Before they were halfway down the pier, the rain started with delicate patters. Lisa had dressed for many eventualities, but rain wasn’t one of them. Goose-pimples puckered her bare arms.

‘Here, put this on.’ Jack was shrugging off his hip-length leather jacket.

‘I couldn’t.’ Of course she could – and would – but it couldn’t hurt to be fluffy-coy.

‘You can.’ Already he was arranging the crackly jacket on her shoulders, the heat from his body wrapping itself around her. She slipped her arms into the still-warm sleeves, the cuffs covering her hands, the shoulders swamping her. The jacket was miles too big and it felt good.

‘We’d better go back,’ he said, and as the rain began to pelt down they started running. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to hold hands. ‘You’ll never come here with me again,’ he gasped as they sprinted.

‘Too right.’ She flashed him a grin, savouring the dry warmth of his palm and his big-man’s fingers laced into hers.

When they reached the car, Jack was soaked. His hair was shiny-black and plastered to his skull and his drenched shirt was semi-transparent and stuck to him, tantalizingly showing a covering of chest-hair. She wasn’t much drier.

‘Christ!’ With a screech of outraged laughter he surveyed himself.

Spilling over with good humour, Lisa panted, Open the car fast!’

She ran round to the passenger side, expecting him to wrench the key into the lock, but then she glanced up at him…

Afterwards, when she thought about it, she couldn’t be sure which one of them had made the first move. Did he? Or did she? All she knew was they were suddenly swinging into each other and she found herself up against the hardness of his front, his wet thighs against hers. His face was spattered with drops and his hair had gone into little points which were dripping into his dark eyes. And he lowered his mouth to hers.

Lisa was aware of many things: the salty smell of a rain-soaked sea, the cool drops on her face, the warmth of his mouth and the fish-leap in her knickers. Pretty sexy stuff. She felt like something from a Calvin Klein ad.

The kiss wasn’t a lengthy one, coming to an end before it really got going. Quality rather than quantity. Gently unpeeling his lips from her yielding ones, Jack guided her to the car and whispered, ‘In you get.’

They drove back into town and went to a café-bar where she dried her hair under the hand-drier. Then she fixed her make-up and went back out to the bar, smiling widely. Over a glass of wine and a pint, they talked in low, comfortable tones, mostly gossipy chat about the people at work.

‘Tell me, is Marcus Valentine going out with our very own Ashling?’ Jack asked.

‘Mmmm. And what do you reckon to Kelvin and Trix?’

‘Don’t tell me they’re an item!’ Jack looked quite shaken at the thought. ‘I thought she was going out with a – what does she call him? – a fish-mongrel?’

‘She is, but I just have a feeling she and Kelvin might end up together.’

‘But don’t they kind of hate each other? – Oh, I get it.’ Jack nodded. ‘One of those.’

‘You sound as if you don’t approve.’ Lisa was extremely curious.

Jack was embarrassed. ‘Whatever floats your boat. But,’ he was alluding to his public rows with Mai and now he was really embarrassed, ‘I’m not actually keen on routine shouting matches with a partner. Though I know that’s probably hard to believe.’

‘So why did you and Mai…?’

Jack shifted. ‘Dunno, really. Habit, I reckon. It was fun at the start and then I think we didn’t know any other way of truly relating. Anyway!’ He didn’t want to dissect it any further because he still felt a type of loyalty to Mai, so he turned to Lisa with a smile. ‘Another drink?’

‘No, I don’t think so –’

But just as she was about to lay her hand meaningfully on his thigh and say, ‘Will you come back for coffee?’ Jack said, ‘Right then, I’ll drop you home.’ And she knew that that was all he meant. But never mind, she thought, ever the optimist, he liked her. He must like her: he’d kissed her. He couldn’t have been nicer. And she closed her mind to the little voice that replied. He could have been nicer, he could have shagged you.

Dreamily, Clodagh floated around the kitchen, thinking about the sex earlier that day. It had been beyond belief, the best yet…

As she put the sugar in the microwave and the milk in the washing machine, Dylan watched her. And wondered. Horrible thoughts. Unspeakable thoughts.

‘Don’t want my dinner.’ Craig threw down his spoon with a violent clatter. ‘I want SWEETS.’

‘Sweets,’ Clodagh hummed, foraging in the cupboard and producing a bag of Maltesers. ‘Sweets it is.’

She seemed to be moving to music that only she could hear.

‘I want sweets too,’ Molly snarled.

‘I want sweets too,’ Clodagh mewed tunefully to herself, locating another packet.

Dylan watched, aghast.

With a playful flourish, she ripped open Molly’s bag of sweets and extracted one between her thumb and finger. ‘For you?’ she sparkled at Molly. ‘No, for me.’ Ignoring Molly’s tantrummy objections, she held the Malteser between her pursed lips, sucking slightly at it, then inhaled it into her mouth where she rolled it around in a way that manifestly gave her enormous pleasure.

‘Clodagh?’ Dylan’s voice cracked.

‘Hmmm?’

‘Clodagh?’

Instantly she snapped to attention and disposed of the Malteser with a savage crunch. ‘What?’

‘Are you OK?’

‘Fine.’

‘You just seem a little bit distracted.’

‘Am I?’

‘What are you thinking?’ he heard himself ask.

Quick as a flash, she replied, ‘I was thinking how much I love you.’

‘Really?’ Dylan asked warily. He was torn. He suspected he shouldn’t really believe her, but he so badly wanted to…

‘Yes, I really, really love you.’ She forced herself to put her arms around him.

‘Honestly?’ He’d managed to make eye-contact with her.

She met his gaze calmly. ‘Honestly.’

50

August advanced and the pressure built. There were still gaps in the first issue, and any attempts to fill them were thwarted. An interview with Ben Affleck had to be cancelled after he contracted food-poisoning, a review of a shoe-shop had to be killed after the shop suddenly closed down, a piece about sexually active nuns was deemed to be too risky, legally.