Pernille Hughes - Probably the Best Kiss in the World

“Well, hello ,” Jen heard Lydia say in a salacious tone entirely inappropriate to the urgency of the moment. “Hottie alert.”

He was clearly a Scandi; straw blond hair, blue eyes and very tall from what Jen could see from her contorted position. There wasn’t time to consider what he made of them … of her . She needed to rescue the phone. Who knew how much water had got in? She stretched for it, but they’d drifted further, and even as he scampered to the end of his boat and hung off it himself, they couldn’t reach. Lydia held onto Jen as she leaned herself out beyond what felt logistically possible or sensible.

“I can meet you further along the quay,” he called. And Jen was about to say yes, that was a marvellous idea, when Max decided to restart the engine. The jolt sent Jen’s momentum forwards, and surprised, Lydia didn’t have a firm enough grip on Jen’s hips. Aided by the high nylon content of her skirt on the smooth plastic, Jen sailed headlong into the water like a liner descending the slipway on her maiden voyage.

Coughing and spluttering Jen surfaced and took a moment to gain her bearings between the barge and her GoBoat – which seemed to be moving away in the opposite direction.

“I don’t know how to reverse, Jen!” Max shouted. Looking around, Jen saw the canal was too narrow for Max to simply circle the boat. A horn blared from behind her as a tour boat made its approach. The man on the barge shouted for her to grab the net. She didn’t need telling twice and she felt herself being pulled towards him. Once she’d grabbed onto the barge, the net was pulled up and a hand grasped hers before she was yanked up to lie like a flapping fish on the hot deck.

The first thing she checked, as her cheek dripped on the tarred felting, was that her phone was safely aboard. Turning her head then to the canal, she saw the GoBoat, with the three other girls watching them. They weren’t looking particularly worried. More amused, in fact.

“Keep her!” Lydia called from the back of the disappearing boat. “She’s staying at the boat hotel.” Looking up, Jen saw him nod, clearly understanding where she meant. “Jen! We’ll be in Tivoli if you want to join us for the rides. Don’t worry, it’s on the itinerary!”

Jen stared aghast as it dawned on her that along with taking the mick, they really weren’t stopping. It appeared, primarily by the enormous grin on Lydia’s face, that her hens were abandoning her, sopping wet in bad clothing, in the hands of a topless stranger. That was NOT normal hen-do practice either.

The chill of a breeze hit the back of her thighs at approximately the same moment she registered the sodden orange fabric Lydia was waving at her. Apparently, Lydia had made a final grab for her, and hung onto her skirt.

Ah bugger.

She wasn’t sure she could style this out.

“Yes, so, hello,” she mumbled, shuffling around to sit on her bottom, obscuring her knickers and unpeeling the wet peasant blouse from her skin. Bloody, bloody Lydia.

“Hello,” he replied. His voice had a highly amused tone to it. “Your friends seem to have left you …”

Jen looked back at the canal. The boat had turned a corner and gone. “Those women are not my friends. Those women are dead to me,” Jen said deadpan, “especially the one I live with and who calls herself my sister.” It made him smile and she didn’t feel so pathetic.

No longer flailing in the water or on the deck, she took a proper look at him. Aside from the blondness, his face was an impressive construction of planes and angles, and he had that fine layer of stubble, more style than laziness. His shortish hair was rebelling, but against what, she had no idea, and the complete package was what she’d class as Exquisite. However, it was his eyes which had her fixed. They were a soft cornflower blue and calmly focused on her. Which brought her consciousness back to her own face, which she was sure looked bleeding awful. She gave her cheeks a quick swipe in the hope of clearing any running mascara. Alice Cooper wasn’t a look she was going for.

He looked her up and down, but with concern as opposed to a leer. “Would you like some dry clothes?” Yes, so he had just suggested she get her kit off, but it hadn’t felt untoward, more like common sense. He grabbed a folded fleece blanket from a garden chair perched on the deck and handed it to her. “I think I can find a t-shirt and some shorts.” He nodded towards a set of glass doors, which Jen supposed to be the galley and wrapping the blanket around her middle, followed as he led the way. He stopped abruptly, causing her almost to walk into him as he turned.

“I’m Yakob,” he said. There was the merest hint of an accent, but really only just.

“I’m Jen.”

“It’s great to meet you, Jen,” he said with a smile. It was a friendly smile; he had nice teeth, with one slightly crooked incisor which she particularly liked. Jen was quite happy with flawed perfection. Especially in lieu of those eyes. Being a realist, Jen knew she’d be scouring Well, Honestly! ’s Pantone reference book until she found its match. She had plans for that blue. “It was nice of you to drop in.”

She couldn’t help but roll her eyes. “That’s very funny, Yakob.” He laughed lightly, as he moved on again towards the galley, picking up her phone as they passed. A small piddle of water poured from it, and Jen tried not to sob.

Apparently she’d just walked into a magazine spread. Think designer apartment, minimalist, white walled, but with the smooth curves of the ship’s hull to soften the starkness. The floor was covered in a pale wood and all the soft furnishings were in various greys, right down to the soft wool blanket hanging over the side of the wooden-framed sofa. Aside from a black cast iron wood-burner, every piece of furniture was modern, but it worked with the old walls. Jen knew she shouldn’t be surprised: she’d been seeing it all day around the city – modern and vintage design blended together with ease to give the city a guise of being comfortable in its own skin. Here, in his home, it appeared obscenely smart while still being unspeakably cosy. And it all looked so infuriatingly effortless.

“Wow,” she breathed. “Makes my place look like a charity shop.” Years of curation by two floundering girls, desperate to hang on to every scrap their parents had ever touched, had rendered their home a showcase of shabby chic, with numerous projects they’d started but not quite finished. This place made her embarrassed about it. She so needed to sort it out when she got home.

He’d walked into a room while she stood gobsmacked in the centre of the lounge area. Considering it was a boat, the space was still bright and airy owing to the full length of the ceiling being bisected by one long strip of glass, showing the early evening blue sky above along with glimpses of the tallest buildings on the canal side.

“That’s amazing,” Jen breathed.

“I wanted to have a feature window along the end wall,” he explained from the room beyond, “so I could look out at the canal, but then the tourist boats would also be looking in. So we did this instead. It’s very pretty at night too with the lights from the houses. I have blinds if I don’t want them to see in.” Jen’s mind wandered to what Yakob might be doing at night that he didn’t want the neighbours seeing. She felt some heat rise in her face. Dear God, what was the matter with her? She wasn’t normally prone to inappropriate thoughts like this.

Blushing and flustered, she hustled to the pristine white and chrome kitchen. It was smart and functional rather than an ostentatious showpiece. A narrow window in the wall gave her a view up onto the quay and cobbles. The whole space had her enchanted and amazed, not least because he was a bloke and this place was immaculate. “ We ? That explains the tidiness. You’re married?” She thought it was a fair question, then checked herself with another blush – she was an uninvited guest and a complete stranger at that, it was none of her business.