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He pulls a tinfoil-wrapped sandwich out of his pocket, and I make a mental note to remind Mum to check his pockets next time she washes his trousers.
“Sorry I’m late; I haven’t missed anything, have I?”
Jack comes towards us at a jog, still wearing the trousers and sweater he had on this morning, and looking so gorgeous it makes my heart hurt.
“You look amazing,” he says, his eyes lighting up when he sees me. I allow my nerves to go down just a notch.
Maybe this will be okay after all? Even though we’re effectively being chaperoned by Dad, like an Edwardian lady and her suitor?
“No, you’re right on time,” says Rose, who’s carrying a large wicker picnic basket, which I assume contains our food. “All aboard!”
“Wait: we’re actually going sailing?” says Jack, frowning. “When you said to meet you at the dock, I assumed we’d be eating on the beach next to it.”
“Nope,” says Rose cheerfully, handing Dad the basket to carry on board. “This, brother dear, is the tasting menu for the wedding. I asked the chef at The 39 to make a bit of everything for us to try. And we’re going to do it on the boat. Just to make it even more romantic.”
I’m not sure I’d describe me, Jack and Dad, all crammed onto a boat as “romantic” exactly, but right now, “romance” is the very least of my worries.
“Er, what do you mean ‘us’?” I ask, hoping I’ve picked her up wrong. “It’s just me and Jack, right? And, well, my Dad, obviously?”
“And me, silly!” says Rose, looking at me as if I’m hard of thinking . “I’m not just going to hand over the food and leave you to it, am I? I need to be there to talk you through everything, because if I leave it to you two, you’ll probably just end up serving your guests McDonald’s or something.”
“There’s nothing wrong wi’ a Big Mac,” interjects Dad, and I turn to Rose.
“I really wish you’d talked to us about this before getting the chef involved, Rose,” I say, as calmly as I can manage. “We haven’t really had a chance to discuss the menu yet.”
“Yes, we have,” she replies immediately. “We talked about it yesterday. You were there, Emerald. You said no to lobster, because your friend Dexy—”
“Lexie.”
“Whatever. Your friend Lexie doesn’t like it. So you’ll be pleased to know there are absolutely no crustaceans in this basket.”
I look up at Jack pleadingly, but he just shrugs.
“I guess the plan is to talk about it now,” he says indifferently. “Does it really matter what we have to eat, though? I don’t particularly care, as long as it tastes good; and God knows, we pay the chef enough for that.”
I frown. It’s not like Jack to complain about money. He normally has that ‘rich person’ way of not even asking how much things cost, because he knows he’ll be able to afford it. But now that I think about it, he’s made a few comments like this lately. He’s always talking about how much the new development is costing, and every time Rose brings up the subject of booking a wedding venue, he says he wants to just put a marquee in the grounds of the house, because it’ll cost less. He even used the phrase “Money doesn’t grow on trees,” a few days ago, which I think was news to Rose, given the look on her face when he said it.
Does Jack have money worries? Is that why he’s seemed so stressed lately?
“I… I thought this was supposed to be a romantic date, though,” I say, wishing I didn’t sound quite so whiny. “That’s what Rose said. That it would be just you and me. I was looking forward to it.”
“Yeah, I thought so too,” he says, glancing down at his phone, which has been beeping regularly ever since he got here. “But, look, we do have to discuss the menu at some point, so I suppose we might as well just get it over with now.”
Right.
‘Get it over with.’
I mean, that’s whateveryman says about a romantic meal with his betrothed, isn’t it?
Thanks for making me feel so special, Jack.
Disappointed though I am, I somehow manage to keep my thoughts on all of this inside my head for once, and allow him to help me onto the boat, shivering slightly as the breeze from the water hits my bare arms. Like Jack, I’d assumed we were just meeting at the dock and then heading somewhere else, so I didn’t bother to bring a jacket with me. My track record for always getting the dress code wrong is triumphantly unbroken.
“Here,” says Jack, noticing the goosebumps on my arms as he climbs aboard. “Put this on.”
He pulls off his sweater and hands it to me, revealing the close-fitting t-shirt he’s wearing underneath. I take it gratefully, wondering if he remembers the first time he did this — back before we started officially dating and we went for a walk together that turned into a passionate kiss. I was inappropriately dressed for that, too (The walk, I mean, not the kiss), and as Dad steers us out into the loch, and the breeze from the water immediately blows my full skirt straight up into my face, I find myself wondering if I’m ever going to learn my lesson.
So much for ‘super-romantic.’
