Chapter Twenty

‘Don't deny it, you were enjoying that scene back there,' Joe commented as we strolled into the thick of the fête, dozens more children high on fairy cakes and full sugar squash pinballing across our path. Almost nothing had changed since I was a little girl. Same stalls, same games, even mostly the same people. My mouth watered at the sight of whipped cream and fresh jam sandwiched into the middle of a Victoria sponge. Some things just couldn't be improved on.

‘What scene?' I replied innocently as we stepped around a gaggle of little kids, sitting in a circle in the middle of the green, swapping stickers. Who needed smartphones? Sticker superiority would always exist.

‘Your mother's "literary salon". Don't pretend you weren't.'

‘I wouldn't exactly say enjoying it,' I replied, ‘but you were the one who said it would be easy to play author. Spoke too soon, didn't we?'

Joe kept his head down so I wouldn't see his face but I did.

‘Possibly fractionally prematurely. And now you're angry with me again.'

‘I'm frustrated with the situation,' I corrected before wandering over to the nearest stall.

Joe stayed close behind, attached to me like one of the toddlers I saw leashed to their mothers, only able to toddle so far before they were yanked back onto the bums. The stall held all kinds of homemade treats, anything and everything that could be forced into a jar, from pickled beetroot to pickled blackberries, and a vast colourful array of homemade jams. Joe picked up a jar of damson jam and his eyes lit up like Christmas.

‘I haven't had damson jam since I was a little kid,' he said, pulling out his wallet and handing over a fifty, refusing change as he loaded up on jars of jam, much to the delight of the man behind the stall.

‘Big fan of damsons, are you?' I asked when he pulled a fold-up tote bag out of his back pocket to carry his purchases. It was a strangely erotic move and I felt a low down flutter at the sight of it. This was bad. No one should be aroused by a reusable shopping bag, not ever.

Joe held one of the jars aloft like it was the Holy Grail, the others weighing down the bag on his shoulder. ‘Do you think it'll still taste the same?'

‘Can't see why it wouldn't, they haven't changed damsons as far as I know.'

He opened it, his huge hand covering the small lid and twisting it off with ease. Another ordinary move that made my thighs clench when it shouldn't. Then he stuck two fingers into the jam and pulled them out, red and glistening, before sliding them into his mouth, eyes closed. I wasn't sure if it was possible to spontaneously orgasm based on visual stimulation alone, again I was not a neuroscientist, but my field research suggested it might be.

‘It tastes exactly the same.'

Joe's eyes opened and found mine straight away, wide and wondrous. I watched as he licked every trace of jam from his skin, unable to move. I couldn't believe how badly I wanted to knock him down to the ground and take the same two fingers between my own lips to find out how good he might taste.

‘Want some?' The tart smell of the dark fruit hit me like smelling salts.

‘No,' I replied, curt and clipped. Anything more was too much of a risk.

He shook the jar from side to side, my head involuntarily moving with it. ‘Sure you don't want a taste?'

I wanted more than just a taste.

‘Can you put the lid back on please?' I begged under my uneven breath. ‘People are starting to stare.'

Joe turned to take a quick survey of the busy fête. ‘Are they?'

‘Bloody well put the lid back on,' I ordered as he dug back in for a second taste. ‘Who walks around eating jam out the jar?'

He looked down at me, fingers still in his mouth.

‘Me.'

There was nothing I could say and my mouth was the only part of me that was dry.

Rolling his eyes, he slowly screwed the lid back onto the jar and placed it safely in his tote bag with the others. Staring intently at the best vegetable contest at the end of the green, I marched towards the enormous turnips with purpose.

‘Here's the thing,' Joe said, only ever one step behind at most. ‘We're pretty much in the clear now, at least for the weekend. Your mum has sworn everyone to secrecy and your sister has threatened them with grievous bodily harm, and if there's one thing I've learned about the women in your family, it's that their threats hold water.'

‘What about your dad?' I asked, pleased to see he was learning.

‘My dad can be a lot of things but he won't shoot his mouth off about this if I ask him not to. And bribe him. Although technically, you'll be bribing him since you're the one with all the cash.'

He was probably right. If anyone spoiled her surprise, Charlotte would chop their hands off and I wouldn't want to be on Pandora Taylor's bad side. He'd bought us a little more time at least. The afternoon was warming up and my dress was beginning to stick to my skin. I grabbed a handful of hair and secured a messy bun with my trusty claw clip.

‘Might be useful if I had a few stock answers to common questions,' Joe suggested. ‘In case there are any insistent fans tonight.'

‘What kind of answers?'

‘How you came up with the title, what inspired the Texas setting, will there be a sequel,' he replied, listing some of the most hotly debated questions on TikTok. ‘And one for me, how did you decide on your pseudonym?'

‘You're going to laugh,' I said, colouring up as I spoke.

‘Promise I won't.'

‘Este is me, S Taylor. S-Tay.'

‘And what about Cox?'

I winced, scrunching my entire face up tightly.

‘I thought it was funny?'

Joe's jam jars clanked together with the force of his laughter.

‘You promised you wouldn't laugh!' I protested as he doubled over.

‘And you can't make dick jokes without expecting it to raise a titter,' he replied. ‘Sophie, Sophie, Sophie, for shame.'

‘It's not like I expected to ever be in a position where I had to explain myself,' I said, not even attempting to defend my incredible immaturity. ‘I know it's stupid.'

Wiping a tear away from under his eye, he shook his head. ‘It's perfect. I should write a sequel from Eric's perspective under the name Hugh G. Balls.'

‘Feel free,' I groaned, the spectre of one of my remaining unsolved problems popping back into view. ‘Someone has to deliver a manuscript next week and I'm struggling.'

The side of Joe's hand brushed against mine as we walked, our little fingers almost interlocking before it was gone again.

‘Classic second album syndrome,' he said. ‘Sometimes talking it through helps a creative block. What's the problem?'

‘Wish I knew,' I replied, tucking my hands safely away underneath my armpits. ‘I thought I knew exactly what I was going to do but I'm so lost. I've got the plot and I've written a draft, but I can't quite get under the skin of what the book is about, if that makes sense.'

‘Makes perfect sense,' he assured me, two little lines appearing between his brows as he concentrated. ‘What would you say the first book is about?'

‘Trust.'

The word reverberated too loudly around us. Five letters that didn't get the credit they deserved. Whatever Joe was thinking, he kept it well hidden behind a completely impassive face but I felt something change in the air, a subtle shift in the connection between us.

‘Obviously there was also a low-key hidden theme of having incredible sex but I don't know if you would've picked that up,' I joked, trying to slice through this new tension but it was stronger than I'd realised and Joe slowed his pace, creating just enough distance between us for me to notice.

‘I think the reason the first book resonated with so many people is because you really feel Jenna's journey,' he said, his tone more professional, more considered. I wondered if I was meeting Creative Director Joe for the first time. ‘The reader experiences all her thoughts and feelings firsthand. It's very immediate.'

‘Thank you.'

‘You're welcome.'

The high summer sun beat down on the back of my neck. Every time I took a step closer, he pulled back, either with a snide comment, a sleazy joke or a frosty withdrawal. Each attempt at vulnerability from either of us met an attempt to block. It was the only thing constant with him. Well, maybe not the only constant. His ability to make me feel like I was about to implode was fairly dependable. But if he wanted to swich to strictly professional three seconds after making me watch him lick jam off his fingers, it was no skin off my nose.

‘When we meet Jenna, she's completely closed off but by the end of book one, she's opening up,' I said, matching him measured step for measured step. ‘She knows what she wants. The sequel is supposed to be about her taking the necessary steps to get it but I can't seem to make it sing. It feels flat.'

‘You're likely being far harder on yourself than anyone else would be,' he reasoned. ‘What have you got so far?'

Pausing in front of the Brownie friendship bracelet stall, I peeled a stray strand of hair from my damp forehead and shrugged. ‘Nothing good.'

‘At the end of book one, Jenna had to leave Texas to go home to England,' Joe prompted. ‘And Eric went to Alaska to reconnect with his brother.'

I chewed on my bottom lip, flushing with pleasure at how well he knew the book. He really had read it. He really had paid attention.

‘Jenna goes back to Austin to profess her love for Eric but, when she arrives, he's still in Alaska,' I said, looking around to make sure no one was listening. ‘Nobody's heard from him in months, he isn't answering his phone or replying to emails but all his friends explain to her, this is very standard Eric. But then she meets a hot bartender—'

‘Called Joe?'

‘Called Elijah.'

‘There's still time to change it,' he said, the first crack showing in his newly acquired professional armour. I should've known he couldn't keep it up for long.

‘Eventually Eric comes back and Jenna finds herself in a love triangle between the two of them,' I said, flicking my hands out in front of me. ‘And then I'm stuck.'

Joe rubbed at the spot underneath his chin, his official ‘I'm thinking' move and his head bobbed from side to side as he considered the possibilities.

‘Love triangles are hard to pull off when people are already invested in the central relationship. Does Jenna fall in love with Elijah?'

‘No, he's just a stand in.'

‘But she loves Eric.'

‘Yes but she doesn't know if she can trust him.' The jars of jam in Joe's bag clanked together, the only other sound either of us made. ‘He's the first person she ever really opened her heart to and he vanished on her.'

‘That was their deal though.' There was a defensive edge in his voice I couldn't miss. ‘One month together then they both walk away. Isn't she being hard on him?'

‘But they fell in love,' I reminded him. ‘And that wasn't part of the deal.'

‘It never is.'

He left me behind, wandering over to a fruit and vegetable stand and examining a punnet of strawberries without me. I studied his stance, the tight set of his shoulders, tension in his neck, even his feet pointed straight forward as though he was afraid to relax.

‘You've got to trust your gut,' he said when I eventually followed to stand beside him. ‘Butterflies works because it was real to you when you were writing. You have to write what's in your heart.'

‘Keeping in mind the readers will tear me into pieces if she doesn't end up with Eric?'

‘There is that,' he admitted. ‘Still, you can't write to order. It has to be true to you, just like the first time.'

‘Thank goodness you became such an authority on Butterflies so very quickly,' I said, sizing up a basket full of glossy blackberries.

His smile returned slowly, still more removed than before and not quite making it all the way to his eyes. ‘I read it again on my Kindle last night when I couldn't sleep.'

‘You couldn't sleep?' I replied with surprise.

Joe picked up a blackberry and rested it on his bottom lip, the forced distance in his eyes dissolving into something warmer.

‘Did you?'

‘How much for these?' I asked the woman behind the stall, swallowing hard and reaching for a punnet of strawberries freshly picked and plump. They smelled so sweet and strong, I could almost taste them.

‘Four pounds for one, three for a tenner,' she replied. ‘You can mix and match with the raspberries.'

I looked up and down her table, seeing nothing but a sea of strawberries.

‘But there aren't any raspberries?'

‘No,' she replied. ‘They're all gone.'

‘Just the strawberries then,' I said politely. ‘Thanks.'

Was it any wonder people preferred the self-checkout at the supermarket? Sure, we'd regret it when the robots took over the world but that felt like a small price to pay to avoid interactions like this.

‘Let me,' Joe said, cash already in his hand when I tried to stop him.

The woman slid the green cardboard punnet into a brown paper bag before handing it to me, openly gawping at Joe. Another thing you didn't have to worry about at the self-checkout.

‘Thank you,' I said as I hurriedly steered him out of danger. Two more seconds and he'd have gone the way of the raspberries. ‘I was going to ask if you wanted to play hook-a-duck but I'll take strawberries instead.'

‘They've got hook-a-duck?'

I'd never seen someone get so excited so quickly.

‘Over there,' I said, pointing past the stalls.

Behind the coconut shy and a truculent-looking pony I wouldn't have gone near even if you paid me, was a round stall surrounded by people already one Pimm's too many into their day, brandishing long sticks with metal hooks on the end, a lawsuit waiting to happen.

‘We've got to do it,' Joe insisted, all his walls tumbling down as he grabbed my hand to drag me across the green. ‘I'm amazing at hook-a-duck.'

‘You're amazing at putting a hook through a loop?' I gasped in mock admiration. ‘Someone get me a fainting couch.'

‘You wait and see,' he said as we approached the stall, a sea of little plastic ducks, yellow and pink, sailing around him in a circular trough full of water. ‘I'm the master.'

‘What's the grand prize?' I asked the man behind the ducks, keeping my stick safely below eye level when he handed it over.

‘Squishmallow or teddy bear,' he replied before taking a drag off a vape pen. ‘Up top.'

I followed his pointing finger to find a half-bald teddy bear and a weepy stuffed walrus gazing down at me. The saddest Squishmallow in all the land.

‘I want that walrus,' I said to Joe, a newfound determination in my hook-a-duck game. ‘Can you get three ducks?'

‘Don't insult me.' He was already leaning over the stall as far as was legally allowed, hook at the ready. ‘Whoever gets the most ducks, wins.'

‘You want the walrus too?' I replied as I assumed position.

‘What I want isn't up on that board.'

He looked over at me and grinned as his hook slipped through the loop on a neon pink duck and he raised it victoriously over his head. ‘I'll tell you after I win. One down, two to go.'

‘Right,' I replied. ‘We'll see about that.'

‘The whole thing was rigged,' Joe complained as we crossed the green back towards his dad's car, sad walrus Squishmallow safely under my arm. ‘Half the loops on the ducks were too small for anyone to hook them.'

‘They weren't too small for me.'

‘Man probably gave me a bigger hook,' he sulked. ‘Wanted to make me look stupid.'

‘That would be a massive waste of his time,' I said with a generous pat on the shoulder. ‘You can do that all by yourself.'

I heard him huff quietly through his nose and squeezed my walrus with delight.

‘Hang on,' I said as we turned the corner to where he'd parked the car. ‘You said first to three ducks wins. What did I win?'

He pulled the key fob out of his trouser pocket and opened the boot, stashing the damson jam and strawberries safely away. ‘You've got your walrus, haven't you?'

‘And you said the walrus wasn't the prize.' I hugged Walter closer because yes, of course I had named him already. ‘So what is?'

‘I've been thinking about your sequel,' he said, one hand still hanging onto the top of the raised boot. ‘Eric went to Alaska to reunite with his brother, but do you think he might also be running away from his feelings for Jenna?'

‘What makes you say that?' I asked, slightly miffed that I hadn't already realised it myself.

Joe left the boot open and leaned against the side of the car.

‘From the first night they meet, he keeps telling her he doesn't do relationships, so falling in love the way they do and then her leaving probably made him feel vulnerable. It makes sense to me that he'd want to put some physical space between himself and the place where that happened.'

‘Sounds like something you have experience with,' I replied, treading lightly. ‘Any chance you're projecting?'

He started to shake his head but the gesture turned into a shrug before he could complete it. ‘I don't know. Vulnerability isn't a comfortable emotion for me.'

‘I don't think it's comfortable for anyone,' I sat Walter in the boot then closed it carefully. ‘I don't think it's supposed to be.'

‘Eric doesn't do relationships,' Joe said, looking in my direction but not quite meeting my eyes. Behind him, a wall of weeping willows danced as a car drove by. ‘He wasn't looking for anything, he wasn't ready for something so intense.'

‘Neither of them were,' I replied, fully aware we were crossing into dangerous territory. ‘What's your point?'

‘I can understand why his connection to Jenna might make him want to run away. Eric and I are a lot alike.'

It shouldn't have stung but it did.

‘Good to know but I'm not sure where that leaves book two.' I teased a loose thread on the cuff of my sleeve, winding it around my forefinger until it pulled tight. ‘Sorry, ladies, Eric was only here for a good time, not a long time, it's not going to work out.'

‘This is when I remind you your book is a fantasy,' Joe replied. ‘And I'm not Eric.'

‘You might want to tell Aunt Carole that.' I moved my attention from my cardigan to my pink painted fingernails. I didn't want to look at him.

But I couldn't stop myself.

His eyes were on me now, cautious and wary, as though I might bolt at any second. It was a distinct possibility. I'd rather launch myself into the river than endure another second of this terrible silence. Another car went by, rustling the trees as they bent towards him, straining to make contact, but he was always just out of reach.

‘You still want to know what my prize was going to be if I'd won?' he asked.

I combed a loose strand of hair behind my ear and nodded.

‘I was going to ask for a kiss.'

My breath hitched in my chest, seizing up, unable to escape even when I parted my lips to respond.

‘Maybe you should ask anyway,' I heard myself say. ‘You never know your luck.'

Joe moved first, peeling himself away from the car and walking around towards me as I backed up, the hot metal of the Range Rover burning through the thin fabric of my dress. He stopped right in front of me, brown suede desert boots toe-to-toe with my black leather sandals, the car behind me, Joe in front. There was nowhere for me to go.

‘I thought it might be a good idea,' he said. ‘Get it out of our systems.'

‘That sounds like something Eric would say,' I replied as he wrapped my ponytail around his fist and pulled gently, angling my face upwards towards his. ‘But you're not Eric.'

‘No, I'm not,' Joe murmured against my lips. ‘He's just a fantasy. I'm real.'

And then he kissed me.