‘I will.’
He pulled the shop door closed behind him and closed his eyes for a moment before heading back to the car. He liked her, there was no getting away from it. He liked her a lot.
Chapter Twenty-one
Flo had left the cafe chairs down, with Hannah assuring her that everyone would tidy up afterwards so she wouldn’t have to do anything the next morning. Hannah decided as a one-off to supply a few bottles of wine, in the hope that it might get the conversation flowing.
‘But this isn’t an actual book group, is it?’
Ben had pinched a handful of the crisps she’d shaken out into a bowl. She slapped his hand jokily and threw him an unopened bag. ‘Not this time, no. This is a discussion about having a book group.’
‘Adults are weird.’ Ben popped open the bag. ‘Oh look, there’s Jake.’
He opened the glazed wooden door to the cafe and stood for a moment. It was still amusing to Hannah that the only time she saw Ben looking apprehensive was when he was around Jake, and yet Jake was the most laid-back, unpretentious person.
‘Hey,’ he said, giving Ben a high five.
‘All right?’ Ben stepped back, letting him into the little cafe.
‘This looks very cosy.’
‘It’s Mum’s book group.’
Jake looked around at the wine glasses and lifted an eyebrow, the corner of his lips turning up in a teasing smile. ‘Book, or wine?’
‘Book and wine,’ Hannah said, thinking once again how ridiculously gorgeous he was. And so totally unaffected with it. It must be nice to be so tall and lean casually against the side of a cafe table, long legs crossed, totally unaware of the effect you were having on people. She shook herself inwardly. For God’s sake. It was like being fifteen again and having a crush on the hottest boy in school – the one who wouldn’t even notice you if you landed on his head in a freak accident.
‘Which book are you reading?’
‘We’re not.’ She felt a bit awkward. Despite his initial interest, she hadn’t wanted to pursue him and see if he wanted to join in, assuming he was far too busy doing glamorous footballer things to be interested. And now she felt like perhaps she should have, and that she’d been rude. God, being an adult was complicated sometimes.
‘Uh, right. Okay. You’re not even pretending to read and just going straight for the wine?’ He fiddled with the button on his shirt cuff, rolling it up absent-mindedly. He left the other one down, which Hannah thought very endearing.
‘We’re discussing the concept of the book group and what it’s going to be.’
‘I’ve just been reading a brilliant book – it’s a sort of thriller, but it’s also sort of social commentary – set in Manchester. I grew up escaping into books when I was living with my aunty. She always had loads of them because she managed a charity shop in Wythenshawe and she used to take the ones she fancied home.’
‘I didn’t expect you to say that.’
‘Not many people do. There’s this preconceived idea that we footballers are uncultured louts, isn’t there, Ben?’
‘Uh?’ Ben, who’d been looking at his phone, looked up and grunted a response. She’d broken the news of the split to Ben, who’d taken it surprisingly well. She was still half-expecting an aftershock of some sort, though, and being a solo parent meant feeling the strain of being the one who’d have to pick up the pieces . . .
Jake fixed Hannah with his blue-green eyes and gave her the tiniest ghost of a wink. ‘I can’t think where people get that idea, can you?’
‘Not a clue.’
‘Anyway, what time are you expecting everyone?’
‘About eight.’ Hannah looked up at the clock. ‘Assuming they all turn up.’
‘I’m sure they will.’ He leaned forward and picked a long hair from the shoulder of her shirt. ‘You probably don’t need that, though.’
Hannah, who’d caught the faintest hint of his lemony, wood-scented aftershave, exhaled slowly. She must try not to act like a teenager with a massive crush. The reality, though, was it had been so bloody long since she’d had a crush that her only point of reference was being a teenager with a crush. It just happened that this one was on possibly the most unattainable man in the entire village, if not the county.
‘I just need to get the chairs in a circle and move these tables and—’ She stepped backwards, thinking to herself that if she could try and be at least a tiny bit cool it might help, and caught her shoe on the hem of her long floaty dress. It made her stumble slightly and knock against the table.
‘Oh shit,’ said Jake, reaching with lightning-fast reflexes to catch an already opened bottle of red as it spun on the edge of the base in the slowest slow motion, then fell. He didn’t have enough free hands for the rest, though, and three bottles of dark, jammy red crashed onto the flagstone floor in a mess of broken green glass and liquid.
‘Oh shit,’ Hannah echoed.
‘Language, mother,’ Ben said mildly, then laughed.
‘Grab a pack of kitchen roll from the shop,’ Jake instructed him, ‘and we’ll get this sorted.’
‘So much for having half an hour to brush my hair and put some make-up on and all that stuff,’ Hannah groaned. She bent down to pick up some of the bigger pieces of glass. Jake, who’d done the same thing, gazed directly at her.
‘It’s fine. We can get this sorted in no time. You go and get ready, I’ll clear it up.’
‘I can’t ask you to do that,’ she said, still squatting in an ungainly manner, holding chunks of glass in both hands.
‘You’re not asking,’ he said, taking them from her. ‘I’m offering.’
‘Seriously?’
‘Yes.’ He put the broken pieces of wine bottle on one of the cafe tables and stood up, holding out a hand to pull her up. ‘And you might need to find something else to wear. That dress has wine all over the hem.’
Upstairs, heart hammering (she told herself it was the stress), she washed her face and hands, hastily applied some make-up and ran a brush through her hair. There wasn’t anything clean to hand that she could put on besides a pair of jeans and a striped t-shirt. She looped a necklace Ben had bought her years ago over her neck, and headed back downstairs.
In the cafe, there was no sign of the devastation that she’d left. The floor was gleaming wet but clean, the tables pushed to one side, the chairs sitting neatly spaced in a circle. She counted them up and realized there were eleven.
Jake followed her gaze and gave her a mock-rueful look. ‘I was hoping you might not notice.’
‘For you?’ She tried to keep the surprise out of her tone.
‘Mmm.’ He nodded. ‘We’ve managed to avoid disaster, and there’s nothing like saving the day that gets me in the mood for talking about books . . . or something like that.’
Ben, who had reappeared with six replacement bottles of wine, looked at Jake as if he were talking a foreign language.
‘You don’t fancy joining us, then?’ Hannah asked him with a smile.
‘Uh, no. If you don’t mind I’m going upstairs to play FIFA.’ A moment later, there was a thud as the connecting door to the cottage banged shut.
Jake took one of the bottles and unscrewed the lid. ‘Well, it looks like it’s just us two,’ he said, pouring them both a glass of red. ‘I reckon we’re entitled to an early drink, seeing as we’ve just sorted this lot out.’
Hannah swallowed. The evening was getting stranger by the moment. ‘It was more you than me. I didn’t exactly do anything, did I?’
‘You organized the whole book group. And you’re doing a good job of running this place, from what I can see.’
‘Thank you.’ She took a sip of wine. For one fleeting moment, she allowed herself to imagine what it would be like if this was her life, and then a bang at the door announced the first of the book group members.
‘Oh!’ said Freya and her stepmum, Lucy, in unison as they walked in the door. Jake caught Hannah’s eye for a moment and pulled a face only
she could see. It must be so difficult to live in a world where everyone makes you feel conspicuous every time you walk into a room, she realized. Maybe he secretly craved normality and the sort of life people take for granted. She shook herself. Now was time for being hostess, not daydreaming about some fantasy existence.
‘Right then,’ she said, putting down her glass. ‘Let’s get this show on the road.’
Chapter Twenty-two
The room filled up quickly, with everyone milling around drinking free wine and catching up on village gossip. Jake was relieved that after the initial – and hastily corrected – looks of surprise on people’s faces, everyone had clearly decided he was just another person who wanted to get out of the house and talk about books on a drizzly October evening.
‘Did you hear the dog walker from Much Maudley lost all the dogs from her van and they all went rampaging through George’s garden?’
‘Oh my God. Of all the people in the world . . .’
‘I know. It’ll be all over the Facebook group tomorrow, no doubt.’
Jake suppressed a smile. The group remained a constant source of amusement to him. Living in Little Maudley had become more interesting since Hannah had moved into the shop, mind you. He’d found himself looking for excuses to pop in and pick up a daily newspaper, a loaf of sourdough, a box of eggs. Pippa, his PA, had pointed out acidly that if he carried on buying eggs at the rate he was, he would have to start selling meringues on the roadside. He’d told her to sod off and sent her for a weekend away with her girlfriend, with two dozen and a couple of the countless packs of expensive bacon he’d bought.
It was funny, though, that Hannah never seemed to pick up on his interest. He’d offered Ben lifts to football and chatted to him about how he felt about his parents splitting up (‘Not exactly a massive surprise, to be honest – Dad was never there, and they never really seemed to like spending time together.’)
‘So what are you reading at the moment?’ Freya, who was eighteen, perched on a cafe table and looked directly at him from under her neatly trimmed black fringe of hair. She looked a little bit like a pony, with her huge black-ringed eyes.
‘I’ve just finished a thriller set in Manchester. The guy who wrote it used to work in a bookshop, and it was set in a part of the city I know, so it was like coming home. How about you?’
‘I’ve been reading a YA novel called Ink by Alice Broadway. It’s amazing. You should read it. It’s all about this girl who . . .’ and she was off. As he listened, he couldn’t help but be aware of Hannah from the corner of his eye as she made her way round the room, quiet but friendly, looking out for everyone and making sure nobody was left out. She had a habit of tucking one long, wavy strand of hair behind her ear and then twirling it absent-mindedly around her finger. He wanted to reach out and catch her hand as she did it, and kiss the side of her—
‘Do you want to read it?’
He shook himself mentally. Hannah was the mother of one of his team, and clearly not even slightly interested in him. She was funny and clever and interesting, and he was – well, basically a jock who’d left school at sixteen. Not just that, but who would want to deal with all the crap that followed him? Press intrusion, people taking photos of them when they were out . . . it was a lot for anyone to deal with.
Eventually they all sat down in their circle of chairs, and Hannah – clearly nervous, but with her friend Nicola giving her a smile of encouragement – made a little speech about the book club idea.
‘We thought a lot about whether we wanted to make it one of those groups where you all have to buy a book, read it, and then sit down and talk about it with questions every month, but the truth is they can be a bit prescriptive.’
‘Hear, hear,’ said one of the women who was sitting with a notebook and pen in one hand and a very generous glass of white wine in the other.
‘So we thought – why not do a themed book group?’
‘Interesting,’ said a woman with vibrant dark burgundy hair called Veronika. ‘This is a good idea.’
‘Thanks,’ smiled Hannah. ‘We thought we could do a theme every month – like loss, happiness, joy, that sort of thing?’
‘Holidays,’ said Veronika.
‘Oh, that’s a good one,’ said Hannah. Nicola scribbled it down on her notepad.
‘Loneliness.’
‘Death,’ said Freya.
‘All right, Mrs Gothic Misery,’ teased Lucy, elbowing her in the ribs.
‘That way we can bring along a book we’ve chosen – or one we’ve read previously – and talk about how it made us feel in relation to the theme. Hopefully we’ll all be opened up to stories we might not otherwise have read.’
‘I love that,’ said Nicola, dreamily. ‘It’s such a lovely idea.’
‘It was your idea,’ said Hannah, laughing.
‘I know, but you know what I mean.’
‘Now I thought maybe we could split into two groups of five –’ Hannah caught Jake’s eye and he gave her the ghost of a wink, teasing her – ‘or six, and maybe introduce yourselves and explain why you’re here. And next time we can swap round?’
There were a few self-conscious murmurs: nobody, it seemed, liked talking about themselves. As they gathered the chairs around, Jake decided he’d take the bull by the horns and be the one who went first.
‘Okay, I’m going to get it over with. I’m Jake, I’ve been living in the village for eighteen months, and I wasn’t going to come tonight but it just sort of happened. And I grew up reading pretty much anything, so I’m looking forward to the chance to experience some new authors. Oh, and I love reading because it’s a chance to escape from my own life and into the world of someone else altogether.’
And then he stopped talking and there was a silence which seemed to last forever. He swallowed hard, and wished the ground would swallow him.
‘I’m Lucy,’ said Freya’s stepmother. ‘I’m a history teacher, and I have to read a lot for work, but I find that I’m not getting the opportunity to read for pleasure and I thought that perhaps if I came along I might actually read something other than research books and academic history journals. Oh, and I love most books, but I do like a nice romantic comedy.’
‘I’m Freya. Lucy is married to my dad. I’m going to uni to study English Lit next year, hopefully, and I’m at college just now. I love reading – YA mostly, but I like a good thriller as well –’ she gave Jake a warm look – ‘and I just wanted the chance to get out of the house, because there’s only so much YouTube you can watch and the village pub is full of try-hards.’
Jake snorted with laughter.
The others introduced themselves, but he’d stopped focusing again because he was watching Hannah, who had got up from her chair and was tidying up glasses and wiping spills from the side of wine bottles. Quietly, he got up from his chair and slipped out of the circle of conversation.
‘You okay?’
She turned to look at him, still holding a blue-and-white-striped tea towel in her hand. ‘Yes.’ She looked at the others, all chatting animatedly. ‘I think it’s been a hit, don’t you?’
‘Definitely. You’ve done brilliantly.’
‘It wasn’t much, really. Just had to gather people and let them talk.’ Her accent made him melt. And there she was, again, lifting a hand and tucking that curl behind her ear. He wanted to catch her wrist and turn it inside out and kiss it, then kiss her, then—
‘Are you two hogging that wine?’ Freya’s shrill little voice broke into his thoughts and he turned away, rubbing at his chin and shaking his head. What the hell was wrong with him?
‘Here, I’ll bring everyone some,’ he said, picking up a bottle of red and one of white and heading off to circulate.
‘Thanks,’ Hannah mouthed, as he turned back to look at her. His heart glowed. God, he had it bad.
He hovered after everyone had left, on the grounds that he wanted to talk to her about Ben and football. The truth was, he just didn’t want to leav
e. He wanted her to invite him through to hers for a coffee, and to sit on the sofa and talk for hours and – well, if he was completely honest with himself, he wanted to do quite a lot more than sit on the sofa with her. He gritted his teeth as he stacked the tables and chairs back up in the cafe. Hannah was ringing up the bottles of wine she’d paid for on the shop till, in near-darkness. He headed through to the counter to find her.
‘Thanks,’ he said.
‘No, thank you.’ She played with the little seahorse necklace that hung low on her chest, just above the collar of her t-shirt. He looked away, realizing he probably looked as if he was gazing at her breasts, which – well, if he was honest about that, too, he would have been more than happy to do.
‘I had a brilliant evening.’
‘It was right good,’ she said, in a jokey strong Manchester accent.
‘The good thing is we get to do it again next month.’
‘It’s a date.’ She looked up at him through long dark lashes, and he knew in that second that he was completely, totally and utterly screwed. He’d fallen for her, and he had absolutely no idea what to do about it.
Chapter Twenty-three
Jake woke in a good mood after the first book club meeting. Spending time with Hannah had been lovely, and he’d been surprised by how much he’d enjoyed getting out of the house and doing something. The truth was that he’d been spending way too much time alone since he gave up the game, and last night had just underlined it. Maybe he should actually get off his backside and ring back some of the friends who’d left messages over the last few months. They’d all been keen to keep up with him, and he’d let them fall by the wayside, feeling like he had nothing to offer.
He wolfed down a couple of slices of toast and peanut butter washed down with black coffee, then grabbed his keys. The boys were playing Ridgeway Grammar this morning and he felt an overwhelming need for them to hammer them, just to prove a point. Unfortunately they’d played like dogs in training on Wednesday.
The Village Green Bookshop: A Feel-Good Escape for All Book Lovers from the Bestselling Author of The Telephone Box Library Page 17
