I tossed the idea from one side of my thoughts to the other, unsure how I felt about it.
‘What? Like we’re meant to do something spectacular going forward? Because as much as I’d love to find a cure for cancer or solve global warming, I’m actually much better at just selling houses – or at least I used to be.’
He smiled. ‘Perhaps the message is more like checking we’re on the path we’re meant to be travelling. Maybe the lightning has given us a chance to do a system reset.’
‘And now you sound more like my other friend, Jackson, who’s a computer genius. Are you sure you don’t work in tech?’
He shook his head. ‘No. Still graphic design,’ he said, confirming what he’d previously told me.
There was a long pause, and I honestly thought we were done with the topic when he returned to it in a way that suddenly changed everything.
‘The other day, when the lightning struck, I was on my way to meet with Tasha’s mum, Annalise.’
Damn it. Even her name was pretty.
The buzzing of bees filled the silence as Rhys appeared to be weighing up whether or not to continue.
‘She wants us to try again.’
The words fell like an unexploded bomb between us. The ‘we’re not together right now’ suddenly made sense.
‘We’ve been separated for two years.’ There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, but Rhys’s eyes were suddenly full of them. ‘It wasn’t a pain-free split. I was on my way to meet her to discuss things when the storm broke and I took shelter beneath the tree.’
‘Had you made a decision? If that’s not too personal a question to ask.’
It was as personal as hell, but he didn’t seem to mind.
‘Made it and changed it back again God knows how many times before the rain came down. I guess I was hoping for some kind of sign.’
I gave a humourless laugh. ‘You got struck by lightning, Rhys. I think that might have been your sign, right there.’
‘Maybe.’ He turned away from me then, his green eyes focusing on the sun, which was slowly sinking towards the horizon in an amber ball. ‘It’s hard to think about walking back into the fire when you’ve been burnt once before.’
There was a lot to unpack behind his words. Whatever had happened between him and his ex, it had hurt him badly.
‘I guess only you can say if the good bits outweigh the bad,’ I said, realising I absolutely sucked as an Agony Aunt. Giving relationship advice when I’d yet to have a successful one myself was a joke.
‘Every good memory I have of that relationship is tied up in Tasha and being her dad.’
It felt like everything had suddenly gone quiet. As though every customer in the beer garden had fallen silent, the warm summer breeze had stopped rustling the leaves, and even the bees had ceased buzzing. As much as I wanted to join in the silence, my conscience wouldn’t let me.
‘I’m going to stick my nose in where it doesn’t belong, because I know how it feels growing up without a dad.’ My throat was getting tighter with every word, making it hard to carry on. ‘It was a lot. It always felt like something was missing in my life.’ I paused for a second, gathering up the strength to continue. ‘Maybe you and Annalise owe it to your daughter to try again.’
Rhys just looked at me for the longest moment.
It’s hard to conjure up an encouraging smile when you’ve just sabotaged something that could have been everything. But I gave it my best shot.
Chapter Nine
As late afternoon tipped into evening and the shadows grew longer, the after-work drinking crowd drifted home and we were surrounded by date-night couples sharing lingering golden-hour kisses or holding hands across tabletops in the twilight. I’d never been one for PDAs – I thought that was just how I was wired – so it was unsettling to realise just how much I wanted to join their ranks. Was it the lightning that had changed me, or was it because I’d never met anyone I wanted to touch as much as I did the man sitting opposite me, despite having virtually advised him to go back to his ex?
I shivered and Rhys sprang to his feet, returning moments later with a soft plaid blanket from a basket the pub made available for garden guests. He draped it around me like a cape, and I managed to hide another shiver as his hand rested briefly on my shoulder. Friends don’t do things like that, I reminded myself.
Rhys was two steps towards his own seat when he came to an abrupt halt. ‘Ellie, don’t move,’ he said, his voice urgent. I froze in the act of settling the folds of the blanket more comfortably around me. His tone was calm, but his eyes were staring at my throat, and not in the way he’d done earlier. I twitched the blanket a little tighter around me and that was when I felt the weird tickling sensation beneath the woollen folds.
‘Keep absolutely still,’ Rhys said quietly, which was impossible now that I could hear an angry buzzing sound coming from beneath the plaid blanket. I jerked, and the enormous bee that had been crawling along my collarbone dropped down inside the scoop neckline of my dress.
‘Stay calm,’ he instructed, and I tried to, but the bee – realising its predicament – got angry and then got scared. It lashed out at the flesh it was trapped against, which happened to be my right boob.