Lindsey Kelk - We Were On a Break

‘It’ll be amazing,’ she said, with an assured nod I couldn’t return. ‘And there’s my dad’s sixty-fifth coming up, Gus’s christening, your birthday, my birthday …’

I made a noncommittal noise, trying to hold her hand, remember if I’d had a response to my last email from Jim, the guy who owned the bar, and open Google Maps to check where this bloody restaurant was supposed to be. All I could see was beach, beach, and more beach. We’d already been walking forever and I certainly couldn’t see a five-star restaurant with sunset views and a ridiculously-expensive-to-hire string quartet hiding anywhere nearby.

‘Things have been mental at the surgery, it feels like everyone on earth just adopted ten dogs and they’ve all got ear infections or worms or something else disgusting—’

‘Liv?’ I interrupted.

‘Yes?’ she looked up at me with big blue eyes, all smudgy with make-up but in a good way.

‘No.’

There was nothing like a woman talking about putting her hand up a dog’s backside to put you in the mood for a romantic proposal – not.

‘Sorry,’ she opened her mouth to say something else and then clamped it shut, staring out to sea. She didn’t look happy.

‘Liv?’

‘Yeah?’

‘What do you think Daniel Craig is doing right now?’ I asked.

She turned round, shielding her eyes from the sun and gave me a look.

‘The actor or the cat?’

‘The cat.’

‘Eating, sleeping or having a shit,’ she replied, pulling on my hand as she began to lag. ‘That’s more or less all he does these days.’

‘What do you think Daniel Craig the actor is doing right now?’

‘Eating, sleeping or having a shit? That’s more or less all he does these days.’

‘Weirdo,’ I laughed, flapping my elbows slightly as I tried to find a phone signal and hoped there wasn’t a massive sweat stain on the back of my shirt. Should have worn an undershirt. Should have put deodorant on my back. Should have done a lot of things.

Liv pressed her lips together into a thin smile. ‘ You’re a weirdo.’

‘Yeah, but that’s why you love me.’ I choked on the words as the map came up. We were nowhere near the restaurant – it was a ten-minute drive away, not a ten-minute walk.

‘I knew there had to be a reason,’ she said, trying to subtly pull a strand of hair out of her lip gloss. ‘Are you excited about the christening?’

‘I can’t believe my brother is a dad,’ I replied, still staring at my phone. ‘He wasn’t even allowed to bring the school guinea pig home during the holidays and now he’s got a baby.’

Recalculating the route, I looked down at Liv, wincing with every step she took.

‘Anyway, it really has been the best holiday ever,’ she said slowly. ‘I can’t imagine anything nicer.’

‘Yeah, incredible,’ I agreed, a cold sweat running down my back. How could I have messed this up? ‘Total once-in-a-lifetime thing.’

‘And I can’t imagine anyone I’d rather be with, yeti.’ She looked up and gave me the smallest, sweetest smile and I thought I was going to be sick. In a good way. Sort of. ‘Ever.’

Oh god, I was actually going to be sick. Everything had been planned so carefully, right down to the smallest detail, and I had cocked up the directions. Maybe it was a sign. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to propose after all.

‘You obviously haven’t given it enough thought,’ I said, forcing out a laugh to distract from the fact I was dying inside. ‘You’re saying you’d rather be on holiday with me than Channing Tatum?’

‘Why Channing Tatum?’

‘I don’t know,’ I admitted. ‘He’s good looking, isn’t he? All buff and that. And he can dance. Women love men who can dance.’

‘You can’t dance – and I love you ,’ she said, curling her fingers tightly around mine. ‘And I’d definitely pick you over Channing Tatum.’

‘Really?’

‘You’ve got better hair,’ she nodded thoughtfully. ‘And I couldn’t do that to his wife. She seems lovely.’

I’d been so worried about what to wear, about getting the music right, the menu right, about fixing my massive Teen Wolf eyebrows, I’d completely messed up our timing. We were supposed to get to the restaurant in time to watch the sun go down. At this rate, it would be the middle of the night before we got there.

‘Really, though,’ Liv started with a crack in her voice and my stomach turned over again. ‘I don’t want to be with anyone other than you, Adam. There’s no one else for me, ever.’

I let go of her hand and wiped my sweaty palms on the back of my jeans.

‘Yeah, better the devil you know,’ I said, my tongue tripping over my words. ‘It’s like Star Wars . You’ve got the original trilogy and they’re great, but then George Lucas says he’s going to make new films and you get all excited but you end up with The Phantom Menace .’

Liv knitted her perfectly groomed eyebrows together. I always hoped our children would have her eyebrows.

‘You’ve lost me.’

‘I’m saying, our relationship is like the original Star Wars ,’ I explained. ‘So I can’t dump you in case I end up with The Phantom Menace .’

The sun had already started to slip away over the horizon but it was not difficult to make out my girlfriend’s expression. She didn’t look nearly as pleased with the analogy as I was.

‘What I’m saying is …’ I rubbed my palms together then took her hand back in mine. ‘You’re A New Hope . That’s good! And it’s better to stick with you because who knows if the next girl is going to be a Force Awakens or a Phantom Menace .’

‘If I were you, I’d probably just stop talking.’ She looked around the deserted beach, clearly confused. ‘Yeti, where is the restaurant?’

‘So, there’s a small chance I was looking at the driving directions when I said it was ten minutes away,’ I replied, reviewing the map. ‘It’s further than I thought?’

‘How much further?’ she asked, a noticeable hobble in her walk.

I bloody well knew those shoes of hers would be trouble.

‘The good news is, we’ve already been walking for twenty minutes,’ I replied with a tentative smile. ‘And it’s only fifty minutes away altogether.’

‘Fifty minutes!’

Liv stopped dead in her tracks, looking at me as though I’d just told her she had to walk the rest of the way barefoot, over hot coals.

‘I can’t walk another half an hour in these shoes.’ As she leaned forward, her blonde hair fell in front of her face, showing off her long neck as she messed around with the miniscule gold buckles. I hated those shoes but I loved that neck. I wanted to kiss it. But this really was not the time. ‘My foot is killing me.’

I bloody knew it.

‘Well, take your shoes off and we’ll walk on the sand,’ I suggested, looking at the uneven path that ran down the side of the beach. Even my leathery Hobbit feet wouldn’t fancy that much.

‘I can’t,’ she said, wincing as she removed her left shoe. ‘My foot is a bit of a mess.’

‘Oh my god, there’s a hole in your foot!’ I made an involuntary gipping sound as she pulled the shoe away to reveal what must have been a particularly nasty blister about fifteen minutes ago. ‘Why didn’t you say something?’

‘You were in such a rush.’ She leaned against the low tidal wall and poked gently at the weeping mess formerly known as her foot. ‘I didn’t want to be late.’

‘I told you not to wear those shoes,’ I said, mad at her foot, mad at Google and possibly, very slightly mad at myself.

‘You also told me the restaurant was ten minutes away,’ she snapped back. ‘I can’t help it.’