‘Are you serious?’ His eyes widen. He finishes the last bite of his own cone, thumbing the smear off his lip as he reaches a foot out to the creeping water. ‘It’s climate change, isn’t it? We’re all gonna be—AAARRGH!’
His scream as his foot hits the water is so perfect that I wish I’d recorded it. Somewhere in my consciousness I vaguely remember hearing a scream just like that before, though I can’t put my finger on when. He turns to look at me, but I’m laughing so hard I can barely breathe.
‘It appears I underestimated you,’ he says, regaining his composure quickly, but that only makes me laugh harder.
‘It appears you did,’ I finally manage, still chuckling to myself. It feels so good to be with someone like this– to not constantly feel like I have to please them so they don’t abandon me. The only other person I could imagine teasing like this is Mina.
‘You’ll pay for that,’ Bram says, and when I turn to look at him, there’s an edge of heat in his eyes that kicks my pulse up a notch.
I meet his gaze, a smile behind the press of my lips. ‘I look forward to it.’
And then I turn on my heel and skip off across the sand, away from him. He’s faster, though, and after a few strides I feel hands close around my waist, pulling me towards him before one arm sweeps behind my knees. In a split second, I’m in his arms.
He hoists me higher, and I shriek through my laughter, clutching his shoulders as he twists and twirls, swinging mearound with glee as again and again he pretends to throw me into the North Sea.
By the time he stills, I’m half crying with giddy laughter. He eases me to the ground like I weigh nothing, but the gentle drag of his hands up my body as he lowers me doesn’t feel like nothing. Goosebumps pepper my skin, that delicious tingle back in my chest.
‘Truce?’ he asks, and there’s a roughness to his voice that makes the tingles intensify, ripples of warmth moving down into the very pit of my stomach.
I nod. It’s all I can do at this point. ‘Truce.’
He holds out his hand, and I take it without question. I can’t imagine not holding it at this point, even though there are no winding streets to guide me through here– no crowds he could lose me in. The idea that he simply wants to hold hands with me makes my heart swell like a lovesick teenager.
We walk along the sand for a while, careful to avoid the waves this time. At one point Bram reaches down and picks up a pebble, carefully brushing the sand off with his thumb before he pockets it.
‘That was a good one,’ I say, and when he looks back at me there’s a weight to it. It’s like he almost says something but then thinks better of it.
In the end, he just smiles. ‘It was,’ he says simply, and I feel his fingers around mine, tightening almost imperceptibly.
Then we turn, and he leads me back along the beach and up onto the dry sand as the sun hangs low in the sky. I haul myself up onto one of the big rocks at the bottom of the cliff, and Bram hops up next to me, expertly cleaning the sand off his feet before he pulls his socks and boots back on.
I try to do the same, but I can’t get rid of all the sand between my toes, no matter how hard I try to swipe it away. It’s like it’sstuck to every nook and cranny of my feet. A groan of frustration slips out of me as I swat it fruitlessly.
I hear Bram’s soft chuckle beside me. ‘It’s easiest if you use your sock…’ he begins, before hopping down off the rock, swiping one of my socks from next to me. ‘Here,’ he says, grasping my ankle through my jeans. ‘I’ll help.’
He goes to work at once, using my sock to gently rub every last grain of sand from between my toes before he shakes it clean and pulls it onto my foot– one and then the other– and then he slips my trainers on and ties them with a flourish. I feel like Cinderella.
He bends to wipe sand off his thighs, and when he stands back up he’s closer than I expect, nestled between my legs like he belongs there. He doesn’t look at me at first, but I can’t resist studying him, and I’m struck by how different his face looks at this distance.
There’s a softness to him that you can’t see from even a few inches further away. Those green eyes are warmer, with tiny flecks of gold around his pupils, reflected in the faint spray of freckles along the tops of his cheeks, a miniature universe I never knew existed. And now I’ve seen it, I can’t look away.
I’mentranced.
When he finally meets my eyes it’s like a collision I feel ripple through every cell of my body. His breath in is ragged, and I hear him mutter a quiet ‘fuck it’ under his breath on the exhale as his hands reach out for me, fingers settling around my hips. And then he’s pulling me into him, so slowly that when our bodies finally make contact I feel like I might explode.
I feel the graze of sandy fingers under my jaw, the sweet vanilla scent of his breath on my face as he leans in, closer and closer. My heart beats a frantic rhythm in my chest, my eyes fluttering closed, waiting for the press of his lips on mine.
And then his phone rings, and I almost jump out of my skin.
He reaches for it with a growl, one hand resting lightly on my thigh.
‘If this is Quinn,’ he says, his voice rough, ‘I’m going to fucking kill him.’
Chapter Sixteen
BRAM
But it’s not Quinn. It’s Peggy.