Chapter 1
“Sadie, what’s the bloody point of asking you to do something if it’s just going to get botched up?” Richard was just inches from my face, and he had that look about him, the kind that meant the whole day was going to go this way. His voice hit the kitchen walls and came back louder.
“Dad, I’m sorry. I’ll sort it out straight away.” I kept it even and pushed the annoyance back down where he couldn’t see it. Richard had a temper and it was best not to poke the bear. I looked around the kitchen, the room feeling smaller than it was with his voice still going in it. The burnt toast sat on the counter and the smell of it was everywhere, proof enough of how I couldn’t get it right. It seemed like I couldn’t do anything right lately.
“Don’t just stand there looking like a lost tourist, get a move on!”
“Alright, alright, keep your hair on.” I rolled my eyes and swept the hair out of my face. “I’ll get it sorted.” I didn’t dare look at Henry, who was standing off to the side taking the whole thing in quietly. This was so bloody embarrassing, even if he did see it all the time. His family was perfect, not like mine. Richard grumbled something under his breath and stormed out, his footsteps going hard down the hall.
When the door shut, I let out a long breath. The burnt toast smell was still there. I looked over at Henry, and he was already watching me, something in his expression he wasn’t putting into words. I gave him a crooked smile and a small shrug and hoped it looked more composed than it felt. “Thanks for sticking around.” My voice came out shakier than I’d have liked. “You know what they say, right as rain after a good storm, yeah?”
“Don’t you worry, Sade.” He stepped over and tucked a curl back from my face. “I’ll take over. You sit down and calm yourself.”
“Thanks, Henry.” My voice barely carried it. I sat down at the table and watched him work his way around the kitchen like he’d grown up in it, which he more or less had. They had been practically inseparable since they were six years old when her family moved next door to them.
He set the pans right, started the tea, found everything without needing to look. The clanking of it filled the quiet and I listened to his footsteps across the linoleum. He was seventeen and he moved through everything with that grace I couldn’t quite describe his shoulders were already broad, doing the kind of thing that made a girls heart stop.
A guilt sat in me watching it, knowing he had his own things and here he was, making sure I was alright. I picked at the hem of my oversized sweater, the soft wool giving under my fingers, and sat on the urge to cry.
“Are you okay?” He put a mug in front of me and sat down opposite.
“Yeah, just peachy.” My voice was full of sarcasm, making him make eye contact with his one brow up. “Sorry about that.” My eyes began to sting, and I ran a knuckle along the rim to wipe the tears.
“Don’t apologise for your dad’s mood swings, love.” He glanced at me and then back at his tea. “I know how he gets.”
I kept picking at the sleeve of my sweater, debating whether to say how I felt. “It’s just...it’s like I can never do anything right.”
“Sades, that’s not true.” He put the clean plates on the counter and turned around. “You’re brilliant, you know that. Your dad’s just a bloody wanker.”
That got a real laugh out of me, genuine and a bit more relaxed than I expected. “I feel like he would be happier if I weren’t around.”
He frowned at me, properly. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to this place. And you know I’ve got your back, no matter what.”
I crossed the kitchen and put my arms around his neck, and he went a bit red about it, which I liked enormously. He was warm and solid, and the cold kitchen was better for it. He smelled of the sea and the soap he’d used that morning. These were the moments that held the rest of it up, the feeling that maybe I wasn’t quite as worthless as Richard spent his mornings trying to make me feel.
“You are the very best, Henry.”
“It’s nothing, really.” He wrapped his arms around me and goose pimples spread along my arms. “You’re my best mate, after all.” I stepped back and there was that thing in my stomach I usually tried not to acknowledge. I put it down to the stress of the morning.
His eyes stayed on mine a moment longer than they needed to and then he cleared his throat and went back to the tea. “I’ve got a surprise for you today.”
“Oh?” I raised an eyebrow; I loved when he planned our days. He’d always been the best at planning adventures and moving about while daydreaming. “Do tell.”
“It’s a surprise.” He stirred the tea with that look he got when he was pleased with himself. “But let’s just say it involves a bike ride and a spot of beach combing.”
“You’re a bloody genius, Henry.” My heart warmed at the mention of my favourite thing. “Can we go to the spot by the cove? I really want to paint that.”
“The cove it is then.” He smiled his boyish grin at me then shrugged. “And who knows, maybe we’ll find some rare gems for your collection.”
I loved going to the cove to paint and collecting rocks and Henry had always been there to find the best ones. It was the one place where everything else stopped closing in, where it was just Sadie and Henry with the paint, rocks, and the water and whatever we’d brought to read.
Henry finished up the tea, the steam rising from the mugs, and he passed one across and our fingers met. Electricity flowed through my fingers; it happened nearly every time that they touched as of late.
“Let’s finish our tea and get out of here before my dad decides he’s got another job for me.” I took a long sip and felt the warmth of it go all the way down.
We finished up and headed outside, the cool air better than anything the kitchen had offered. The sun was already out, and the sea smell was coming at us from every direction on our perfect island, and Henry’s motorbike was by the fence, that deep blue 1940s thing with the chrome catching the morning light and making it look like something out of a film. He handed me my helmet with a bit of ceremony, and I put it on and tried not to smile at him.
“You’re such a show-off.”
“Someone’s got to keep the smiles alive around here.” He winked, I laughed, and he held the bike upright while I climbed on behind him. He had his t-shirt on, and I may have held my hands on his shoulders for a moment longer than I should have before getting myself together.
“You’re just full of surprises today, aren’t you?”
“Always aiming to please, darling.” He gave me a look over his shoulder that put some heat in my cheeks, then got on and started the engine and I took hold of him around the middle as the vibration of the bike filled my body and we moved off down the lane.
The coast road opened up, and the engine noise rose and the wind came hard off the sea. I held on and felt the road under us and watched the hedgerows go by, all those flashes of blue where the water showed through the gaps.
The worry about the morning went further back with every bend in the road. The sea smell got stronger as we came around toward the cove and Henry eased off the throttle and brought us onto the verge, and he turned off the engine.
I climbed off and set the helmet on the seat and stood a moment with the salty air on my face. The cove was below us, the water moving, the rocks dark at the base of the cliff. I took my off and swung it around for my shades and put it back on.
“This place never gets old, does it.” We walked down the stairs together and set up camp by a big rock next to the rock pools. “It’s like our own little piece of the world, eh.”
“It’s one of our sanctuaries.” He came alongside me, eyes out on the water, blue reflecting blue and my breath caught in my throat. “Where we can just be us.”
We left our shoes and the painting stuff by the rock, and I wiggled my toes in the sand. It was cool under our feet from the moisture in it. The water came in and went back out in that long, unhurried rhythm it always had, and I came down properly from the morning.
As we walked along the waterline I started to feel more like myself. We went next to each other shoulder to shoulder, and shared stolen smiles that we never talked about. There were some lads a bit further down the beach and one or two of them looked over, but I wasn’t paying them much attention.
Henry was beside me with the sun catching his hair and that easy manner he had in the open air, and he looked every bit like one of those Jane Austen heroes I was always going on about, the sort who turned up when you needed them most and never once made a fuss about it.
“Look, Henry.” I pointed at a rock sitting proud of the sand. “That’s one for the collection, yeah?”
“It’s a beauty, that one.” He crouched and picked it up, turning it in the sunlight. “Where’s your tin?”
“Right here.” I swung my sack off my shoulder and rummaged for my treasure tin. He turned the rock over in his hands, his thumb going along the groove in it. “Think it’s a good omen for today?”
“Could be.” He grinned and held it out to me. “But we make our own luck, don’t we?”
“Cheers to that.” I placed it into the tin. A buzz of excitement at Henry’s touch coursed through me again. His hand had stayed on mine a moment longer than it needed to. I told myself it was nothing and kept walking.
