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And then the captain’s crisp voice came over the Tannoy to announce that they were about to land in Venice.
Chelsea threw herself on the kingsize bed and giggled, watching how Kit just stood there in the doorway and looked at her, a bizarre smile on his face.
‘What?’
‘It’s nice to see you relaxed, that’s all,’ he shrugged and moved to the shuttered windows and door at the end of the room, opening them and walking out onto the balcony. It looked out onto the Canal, and Chelsea joined him, slipping an arm around his waist as the plush heat of the summer afternoon soaked into their skin. They watched in silence as the boats swished through the water, the smaller ones silently gliding, the larger ones offering a low thrum of engines. Everything was vibrant and alive, there was blue everywhere and Chelsea wanted to jump in and float. She leant her head against Kit’s shoulder, wiping her forehead against his shirt.
‘Oi!’ he laughed, pulling her closer.
‘Not sorry!’ she sighed against Kit’s mouth, tasting his smile. Twenty-four hours ago she’d been anxiously getting on the train to Badgeley, prepping herself for the jibes and the screaming and the jokes at her expense. And now here she was in Venice, surprised by someone who loved her. Maybe it was time to leave the old Chelsea in Badgeley, and finally live her life.
Kit was like an excited puppy at times, which was an impressive feat for a six-foot-four lawyer who looked like a Viking.
That evening he dragged her through the city, high on everything. They skipped over bridges and tripped on cobblestones, and everything was ‘more, more, more!’ The little candles on outside tables, the greetings from hosts outside every restaurant, the fairy lights in hidden courtyards and ice cream shops offering expanses of colour – everything made him giddy. And he’d been here before, she knew, he told her about a trip to Venice with his family when he was fourteen, after he’d been kicked out of his second boarding school. Or was it the third? Something comforted her about Kit being a bit of a trouble maker at school, like her. Except in his versions it was taking someone’s dad’s Lamborghini for a drive that got him expelled. It wasn’t quite the same.
‘Baby, you’ve got to calm down,’ Chelsea laughed, pulling back on his hand to slow him from charging ahead to some restaurant he was desperate to try, ‘we’ve got a couple of days here, right? We don’t have to do everything this instant!’ He looked at her, holding her hand even more tightly. He looked like he’d been told off, a puppy who’d been tapped with the newspaper. She’d hit a nerve, and she suddenly regretted her comment. Why not let him be an excitable child for a weekend, before he went back to his high-stress job? Why did she always have to be serious, boring Chelsea?
Kit took a deep breath, shaking his head and leaning back against the stone railing as they looked out on one of the canals. The water was dark and comforting, the cobblestones lit by old-fashioned street lights, and the warmth of the evening settling around them as the smells of coffee and delicious pizzas filtered through the air.
‘You’re right,’ he said distinctively, ‘there’s only one thing I want to do tonight and I’ve been focusing on everything else! It’s not good to procrastinate, you’re always saying that, Chels.’
He was starting to babble and Chelsea frowned at him.
‘There’s just been one thing I wanted to do here.’ He grinned at her, suddenly adorable and dangerous. The same look he had when he turned up at her flat at 5am and told her they were climbing the O2 centre, or he jumped in and started jamming with a busker in Covent Garden and the whole crowd cheered for him. He was going to do something ridiculous.
And sure enough, Kit raised his arm dramatically, showing her the scenery and threw back his head.
‘Just one Cornettoooooo!’ he sang loudly, imitating the operatic style ridiculously well. ‘Give it to meeee!’
Chelsea rolled her eyes, wondering how many poor Venetians had been subjected to such terrible renditions by drunk English tourists. She felt her cheeks colour as passersby smirked, laughing at that silly Englishman. They seemed to stop and hover to look at him, forming a relaxed semi-circle.
Chelsea looked back and saw Kit kneeling on the ground at her feet. He had stopped singing and was simply staring at her, a desperately hopeful look on his face as he held out a small, velvet box. The ring was obnoxiously huge, catching the light of the shop fronts and reflecting back into her dazed eyes. Three huge circular diamonds sat in a row, and a small smile graced her lips as she remembered him buying her a necklace years before, three small drops, and she’d said, ‘I love things in threes. It’s so symbolic, past, present and future,’ and he’d nodded like he was making a mental note. And he had.
‘Say something, Chels!’ he whispered through gritted teeth.
‘You haven’t asked anything, Christopher,’ she teased.
Kit looked at the crowd, hamming it up as he grinned and projected his voice.
‘Chelsea Donovan, light of my life, centre of my universe, apple of my eye – marry me, or I shall perish here and now!’
Chelsea rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, tapping her foot as the crowds gathered to look at the silly Englishman’s idea of romance. ‘Ask properly.’
‘I love you, Chels.’ He smiled that gleaming, white smile. ‘Will you marry me or what?’
‘Yes.’ It exploded out before he could finish asking and he nodded, like he wasn’t sure she was serious.
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah!’
Kit jumped up and kissed her as the crowd erupted into applause, his arms holding her tight, rocking her back and forth as she laughed against his lips. When she pulled back she felt his tears on her cheeks, and cupped his face, wiping them away.
‘You big softie!’ She kissed his cheek, feeling her own eyes water. Just a little.
The rest of the evening passed in a blur, and none of it was the painful extravagance that Chelsea had dreaded. They strolled through cobblestone streets, hands clasped, occasionally bursting into giggles. They sat in a square eating pizza, drinking Prosecco and commenting on how wonderful everything was, and how amazing their life was going to be.
They drunkenly stumbled back to their room, excitedly showing the doorman, receptionist and bellboy her ring and receiving smiles and pats on the back in return.
Finally, Chelsea collapsed on the bed, arms out like a starfish. She closed her eyes and smiled.
‘I don’t think tomorrow can beat today. Today was perfect.’
‘Well actually, I do have another question to ask you.’ Kit plonked himself on the bed next to her. ‘I mean the first one was worse, but…’
‘Oh God, what?’ Chelsea groaned dramatically, not bothering to open her eyes. ‘You’re secretly a Mormon and you’re wondering if I’m okay with sharing.’
‘No,’ he laughed, and she could feel the bed springs bounce. She opened her eyes.
‘Okay, shoot.’
‘Well, it just so happens that my parents are at their place in Garda for the summer, only a short train ride away…’
‘You want me to meet your parents,’ Chelsea said simply, feeling the fear rise from her stomach, the sparkling wine suddenly turning on her.
‘Well, you agreed to marry me,’ he shrugged, looking at her with wide, hopeful eyes, ‘it’s got to happen eventually.’
‘Does it?’ Chelsea sighed. ‘You hate your parents. I kind of thought we’d make it through to our first wedding anniversary before I had to meet them.’
Kit frowned. ‘I never said I hated them…’
Chelsea rolled over to face him and raised an eyebrow.
‘You said, and I quote, “my mother is a vindictive harpy and my father hasn’t been sober since 1993”.’
‘All said with love,’ he laughed, putting an arm around her waist and pulling her closer, till they were nose to nose. ‘Look, we’ll go, we’ll tell them we’re engaged, we’ll swim in the pool, drink their expensive Champagne, and then we’re gone!’
He kissed her neck and she could feel herself softening, the exhaustion of an exhilarating day and too much wine catching up with her.
‘Okay, we’ll drink their pool and swim in their wine, and then we’re out of there.’ She nodded sagely, then frowned. ‘Wait, where are we going after that?
‘Wherever my future wife wants.’ Kit kissed her shoulder. ‘Rome? Sicily? Leave Italy and jump over to somewhere else? Or go home and plan the wedding?’
Chelsea wrinkled her nose and made a face. ‘Rome, and then wherever you want. We’ll take turns until the holiday is up.’
‘We’ll be like backpacking teenagers, making it up as we go.’ Kit snuggled against her.
‘I never did that as a teenager,’ Chelsea sighed. ‘The idea of being out of control used to terrify me.’ And the fact that I had no money, no skills and had to work. I couldn’t gallivant around Europe cashing in my trust fund.
‘And now?’ Kit murmured sleepily against her skin.
‘Now I don’t feel scared of anything at all,’ she smiled, drifting off to sleep.
***
‘Jez has been round three times this week,’ Chelsea hissed at Ruby as she plonked herself down beside her in the form room.
‘Why?’ Ruby frowned. ‘He sorted it, didn’t he? The guy who –’
‘Yes,’ Chelsea growled through gritted teeth, looking around the room, ‘he sorted it. And now he keeps coming back.’
She looked at Ruby darkly, her overly plucked eyebrows high on her forehead. She smoothed down her high side ponytail, the dark roots almost greasy.
‘Oh. Carly.’
‘Yep. Jez is dating my mum. What’s next? The Krays turn out to be my fucking fairy godfathers?’
Ruby snorted, ‘even I’m not that good, babe. This is a gift. A gift that happened because of me, by the way.’
Chelsea’s eyes hardened. ‘None of this has been a gift. Do you even know what happened to that guy?’
‘Was it worse than someone biting off his tongue?’
Ruby’s eyes were dark, her mouth smirking with no softness around the edges. Chelsea glowered, staring straight ahead.
‘Jez being your stepdad could have a lot of advantages you know,’ Ruby laughed, ‘he’ll scare off anyone who might hurt you.’
Chelsea snorted. ‘You scare off anyone who might hurt me.’
‘Well, maybe it’ll be all happy families and he’ll make your mum a better person. Maybe he’ll end up being that dad-type person who walks you down the aisle at your wedding.’
Ruby fluttered her eyelashes, hands clasped as she stared off into the distance dreamily for a moment, the whole thing a farce. She snorted and shook her head.
‘Married?’ Chelsea hooted. ‘Who the hells shackles themselves to someone for better or worse? No one goes down with a sinking ship, babe, no matter how good a person they think they are.’
She looked old, her nose twitched up in derision, like she knew the answers about the world. She felt ancient, like she’d already seen every stupid thing that anyone could do in this stupid town. That people were essentially bad, and you just had to let it go, because they were too stupid to be better.
Ruby paused. ‘Do you wish your mum had waited for your dad? Done that whole “stand by your man” country music thing?’
Chelsea shook her head, smiling just a little. ‘The man gets arrested, gets locked up, gets out, and does it all over again. Maybe he’s happier there. Or maybe he just makes shitty decisions.’
She looked down at the scratch marks on the table, the promises of loving ‘4eva’, the ‘Tracey is a bitch’, the random phone numbers and crude drawings. Horny little stick figures that had since been scraped over in the hopes of erasing them. But you could still always see what had been underneath.
‘Either way,’ Chelsea shrugged, ‘man’s an anchor. My mum’s a bitch, but she was right to let him sink. The man invites trouble, always has.’
‘And Jez doesn’t?’ Ruby grinned, thinking about the ageing cockney gangster with the ancient trilby.
‘I think Trouble knows to only call on Jez when she’s been invited,’ Chelsea grinned and Ruby pointed, grinning, her button nose turned up in triumph.
‘I knew it! You like him!’
‘He’s sweet for a gangster,’ Chelsea said, shrugging and turning silent as the teacher walked up to the front of the room and started writing on the board. If she was going to shock them all, and get out of Badgeley in the most unbelievable way possible, she was going to have to listen.
Chapter Four (#ulink_69733083-d837-596f-a54a-5761db4bbe1f)
Kit and Chelsea woke up in the same positions they’d fallen asleep in. Which looked adorable, but hurt. A lot.
‘Why, the older I get, do the hangovers stop being those ones that hover gently in the background that can be cured by coffee and pizza?
‘Think you answered your own question there, babe.’ Chelsea laughed, then winced, stretching her arms above her head and twisting her neck. She hadn’t opened her eyes.
When she did, Kit was standing in front of her, holding out a glass of water.
‘Don’t regret saying yes now, do you?’ He stuck his hands in his pockets and bounced on his heels, a cheesy grin on his face. But his words were soft like his eyes.
‘I regret that last bottle of wine,’ she laughed, standing up to wrap her arms around his neck, still holding the glass of water in one hand, ‘and that I think I may have fallen asleep on this massive rock on my finger and indented my face forever.’ She stretched her mouth out and rubbed her cheek, laughing.
She took in the deep blue of his eyes, the light stubble around his chin and the strength of his arms around her. He seemed to glow, even with the sleep in his eyes and the creases from the pillow on his face. ‘Did you think I would regret it?’ she asked quietly, putting the glass of water on the side table, and curling her fingers around the hair at the base of his neck.
Kit looked at her, head tilted as if he wasn’t sure how to answer.
‘No, but…you tend to draw back when I get close. It’s like a dance we do.’ He shrugged, and Chelsea knew exactly what he meant, those parts of her life she didn’t share freely, like he did, those times she changed the conversation or wordlessly shrugged. A small part of her yelled, ‘then why marry me, if I’m so cold and distant?’ but she knew there was no way to get into that. At least not yet. In time she would share her history with him, the real one, not the one she’d sewn together like a shroud made from assumptions and silence.
‘Well, maybe that should be our wedding dance.’ She winked and made a face, watching as his face fluttered through emotions.
‘We’ll meet in the middle, I know we will,’ he shrugged, his arms still encircling her waist, ‘as long as you’re here, I don’t care. As long as you’re here.’
She held him tightly, suddenly afraid and overwhelmed with love at the same time, as if the idea of not being there tore at her chest. This was what it felt like, being vulnerable. Making a promise you intended to keep.
‘Yesterday was the best day of my life,’ she whispered, half to him and half into the dull room, only a shred of sunlight threatening the shutters, ‘and I could never regret it.’
Kit pulled back and stroked her cheek, smiling. ‘You say that now, you haven’t met my family.’
She stepped away to retrieve the glass of water, downing it in one and feeling no more refreshed, although the pounding in her head was receding. ‘Are you nervous?’ She laughed, ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen you nervous.’
‘I was nervous that first day I asked you out for breakfast,’ he grinned, dimples appearing suddenly, making him look like a naughty child.
‘Only because I’d just asked you out to dinner and you were a cheeky bastard!’ she laughed. ‘You were lucky I didn’t deck you!’
‘Ah,’ he nodded, ‘that’s right. I was scared.Scared was the word I was looking for.’
Chelsea thought back to that night, in the living room of her friend’s new flat, where they all sat round a sad fondue set because it was ‘ironically post-70s revival chic’, listening to a man with pretty eyes and a sharp jaw tell her she looked like someone who had something interesting to say. She’d told him he could stick his smooth chat-up lines up his arse, and if he wanted a real conversation, he knew where to find her. She’d waltzed out to the balcony with a bottle of wine. He’d followed with two glasses and no more stupid lines, and they sat there for the rest of the night talking about everything and nothing.
‘Who are you embarrassed of?’ she said suddenly, pausing at the door of the bathroom, toothbrush in hand. ‘Them or me?’
Kit raised an eyebrow. ‘Them, obviously. They drink too much and they’re loud and obnoxious and seem to care about pointless, trivial shit that doesn’t matter.’
Chelsea rolled her eyes. ‘I promise you, however bad they are, I’ve grown up with worse.’
