A Good Place to Nearly Kiss

Eli asked me out in a message so clear I spent twelve minutes looking for the misunderstanding.

Would you like chips and a walk tomorrow evening? Not about the frame. I'm asking you on a date, in case that saves us another conversation about hinges.

I read it in the stockroom. A box of replacement zips pressed against my leg. Somewhere in the shop, Agnes was explaining that we could mend a pocket but not return the money that had fallen out of it.

I typed Yes.

Then Yes, that would be nice.

Then deleted that because it sounded like accepting a dental appointment from a person I wanted to encourage professionally.

I sent: Yes. I promise not to bring a hinge unless the evening takes a very unexpected turn.

He replied before I could regret it.

Good. Six?

By Friday at five, I had changed clothes three times and returned to the first outfit. Bex attended the process by video call, offering advice with the satisfaction of someone whose own tower had recently been repainted to her requirements.

“The blue dress.”

“It's too much.”

“It's a dress, June. You're not arriving with a string quartet.”

“What if he wears work clothes?”

“Then there will be two differently dressed people eating chips. The town will manage.”

I wore the dress with trainers. I put my phone, keys and money in the pockets and admired the practical effect so enthusiastically that Bex told me to stop evaluating the outfit as a prototype.

Eli waited outside the closed ticket office by the harbour. His shirt was clean, though a small varnish mark remained near one cuff. I liked the mark. It made him look like himself rather than somebody who had been hired to play the part of a date.

“You came without the hinge,” he said.

“It's in the pocket. Emergency only.”

We bought chips from the stand near the lifeboat station. The woman serving asked whether we wanted separate portions or a large one to share. We looked at each other with the level of uncertainty normally reserved for choosing a joint mortgage.

“Large,” I said.

Eli nodded with visible relief.

We carried it to the low wall beyond the busiest stretch of pavement. A small onion ring had somehow entered the bag. Eli said it was a bonus. I said it was evidence of inadequate category control. He ate it while I was still explaining.

For the first ten minutes, we talked too much. About the boat, the cinema, a customer who had tried to use a breeze pouch to make a birthday candle harder to blow out. Then a silence arrived and didn't kill either of us.

Eli looked out across the water.

“I've been trying not to ask whether the frame survived today's test.”

“It did.”

“Good.”

“Are we allowed to talk about it now?”

“I think the treaty permits one paragraph.”

I told him about the load test. He told me Stan had finally accepted that a visible repair was not a personal insult to the boat. We used up more than a paragraph and nobody objected.

A small boy dropped a toy into a puddle near the steps. His father retrieved it with a folded leaflet, shook it once and handed it back. The boy immediately held it above the water again, considering the value of repeating the experiment.

“Pip would approve,” I said.

“Your sister?”

“Half-sister. Yes.”

“What's she like?”

“Very confident about putting things in her mouth. Less interested in the wider consequences.”

He smiled.

I told him about Dad's new doorbell. It sounded ridiculous aloud. He didn't treat the ridiculous part as evidence that the feeling beneath it wasn't real.

“I see him quite a lot,” I said. “That's the awkward thing. I miss him and then feel stupid because he's only fifteen minutes away.”

“Fifteen minutes can be a long way if you're not where you expected him to be.”

I looked at my shoes.

“Do you always know what to say?”

“No. I've been saving my three good sentences.”

“That was one?”

“I think so. We'll find out later.”

The sky had changed from pale blue to something warmer at the edges. Nobody had opened a packet. A fishing boat moved through the harbour entrance with a gull following so closely it seemed to be reading the registration.

Our knees touched.

Neither of us moved away.

Eli put the chip bag between us, then realised it occupied the exact space he was trying to cross and moved it to the other side. I laughed. He laughed too, a little breathlessly, and looked at my mouth.

For a moment everything was very simple.

Then the gull arrived.

It hit the bag with astonishing commitment, scattered chips across the wall and took off carrying a portion large enough to raise ethical questions about flight. I yelped. Eli tried to catch the bag and caught my wrist instead. We both stood up, knocking our knees together hard enough that romance became briefly a problem of balance.

The gull landed several yards away and began eating with no sign of remorse.

“Well,” Eli said.

“I hate wildlife.”

“Strong position for a coastal resident.”

I was laughing so hard I couldn't answer.

We walked back holding hands. The first arrangement put our fingers at an awkward angle. Eli shifted his grip and said, “That better?” I said yes, and it was, in several ways I wasn't ready to describe.

At the shop door, the notice about recalled weather stock hung between us at eye level.

“Romantic location,” I said.

“Nothing says first date like a precautionary return.”

He leaned closer, then stopped when the upstairs window opened and Agnes called down to ask whether I had my keys. We looked at each other and laughed again, this time more quietly.

“Next time,” he said.

“Definitely.”

Inside, Agnes waited by the stairs with her blue mug.

“Nice evening?”

“Yes.”

She smiled, then glanced at the letter in my bag.

“Have you confirmed the interview?”

I stopped smiling quite so effortlessly.

“Not yet.”

She didn't say anything else. Somehow that was worse than a lecture would have been.