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Dylan inspects the monstrosity. "I think a souvenir gift for a lucky friend or family member. Did you ever have one?"
"If I did, I think I'd remember."
"I've got one at home somewhere." He catches my confused expression. "I like odd things too." I roll my eyes at him, and then he bends towards me, his mouth uncomfortably close to mine. "Although that's not the only reason I like you, Sky."
Sucking in a breath, I edge around him back to the front of the shop before I lose sight of the world. Dylan follows, slipping his hand back into mine, still carrying the godawful shell figure.
* * *
The slatted woodenbench we sit on overlooks the rugged landscape below, the sea bluer beneath the summer sky. The fluffy, white clouds burn away as the day progresses, and we choose to sit beneath a tree for shade from the strong sun. Dylan unzips the blue hoodie, huffing at the heat.
"Maybe you should take the jacket off?" I suggest.
He shifts his baseball hat forward, pulling the peak lower. "I don't know..."
"I think people will stare at you more for wearing a jacket on a hot summer’s day."
"Maybe." Dylan holds my hand, stroking my arm with his other hand. I'm unused to someone touchy-feely, but I crave the contact with him too.
An older couple passes by holding hands. They're a similar age to my parents, although mine would never hold hands since they divorced a couple of years ago. The woman wears knee-length beige shorts and a loose brown T-shirt, greying hair stylishly cut into a bob, her body touching the man as they walk in a natural, years’ old rhythm. The plastic bag he's holding suggests they bought junk at souvenir shops, like Dylan's shell monster.
"Most people here are that age," I say, indicating the couple. "Not your audience, I suspect."
Dylan watches them silently for a few moments. "I hope one day that's me," he says eventually.
"A balding man at the seaside carrying his wife’s bag?"
"Yeah, living in a house by the sea with my dribbling wife asleep on the sofa," he says and laughs, placing his other hand over mine, trapping my fingers between his warm palm.
His words arrest me, as I remember my night asleep on the sofa the day we met. Is there something behind his comment? I side glance Dylan and he's staring at the ground, arms resting on his knees. "I'm sure you have the money to do whatever you want when you get old."
"I have the money to do what I want now, but Ican’tdo what I want."
"That's an odd thing to say."
He laughs softly. "I'm odd, remember?"
I rest my head on Dylan's shoulder and he wraps an arm around me. After a few minutes Dylan shifts. "Okay, you're right, I'm too fucking hot."
I chomp hard on my lip against making a comment about how ‘fucking hot’ he is as he removes his jacket. The tattooed arms stand out against the muted greys of the seaside town and I lean across and kiss his bicep.
Dylan raises an eyebrow. "I thought you didn't like tattoos."
"I don't, but I like your arms." I raise an eyebrow in return.
He wraps the muscled arms around and pulls me close. "Sky?"
"What?"
"I’m the happiest I’ve been forever," he says, and rubs his nose into my hair.
"I think you’re exaggerating, Sandchurch isn’t that exciting."
"Here, with you, is the happiest I’ve ever been."
A seagull nearby pokes around at a discarded wrapper, and the sound of the breaking waves on the beach below fill me with the happiness of past summers here.
"Because we’re caught in our childhood memories?" I ask him, turning my head to meet his eyes.
"No, because I’m here with you. I’ve never wanted to be around someone as much as I crave to be around you. Weird, huh?"
"Odd." I know what he means, but surely he knows this is an illusion too.
"Odd." He captures my face in his hands, soft mouth on mine. We lose ourselves in a magical kiss to match the spellbinding world we’re living in; a kiss and a place I want to exist forever.
I don't know who Dylan Morgan is, but my heart hurts at the thought of how this will end. Famous or not, I'm leaving this man behind in a couple of days and trailing back to Bristol, tail between my legs. I crave Dylan too, but I’m scared to tell him and admit to myself. We enmesh more as each hour passes and I’m dreading the pain when our lives are pulled apart again.
