Chapter Twenty
LONDON IN THE summer. It had gone from sunny to rainy in naught
point six seconds. It had taken a mammoth effort to plan moving everything down
to our house in Ajoux and more time to find opportunity to get to London and
pack up our lives there.
It was too good an opportunity to miss when rain was forecast for
the week and so Berne, Babs, Rebecca, and I had headed to London on the plane.
The removal team Babs had hired had made quick work of emptying a
decade of adulthood and my father had already found someone to move in. It felt
scary cutting ties with everything I knew but it was for happiness and the
possibility of love.
There’d been no time to show Babs and Berne London as the removal
took far longer than we had accounted for. It was funny how much stuff two
people could collect and cram into a small space.
While I packed up the last of the boxes and taped it shut, I was
aware that we could have built our own little fort from them. It was
bittersweet leaving the place. We’d lived there for ten years together. We’d
grown up in the tiny space.
I handed over the box to the moving people and turned to stare out
of the window. Winston was getting his first class ride to his new home and the
quiet street below looked odd without him.
“You are sad to leave?”
Berne’s question wrapped around me like a warm hug. Having to make
do with only her verbal comfort, I relished the sound of her.
“In a way. It’s sort of like this place was our sanctuary, you
know?” I turned and stared around at the bare walls. “We were lucky to find it,
that my dad found it. So many people struggle here in the city.”
“It is a vibrant place,” Berne said. “So much history. It has been
good to see where you spent your years away from me.”
Liking the way she’d phrased that, I felt the urge to sink into
her arms. I couldn’t help gawp at her anyway. Her jeans were snug like they
were sewn for her, cool brown boots that poked out the bottom. Her t-shirt
showed off her slender collar bones, a suit jacket over the top. She looked
like a film star.
Berne’s eyes warmed and a slow smile spread across her lips. “
Friends
sometimes offer each other embraces,
non
?”
Friends? Why friends? Friends may embrace but they didn’t do any
of the things we’d done in the Ardèche. “If we cuddle each other, it won’t stop
there,
Friend.
” I hugged myself instead as
Berne said nothing. “Besides, you can’t do that to her . . . well . .
.
again anyway?”
Berne had said nothing more about Vivienne to me. I met her eyes
in hope. Hope that she was going to take my hand and tell me that I was hers,
that there was no one else. That Vivienne was history.
She didn’t. Instead, she looked past me to the window.
“Right.” Focus on the street, Saunders, or you’ll make a scene.
Friends and no statement on supposed ex. Not a great sign that she wanted
something more.
Berne had been stoic since we had left France. She had been
arguing with Babs in hushed whispers. Even today, Rebecca and Babs were arguing
and had stopped as I walked into the room. I’d been too distracted before to
notice but warning bells were clanging in my head now.
Maybe it was just my mood? I’d been fielding calls from my irate
mother. My sister had been texting me to tell me just what she thought of me.
To say I’d been withdrawn was an understatement. It had been a lot to process.
Maybe they were just worried about me and giving me my space.
“Are you comfortable with me living in Ajoux?” I felt a sense of
awkwardness. That horrible feeling when you knew you were doing something wrong
but you didn’t know what.
“Why would I not?” She motioned towards the door with a fed up
sigh. “You are ready?”
Her nonchalant, bored expression didn’t fool me. Something was
going on. I wanted to ask her what it was. Had I messed up somewhere along the
line? Why hadn’t she come to find me, to hold me? Her body language was cold,
cut off, disaffected. Yet I caught her looking at me. So did she want me or
not? My head hurt. It was official. Women confused the toffee out of me.
“As I’ll ever be.”
I cast one last glance around the safe haven and followed Berne
down the steps as the door swung closed behind us. The deluge was in full flow
outside as if London was wishing me a wet farewell.
“Do you think we’ll make the flight if we stop for dinner first?”
I asked Rebecca, who was deep in conversation with Babs. They seemed to relish chatting
about business almost as much as they relished something else they often snuck
away for. Inseparable was too light a word.
“You thinking what I’m thinking?”
I smiled. “Gino will be wondering where we are.”
Rebecca chatted to the cab driver and gave him instructions. I
tried to ignore that, I not only sat next to Berne, but her thigh was pressed
against mine.
“You going for the usual?” Rebecca asked.
“Of course.” Silly question. It wasn’t like I did anything
adventurous, you know, apart from turning my entire life upside down.
“I peg you for a garlic mushroom girl,” Rebecca said to Babs whose
eyes twinkled in response.
“Perhaps. It depends who has cooked it.”
Laughing, Rebecca waved her hands. “Well, Gino’s is great. I mean
they aren’t Ajoux great but they still make a pretty tasty dish.”
“I will take your word for this,
non
?”
Goodness, they were smushy. “Hey, doe eyes. We’re in London now.”
My words stopped her leaning in further and giving the cabbie
heart failure.
“So, Berne,” Rebecca said, covering her tracks as Babs folded her
arms with a frown. “What is your dish?”
“Spinach tagliatelle,” I answered without thinking.
“Ah ha!” Rebecca wagged her finger at me. “Got you!”
Feeling the blush spreading over my cheeks, I stared out at the
rain-soaked city.
“There is something we miss?” Babs asked.
“Yeah,” Rebecca answered. “See, before we came to France, Pip and
I had to order food.”
I hated that smug cocky grin. Traitor.
“This one didn’t have a clue what Doug wanted after living in the
guy’s pockets for eight years.” She grinned wider, I could see it in my
peripheral vision as I continued to stare out. “But it seems she had a place
for a certain person’s favourite.”
Babs murmured in agreement, the pair launching into teasing. Berne
was looking at me, staring at me, I could feel it. Her thigh next to mine felt
warm, familiar, oh how that night on the Ardèche flooded back into my thoughts.
“You remember well, Pepe,” Berne whispered in my ear. From icy to
red hot in one hushed sentence. “Do you remember the weekend we go to taste it
in Italy?”
“Nope, not at all. Complete blank.”
More laughter, more teasing, and the thoughts of Italy now pulsed
into my mind. How many delicious memories could two people make in one year?
More to the point, did she want more than just memories with me?
THE NIGHT IN Gino’s was perfect. The food was phenomenal with Gino
and his family pulling out the stops to wish us well. We had the best table in
the house, which was next to a painted wall depicting a villa stretching out
into olive groves. Babs looked quite perplexed by it, which made me chuckle.
She probably visited the real thing often enough not to need to paint brick
with an image.
Berne sat beside me during dinner as the conversation relied more
and more on Rebecca and Babs. I found myself desperate to know what thoughts
whirred behind the Berne’s captivating eyes. She was hard to resist at the best
of times but there was something extra special about her in a pensive mood.
Something which beckoned to me, calling me to lean in, to whisper to her.
Calling me to discover what lay deeper inside her. It was followed with a
worrying undercurrent I may not
want
to know. What if it wasn’t me in
her thoughts?
Rebecca had dragged Babs off to show her some of the paintings
Gino had composed and I leaned on my fist and enjoyed just being next to Berne.
Her presence fired desire and contentment through me in equal measure. Even
now, after all these years just looking at her provoked . . . need. A need for
what I wasn’t sure but it was still there, still connecting me to her.
“Do you remember the villas?” Berne whispered as if to herself.
Her gaze on the painting on the wall. “The Cypress trees flanked the country
roads. We drove until we reached the shores of the lake.”
It had been less than a week after we got together on the beach.
I’d been a tangled mess of excitement, panic, and puppy love. Berne had been so
patient with me. I had no real frame of reference as to how one should act with
a woman they loved in public. This had led me to veer from acting as if I
didn’t know her to being attached like a limpet. I had a habit of retreating
inside when I was trying to work things out and Berne was always the one to
force me to talk, to let my feelings out.
She had wanted all of me, not just politeness. She wanted me free
and open. It had been a battle but I’d been happier because of it then.
“Lake Garda. You took me on a boat tour.” I smiled at the feeling
of summer in my heart, cool breeze in my hair, and Berne’s warm arms around me.
She’d put up with me being cold until she spotted the boat tour. She’d dragged
me aboard without letting me argue and held me the way she wanted to until I
relaxed.
“You confessed to me that you were scared.” Berne stared down at
her hands, her long fingers linked together. “You say that it was like setting
sail without knowing if you would ever reach safe harbour.”
One of my more poetic moments. Berne had a tendency to inspire me.
Although, I distinctly remember using the term armbands and not knowing the
French for them. All of which had resulted in me flapping my arms around as if
attempting to fly. Yes, a true poet.
After all, what was love without inflatable armbands?
“You told me that I would always be safe with you.” Berne had said
it through howling laughter at the time. Her belly chuckle had provoked a
giggling fit from me. Goodness knows what the other passengers had thought. “We
laughed a lot, didn’t we?”
A smile drifted across her lips. “When you are young and in love
there is much to be joyful for.” She sighed. “It is not as easy as you change
and grow. Things happen. Life happens. Laughter is not so easy to embrace,
non
?”
I felt dual twinges of jealousy and concern at her words. I had a
feeling it had much to do with a woman in Marseille. “
She
doesn’t make
you laugh?”
Berne’s gaze remained on her hands. She ran her thumb over her
right middle finger. I had noticed a silver ring but now I was beginning to
understand the meaning of it. A horrible cold squelchy feeling settled in my stomach.
She was wearing her ring. I hadn’t noticed it in the Ardèche but now it was
back in place.
“Vivienne is not one for careless laughter. She is . . .”
An idiot?
An ex that you left for me?
Were my first thoughts but it
was probably best I didn’t share them. Don’t make a scene, Saunders. “Intense?”
“
Oui
.” Berne grunted it so that it sounded more like “way”
than “wee.” A very French way of saying “yeah.” The unimpressed flick of her
eyebrows ignited hope in me. She’d told me she was loyal to Vivienne. I’d been
sure she’d leave her for me. I thought she’d left her. Had I just presumed it?
I racked my brain, trying to see if I’d missed something. Berne said she loved
me. She’d been very thorough in showing me she did. The way she was talking
about Vivienne now was very much in present tense.
I started fiddling with my napkin. I didn’t know what to think
now.
“I wish to tell her, Pepe. She should know.” Berne met my gaze.
“She will not take it well.”
I didn’t blame Viper-Vixen for that. I didn’t know what lunacy it
would have provoked from me. All I knew was somehow I was now consoling Berne
about telling her as if I was a sordid affair. “About the Ardèche?”
“
Oui
.” Berne’s eyes deepened.
My heart sped up. I felt so drawn to her that nothing else around
me mattered. Confused and unable to do a thing about it, all I did know was
that I was leaning in.
Berne placed her finger over my lips. “Pepe, I cannot—”
“Pip!”
I jumped. My hands shook from the realisation that I had forgotten
my bearings. Had I really just gone to kiss her? I was in London. You didn’t go
smooching people in public. Berne’s fingertip still pressed against my lips.
“You can’t?” I pulled her finger away. Her eyes deepened in colour
as I moved closer. London or not, I needed an answer.
“I—”
“Oi!”
Berne sighed and broke eye contact.
I turned to Rebecca, doing my best to avoid glaring at her. Not
great timing. “What?”