Soren’s reply had arrived while Delia was brushing her teeth.
Perhaps he went somewhere with better plumbing.
She had laughed with toothpaste in her mouth, then stood at the sink composing an answer far longer than the joke required. Before she sent it, another message came.
I have a couple of hours tomorrow afternoon. Walk and something to eat? No delivery scheduled. I’ve checked twice.
Now he stood beside the beach steps holding a paper bag in one hand and looking at the sky with suspicion.
“It’s supposed to hold,” Delia said.
“So was Tuesday.”
She had brought the umbrella he lent her to coffee and hadn’t taken back. She held it out. He accepted it, slipped it through the straps of his backpack, and offered to carry the little bag containing her water.
“I’ve got it.”
“All right.”
They took the lower path along the beach, where the tide had left a broad strip of firm sand. Delia had checked the tide times on the noticeboard at the steps. Soren glanced at them too before they set off. The simple, unremarked caution reassured her more than a promise that he knew the coast.
For the first few minutes they talked about the film again, but only long enough for him to admit that one of the sisters had irritated him too. Then she told him about the local collection.
“The shopping list was the best thing there,” she said.
“Better than the model boat?”
“Much better.”
“I helped carry that boat upstairs. I’ll try not to take it personally.”
She looked at him. “You did?”
“Four of us. Very narrow stairs. Someone kept saying it would fit if we turned it.”
“Did it?”
“Eventually. I wasn’t sure all four of us would.”
He moved closer to the water to let a family pass. When he came back beside her, their sleeves brushed. Neither adjusted course.
Near a shallow inlet, Soren stopped to pick up a flat stone. He weighed it in his palm, bent slightly, and sent it across the water. It struck once and disappeared.
Delia waited.
“That was the demonstration?”
“Wrong stone.”
“Of course.”
He found another. This one skipped twice before sinking. She applauded with two fingers against her palm.
“Your turn,” he said.
“I didn’t claim any expertise.”
“Neither did I.”
“You selected the stone very confidently.”
He held out a smaller one. She took it, surprised by its smooth coolness, and tried to imitate his movement. It hit the water with a satisfying plop several feet short of where she intended.
Soren looked at the spreading circles. “Decisive.”
“It’s where I wanted it.”
“Then well done.”
She found another stone and tried again. It bounced once. She turned toward him with an excitement disproportionate to the achievement, and he grinned back.
“There.”
“Was that two? The first hit and then the bounce?”
“I don’t think you count the first.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s falling. Everything can do that.”
She considered the water. “Harsh rules.”
He showed her the angle of his wrist without touching her. She tried twice more, succeeding once and failing spectacularly the second time when the stone flew sideways and landed on the sand.
“No one saw,” he said.
“You saw.”
“I can be persuaded to forget.”
She picked up the stray stone, brushed the sand from it, and put it back among the others. When she straightened, he was watching her with a smile that had nothing to do with the failed throw.
“What?” she asked.
“You looked very pleased with that first one.”
“I was.”
“Good.”
He picked up the food bag. She followed him toward the path, conscious of the warmth the few minutes had brought into her body. She had been concentrating so fiercely on being reasonable all week that she had forgotten how satisfying it was to be briefly, pointlessly competitive.
At the bottom of the incline she looked back at the inlet. The circles had vanished. She considered another attempt, then caught up with him because lunch was in the bag and she was hungry.
They found a sheltered place above the beach, a low grassy patch with a view of the harbor mouth. Soren spread an old blanket over the dry ground. Delia sat with her legs folded to one side while he unpacked sandwiches and a bag of apples.
“I remembered you said you don’t cook,” he said. “I bought these.”
“I can make a sandwich.”
“Good. That’s a relief for the sandwiches.”
She took one, unwrapped the paper, and discovered he had chosen the kind she mentioned at the cafe when the person beside them ordered lunch. She had barely remembered saying it herself.
He sat at an angle to her, one knee raised. The wind had pushed his hair away from his forehead. In the strong daylight she could see how little he was trying to impress her. His jacket had a fraying seam at the cuff. There was a smear of mustard on his thumb.
She liked him. The uncomplicated fact frightened her enough that she looked down at her food.
“Did your day improve after you abandoned me to the coffee?” she asked.
He winced. “That bad?”
“No. I was joking.”
“Right.”
“I went to the collection. Then walked. It was a good afternoon.”
He nodded, but she could see he was still considering the first sentence.
“I didn’t mean it as a complaint,” she said.
“I’m not always good at telling.”
“Neither am I.”
They ate quietly for a while. A small boat moved out between the harbor walls, rising and falling more sharply once it reached open water. Delia watched until it became a white mark against the gray.
Soren folded his sandwich paper into a small square.
“Can I ask something?”
She braced herself before she knew why.
“Would you rather I didn’t mention the wedding?”
The word landed without the force she expected. Maybe because he hadn’t lowered his voice around it.
“I don’t mind you mentioning it.”
“All right.”
“What were you going to ask?”
“Nothing else. I wasn’t sure whether to keep stepping around it.”
She picked at a loose thread on the blanket. He had given her room to leave it there. She could have thanked him and asked about the boat.
Instead she said, “He asked if he could take her here.”
Soren looked at her.
“On the holiday. After he called it off.”
The wind lifted a corner of her sandwich paper. She caught it with her palm.
“I’m not explaining this very well.”
“You don’t have to rush.”
She took a breath. “His name is Russell. We’d been together seven years. On Wednesday, the second, he told me he wanted to be with someone from work. On Friday he came to my apartment and asked whether I could change the cottage booking so he could bring her instead.”
Soren’s face went still.
“He said it was already paid for.”
“By you?”
“Yes.”
Soren looked out toward the water. His jaw moved once.
“I said no,” she added.
“I’d hoped you would.”
“He offered to pay something. As if that was the difficult part.”
She had told Yasmin the story in pieces, crying between them. Saying it here made the sequence sound stark and almost improbable. She wondered whether Soren thought she was exaggerating.
“It had been going on for six weeks,” she said. “With her. I didn’t know.”
He met her eyes again. “I’m sorry.”
She nodded, suddenly unable to speak.
A gull landed several yards away and began walking toward the bag. Soren moved it behind his leg without taking his attention from her. The gull stopped, considered the situation, and waited.
“I keep thinking of things I should have noticed,” Delia said. “Then I think of all the times he was exactly the same. I don’t know what to do with those.”
“You might not have to do anything with them today.”
The sentence was simple enough that she could accept it. He did not tell her Russell had never deserved her, or that this would be the best thing that ever happened. She would have disliked him a little if he had.
She wiped beneath one eye with her knuckle.
“I didn’t mean to bring you out for this.”
“You didn’t. I asked.”
“Yes, but I could have talked about something else.”
“Delia.” He stopped, rubbed his thumb along the edge of the folded paper. “I don’t mind knowing.”
She looked at his hand. The white scar across the knuckle was clearer in daylight.
“How did you do that?”
He glanced down. “Broken glass. Years ago.”
“Sorry. I changed the subject very abruptly.”
“I noticed.”
“I wanted to.”
“Then we can.”
She laughed, unsteadily, and reached for her water.
They finished eating. Soren offered her an apple; she shook her head. He bit into one and looked toward the path above them, where a man was trying to persuade a small dog to continue walking. The dog sat with all four feet planted, entirely committed to its position.
After a while Delia said, “Was your divorce awful?”
He took time to finish chewing.
“Yes. In a fairly ordinary way.”
“You don’t have to tell me.”
“I know.”
He put the apple down on its paper.
“I bought the cinema while we were still married. We’d talked about it. I thought that meant she’d agreed to everything that came with it.”
“The hours?”
“The hours. The money being tight at first. Me being there when I was home because I was thinking about the next problem.”
He glanced at Delia, then away.
“She’d ask for an evening, and I’d hear a demand for the whole business to stop. Which wasn’t what she was asking.”
“Did you understand that then?”
“Sometimes. Usually after we’d argued.”
He picked up the apple again, turned it, and set it down without taking another bite.
“There wasn’t anyone else. We just got very good at having the same argument. By the time I tried to change things, she didn’t particularly want to wait and see.”
Delia watched a blade of grass flatten beneath the edge of the blanket.
“Do you still talk?”
“Occasionally. We don’t hate each other. That took a while.”
He looked uncomfortable now, and she was glad of it. The account had not been polished into a story in which he had learned everything necessary and emerged safe for future use.
“I can still get absorbed,” he said. “Yesterday, for example.”
“A delivery isn’t a marriage.”
“No. I know. I don’t mean it’s the same.”
“Good.”
He nodded.
The dog on the path finally stood. Its owner bent to stroke it, and they continued out of sight.
Delia stretched one leg, which had gone numb, and winced. Soren lifted the corner of the blanket so she could move without dragging sand across it. His hand rested near her ankle for a moment. She became intensely aware of the small distance between skin and skin.
She could lean toward him. That was the thought, sudden and specific. She could set down her water, touch his wrist, and see whether the warmth in his face had anything to do with her.
Instead she stood.
“Walk a little farther?”
“Sure.”
He packed the remains of lunch while she shook the blanket. They folded it together, each holding two corners. At the final fold they came close enough that she caught the faint smell of soap beneath the sea air.
For a second neither released the fabric.
Then Soren took it and put it in the backpack.
They followed the path away from the harbor, keeping to the broad upper route. Delia’s body seemed to have acquired a second conversation, conducted beneath whatever they said aloud. She noticed his stride, the sound of his breath on the incline, the way he paused to let her choose whether to stop at the next bench.
She sat. He sat beside her, leaving a comfortable space that did not feel empty.
“I’m having a strange week,” she said.
“I gathered.”
“I like being with you.”
He turned toward her.
She kept looking at the sea. “I don’t want that to become something I’m doing because I can’t bear being alone for five minutes.”
“You spent most of yesterday alone.”
“I know. That’s not quite—”
She broke off, frustrated with herself.
“I can’t tell you what it means,” he said.
“I wasn’t asking you to.”
“Good. Because I’d probably get it wrong.”
She looked at him then. There was no clever reassurance waiting in his expression. He was interested, and uncertain, and a little wary of saying too much.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“To take you to dinner tomorrow.”
Her heart gave one hard, ridiculous beat.
“An actual date?”
“Yes.”
She looked down at her hands. A small piece of grass was stuck to the cuff of her sleeve. She removed it and let it fall.
“I’d like that.”
“Seven?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll meet you by the cinema. There’s a place a few streets over. Nothing elaborate.”
“Good. I haven’t brought elaborate shoes.”
He smiled, and this time she let herself watch his mouth.
They walked back together. At the steps he handed her the water bag and waited while she found the cottage key in her pocket. She had no reason to take it out yet; her hands simply wanted something to do.
“Tomorrow,” he said.
“Tomorrow.”
She climbed the path with the brass key warm in her fist. Halfway up, she looked back. He was still at the bottom, fastening his backpack.
He saw her and lifted his hand.
She lifted hers, key and all.