Holiday with the Best Man

‘I’m glad you like me,’ he said, his voice slightly husky.

Grace knew she ought to leave it there, make him give her a couple of things to carry, and keep it light. But Roland was staring at her mouth, and it was a little too much to resist. She closed the gap between them, stood on tiptoe, and reached up to brush her mouth against his.

When she stepped back, she could see a slash of vivid colour across his cheeks and his eyes had gone all dark.

‘If we weren’t in a public place...’ His voice cracked.

‘But we are,’ she said. ‘And you need to let me carry something.’

In the end, he let her carry the umbrella and the picnic blanket. They found a nice spot on the lawns with a good view of the stage and the lake—where the fireworks were going to be set off—and between them they spread out the blanket, set up the chairs and opened the picnic basket.

When Grace had gone on picnics as a child, the food had consisted of home-made sandwiches stored in a plastic box, a packet of crisps, an apple and maybe a cupcake or some sausage rolls; there might have been cans of lemonade or cola for her and Bella to drink. Everything had been stored in a cool box, and they’d eaten without plates or cutlery.

This was a whole new level of picnic. Roland’s wicker basket had storage compartments for plates, glasses, cutlery, napkins and mugs as well as for the food. And when she helped Roland unpack the food, she discovered that it was on a whole new level from the picnics of her childhood, too. There was artisan seeded bread and butter curls; cold poached chicken with potato salad, watercress and heritage tomatoes; cocktail blinis with cream cheese and smoked salmon; a tub of black olives; oatcakes with crumbly Cheddar, ripe Brie and black grapes; and then strawberries, clotted cream and what looked like very buttery shortbread.

There were bottles of sparkling water, a Thermos which she guessed was filled with coffee, and there was also a tiny bottle of champagne.

‘I thought you might like some bubbly to go with your fireworks,’ Roland said.

Given what she knew about the tragedy in his past, she felt awkward. ‘Are you sure about this?’

He smiled at her. ‘I did say I’m fine about other people drinking.’

‘Then thank you. This is the perfect size for a treat. Plus it means I won’t wake up with a monumental hangover or ask you to make me some banana porridge when we get home,’ she said with a smile.

Then she realised what she’d said. Home. But the house in Docklands wasn’t her home; it was his. She really hoped he hadn’t noticed her gaffe.

But he seemed happy enough as he shared the picnic with her.

‘So what do women expect to talk about on a date?’ he asked.

‘I’m probably not the best person to ask, given that I haven’t dated that much apart from Howard and...’ She let the sentence trail off and grimaced. ‘Sorry. I’m not living up to my part of the deal. Let me start again. I guess it’s about finding out about each other, and what we’ve got in common.’

‘How do you do that?’

She was pretty sure he already knew that. There was absolutely nothing wrong with his social skills. But she’d go with it for now. ‘I guess it’s the same as you’d do with any new friendship or even a business relationship—you start with where you are and work from there. If you’d met your date at a swimming pool, you’d ask her how often she came for a swim, or whether she preferred swimming in the pool to swimming in the sea, or where was the nicest place she’d ever been swimming. That sort of thing.’

He smiled. ‘So, as we’re at a musical event, this is where I ask what sort of music you like? Even though actually I already know that you like popular classical music, and you sing along to the radio.’

She smiled back. ‘And then I ask you what you like, even though you already told me yesterday that you like loud pop punk.’

‘I do.’ He thought about it. ‘I like popular classical music as well as indie rock. And I’ve never been to the opera, but I’ve been to a few good gigs in my time. Especially since Hugh set up Insurgo.’ He paused. ‘So that’s covered what we listen to. If I extend that to actually playing music—I did about a term’s worth of violin lessons before my parents gave in and begged me to stop. What about you?’

‘Apart from singing Christmas carols at the infant school nativity play—oh, and playing the triangle for “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” one year and doing it in completely the wrong place—no,’ she said. ‘None of my friends are musical, either.’