head again – toast, honey, but something else a little sharper cutting through now. Furniture polish.

A memory of Saturday chores set by Margie came flooding back – spraying and wiping down the leather seats in the pub. Only Abel and Temperance, sixteen and fifteen then, thought it would be hilarious to load the banquets with so much polish that people slipped right off them again. Temperance still got a fuzz of that stomach-creasing laughter whenever her bare legs touched the leather seats, to this day. There’s no subtle way to drench a pub chair in sea water and basil to clean away the memories, and no way she’d even risk annoying Margie to that degree.

‘Margie’s still using Mr Sheen then?’ she murmured under Abel’s chin.

‘Yes.’ He half-cleared his throat. ‘But she rations me to three sprays a day, now. Seeing as I’ve got form.’ A smile drew in just the corner of his mouth, giving him a dimple.

Abel released a slow breath – not a sigh, not a huff, which is what she mostly seemed to hear from him these days. But a slow, shallow exhale, almost too quiet to hear. The sound you might unconsciously make when you get into a hot bath or sink into the sofa after a long, busy day.

Temperance realised she was still there, in his space. The perfect distance to let her hands skim down his chest or up over his broad shoulders. His smile was still there too, and the dimple.

So many of last night’s dreams came her way all at once, at just the hint of his lips curling in such a knowing way.

Abel’s voice just a growl in her ear, his mouth against her neck, going down, and down . . .

But then came the twist of guilt in her stomach again – she was painting him into fantasies he wanted no part of. It wasn’t right. And besides, it was pointless. He lived in Bath now, where he had a girlfriend. A whole other life. Where moments before she had felt the warmth of nostalgia and safety, a chill now ran over her skin.

Temperance stepped away and forced herself to lace her fingers tightly behind her back. ‘See what you think.’ She gestured to the floor-length mirror.

‘Ah. Oh.’ Abel licked his lips, then craned his head back as if seeing a stranger from a distance and trying to work out if it could be his identical twin. ‘Right. I see what you mean. Not sure I’ve ever looked so . . . stylish. Thanks. This will do perfectly.’

‘I think your Gran will be impressed.’

He nodded and rubbed his hands together. ‘I should send a picture to Cass. She’d hardly recognise me.’

‘Right. Of course!’ Temperance fidgeted with her bracelets, her eyes darting around the shop – looking at anything but Abel. ‘I’ll leave you to get changed then, and I’ll ring those things up.’

‘Cool. Thanks again, Temperance.’ He pulled the curtain back around, hiding himself away behind a wall of moss-green velvet.

It was exactly the boundary Temperance needed – Abel was off the market and she needed to remember that.

Chapter 20

The sun laid the most gentle kisses of warmth on Temperance’s cheeks as she stretched out on the green, her toes pushing down into the worn-soft beach towel underneath her.

It was the same beach towel she’d used her whole life: Mickey Mouse on a surfboard, grinning madly, his primary colours now faded from a thousand hours of bright sunshine. It had been the towel she and Lee had taken down with them to the sea when she was a pudgy toddler, and the same towel she’d shoved into a record bag when she was let loose on her own to wander down there with mates. It had been so embedded with happy memories of Abel – sharing a single Calippo as the sun set, playing beach cricket with Clara, Helen, Tim and the others, sketching out plans that the whole gang would apply to Exeter Uni so they could stay together. Forever. It was so tightly packed with these glowing memories that Temperance had used it in her first ever solo magic washing, a few months after Abel left. To try to pretend to herself that they never had been so close, so content.

‘You know we have a beach for sunbathing, like, just down there?’ Susie’s shadow suddenly turned the heating off.

‘I know. But Abel doesn’t surf on the green, so I’m safest here.’

‘Aha. Still awks between you?’

‘Like you wouldn’t believe. Got the skinny on his girlfriend, though.’

‘Ohh,’ Susie breathed. ‘That must suck.’

Temperance rolled her shoulders. ‘You can’t really expect someone who wants to puke after kissing you to stay celibate all their lives. Apparently, he “doesn’t do” relationships, so nice to know he’s grown up into a proper male stereotype, eh? I bet he has a string of girls all over Bath, pining for a grumpy, near-silent date with him. Maybe I should move to a big city permanently to find love. Maybe that’s what the doom is trying to show me – Abel got out and finds women, maybe that’s how I need to do it?’

Susie turned out her bottom lip and Temperance squeezed her little sister’s leg briefly.

‘Only kidding. Besides, that’s not the kind of love I’m after. Something beyond two weeks. A forever kind of situation.’

‘Eurgh. No thanks. I’m glad I’m not old yet.’

Temperance moved to a swift pinch instead.