by Vawn Cassidy
‘Pfft.’ Beck shakes his head. ‘Please... as if.’ His gaze snags on something before turning back to me, ‘You know what you need?’
‘A probation officer?’
He snorts, and I glance ahead of us to where he’s pointing. ‘Seriously?’ My brows rise slowly as I stare at the bright pink van glowing in the sunshine with a gigantic ice cream cone mounted on its roof and playing a high-pitched warble of a teddy bears picnic. ‘I have had ice cream before you know,’ I tell him dryly.
‘I imagine you have.’ He nods in agreement. ‘But I bet you’ve never had a 99 before.’
‘What’s a 99?’ I muse. ‘Sounds kinky.’
He laughs as he tows me over to the line which, embarrassingly, is made up entirely of children. I’m about to point this out when the kid in front of us turns around and gives Beck and I a very condescending look for a ten-year-old.
‘Aren’t you too old for ice cream?’ the boy asks in disdain.
‘Kid, you’re never too old for ice cream,’ Beck says piously. ‘And don’t let anyone tell you different.’
‘Beck?’ I tilt my head as I study him curiously. He’s so relaxed in his own skin, it makes me a little envious. ‘You just don’t care what anyone thinks do you?’
‘Nope,’ he replies easily as the queue moves forward, and we reach the little window to find a rather bored looking middle-aged man with a visible paunch and a wild, hefty grey shot beard. In fact, he looks a bit like Brian Blessed, and I’m actually a little disappointed when he opens his mouth and sounds more like Alan Carr.
‘What can I get you?’ he huffs.
‘Two 99s, please.’ Beck smiles lazily.
‘Sauce?’
‘Raspberry.’ Beck turns to me expectantly.
‘Whatever you’re having will be fine.’ I smile in bemusement.
‘Both Raspberry.’ Beck turns back and informs him.
I watch curiously as the guy turns and retrieves a cone, holding it beneath a metal spout and pulling a large lever. A long creamy swirl of soft serve ice cream coils on top of the cone, reaching impossibly high and ending in a neat little peak as he grabs a chocolate flake and jams it unceremoniously in before picking up a plain plastic bottle and squeezing sauce over the top. He hands it through the window, thrusting it in my direction. My fingers wrap around the flimsy wafer cone, dipping slightly at the top-heavy weight of the ice cream, as I stare at the gooey sauce sliding down the mountain of ice cream.
‘It’s blue?’ I blink.
‘It’s blue raspberry sauce.’ Beck takes his own cone and hands the money over. ‘I’m guessing you’ve never had a Slush Puppy either?’
When I stare at him in incomprehension, he simply laughs as we walk toward the benches and iron railings overlooking the beach.
‘So many firsts, Nat.’ He grins. ‘This is going to be so much fun.’
I find myself blushing slightly when my mind immediately deviates to the first I’d like to give him. My dick twitches, and I draw in a breath, trying not to think about him taking my virginity, but images of him bending me over and sliding his cock slowly inside me, flood my brain causing me to swallow hard. Do not think about sex… do not think about sex… I chant silently.
‘So.’ I clear my throat. ‘Do you think that guy could be the secret love child of Brian Blessed and Alan Carr?’ I change the subject.
Beck throws his head back and laughs. ‘Oh my god, that’s exactly who he reminds me of.’
My belly warms at the sound of his laughter, and I watch mesmerised as his tongue snakes out slowly and licks a wide swath up his ice cream cone. I turn away deliberately and count to ten in my head, anything to stop my dick going from a half-hearted semi to full hard-on in front of such a family-oriented venue.
Shaking my head, I tentatively lick the weird blue sauce, sharp sweetness bursts across my tongue, and I can taste the sugar. It’s not unpleasant, just very sweet I think, feeling my left eyeball twitching slightly. ‘Whoa, this is enough to make you start hallucinating.’
‘I know.’ Beck grins. ‘My brother, Jesse, wasn’t allowed it when we were kids, that and cherryade, otherwise he’d get so hyper he would literally be swinging from the light fixtures.’
Beck climbs up onto the black iron railings easily, slinging his leg over with casual elegance as he perches on top, looking out to the perfect blue ocean in front of us. Following his lead, I seat myself down on the railing with my feet resting on the lower rung, swivelling my body so we’re more or less facing each other.
‘I’ve got something for you.’ Beck reaches into the bag hooked over his wrist. He pulls out a black baseball cap, it has Blue Reef Aquarium embroidered on it, but instead of their dead fish head logo, it has a black fin shark on it. He grins as he hooks it over my head. ‘There, a memento of your first visit to an aquarium.’
I smile at him, ridiculously touched at the silly gift. I reach into my own bag. ‘Here, I got something for you too.’ I hand it to him shyly. I’d bought it on a whim because it made me smile, then I’d been too nervous to give it to him in case he thought it was stupid. But there’s just something about Beck that makes me feel comfortable with him, and somehow, I know he’d never laugh at me or make fun of me. He just takes everything in his calm and sexy stride.
He takes the gift from me, his mouth stretching into a wide smile as he laughs loudly in delight. ‘I guess great minds think alike.’
It’s a stuffed black fin shark, the same as the one on the baseball cap he bought me, and the same as the one who’d been watching us in the underwater tunnel, interrupting the moment I was certain Beck was going to kiss me.
‘I love it.’ He grins. ‘Although, I’m going to have a nightmare keeping it away from Ursula. My dog is a sucker for a stuffed toy, her bed is filled with them.’
I flush, pleased that he likes my gift.
‘You’re dripping,’ Beck mutters.
‘What?’ I blink slowly.
He tucks the shark under his arm and reaches out, grasping my wrist and lifting my hand. The ice cream is melting and running down over the side of the cone, sliding onto my fingers. His eyes lock on mine, and my mouth falls open as he slides his tongue around the edge of the cone, trailing across my fingers and licking the ice cream from my skin. My breath catches in my throat, and I’m sure he can feel my pulse thundering in my wrist beneath his light grip.
‘Beck,’ I whisper roughly, his gorgeous hazel eyes are dilated.
A childish squeal behind us startles us from the intense stare off, and he lets go of my wrist. His breathing as unsteady as mine. I turn my head, staring out into the glittering waves and trying to talk myself down from doing something really stupid. Like jumping him and humping his leg like a badly behaved puppy.
‘That is not how an Elliott behaves…’
I can almost hear my dad’s disgusted voice in my head, and it’s like being doused with a bucket of cold water. My dad would be horrified, not only at my behaviour in general, but at the thought of just what I’d like to do to the incredibly sexy man sitting beside me, or more importantly what I’d love to let him do to me.
I raise the ice cream cone to my lips for want of something better to do and swirl my tongue around the cool creamy soft whip, following the same path Beck’s tongue had taken, as it was probably the closest I was going to get to tasting him. After a few moments silence between us I find myself sighing inadvertently.
‘What?’ he asks curiously.
‘I couldn’t have possibly imagined any of this a week ago.’ I turn back to him, feeling a little calmer. ‘My life before I left London was very different.’
‘What would you have been doing now? If you were still there.’
‘I… I’d’ve been at work I suppose,’ I tell him evasively. I wouldn’t have been at work, but there was no way in hell I was telling him where I was supposed to have been this week. I couldn’t even think about it without it leaving a sour taste in my mouth and a cramping in my gut.
/>
‘Tell me about your job.’ He leans forward eagerly like he wants to know everything about me, and it’s as flattering as it is terrifying. ‘I… um… well, what do you want to know?’
‘Where did you work? What restaurant?’
‘Oh.’ I shake my head. ‘I didn’t work in a restaurant. My father would’ve had a heart attack if I’d followed my dream of being a chef, after completing my MA in Finance & Economics I worked for my father’s investment banking company.’
Beck tilts his head slightly as he studies me. ‘That doesn’t sound like you.’
‘It wasn’t.’ My mouth quirks at the corner. ‘It was Nathan.’
‘Nathan?’ he repeats with a slow smile almost as if he hadn’t quite made the connection that Nat wasn’t my full name.
‘Nathan Elliott was who I was back in London, and he’s very different. Hair combed ruthlessly into submission, freshly shaved twice a day, immaculate Tom Ford suits.’
‘So, who’s Nat?’ he murmurs as he continues to study me.
‘That’s the million-pound question, isn’t it?’ I reply thoughtfully, watching him as he stares at me, his eyes darkening. ‘You’re picturing me in a suit, aren’t you?’
‘Totally am.’ He grins unapologetically. ‘I bet you looked fucking delicious.’
‘What about you?’ I turn the tables.
I’m tired of talking about myself, although I haven’t told him much. Sometimes, taking a step back and looking at myself is like trying to assemble a jigsaw puzzle of a picture of baked beans. No matter how similar the pieces look and no matter which way I try, the pieces just won’t fit together.
‘What about me?’ Beck replies easily. ‘Ask me anything.’
‘What do you do?’ I say curiously. ‘I mean you help out at the surf school, but you don’t work there. You volunteer during the summer season as a backup lifeguard, but you don’t work there. You help out at the restaurant, pitching in and waiting tables, but you don’t work there either. So, what do you do?
‘I’m an artist... a sculptor,’ he replies unselfconsciously with a wink. ‘I’m good with my hands.’
‘Huh, you don’t say…’ I mutter absently as my gaze slowly slides down to his long fingers, which are still wrapped around his ice cream cone. My brain immediately decides it would be a good idea to fill in the blanks and present me with an award-winning image of those long, smooth dexterous fingers wrapped around my cock.
‘I bet I know where your mind just went.’ Beck gives a delightfully wicked chuckle.
‘Then you don’t need to say it do you.’ I flush, feeling the sweat pinning my t-shirt to my clammy back. ‘Not unless you want me to end up with an inappropriate boner in front of all these children.’
‘Come on.’ He smiles as he glances down at his watch. ‘We should be getting back.’
‘Great,’ I think to myself as we climb down from the railing. Trapped in the car with Beck for the next fifteen minutes inhaling the mouth-watering scent of coconut and a hint of light sweat. I may just drown in a pool of my own lust. ‘Tell me more about your sculptures,’ I ask to distract myself as we start to walk companionably back toward the car. ‘What sort of sculptures do you do?’
‘I cast in bronze mostly,’ Beck replies. ‘My subjects can be anything really, just whatever inspires me.’ He casts me a long speculative look, and I’m not sure what he’s thinking.
‘How do you even make a bronze?’ I frown. ‘I mean you don’t carve it like wood, do you? And I imagine you don’t chip away at it like stone. Do you heat it and bend the metal?’
‘Yes and no.’ He shakes his head. ‘Yes, I heat it, but down to molten metal. I create an original of the piece I’m working on in clay first, and once I’m satisfied with it, I use the lost wax casting method. It’s quite involved and time consuming, but to cut a long story short, I make the clay original, then I use that to make a mould. There’s several steps to this, but by the time I get to the final plaster mould, I pour the bronze into that and let it cool. Then it’s just a case of breaking it out of its ceramic shell and sandblasting, welding parts together if I’ve cast it in pieces rather than a whole. Then I grind the top surface until it resembles the original piece. It can take months to complete just one piece depending on how detailed it is.’
‘Wow, where did you learn to do that?’ I ask.
‘Florence,’ he murmurs.
‘Florence?’ I blink in surprise. ‘You lived in Italy?’
‘For a while I did.’ He sighs. ‘I loved it there.’
‘Why did you come back?’ I ask, unable to help myself. ‘Sorry, that was a bit rude.’ I shake my head.
‘No, it’s okay.’ He sighs, and we walk in silence for a while. ‘I came back just before my dad got sick, and I’m glad I did. It took him so fast, so every moment we had with him was precious.’
‘I can imagine.’ I nod in sympathy, but there’s a tension bracketing his mouth that wasn’t there before and his eyes are a little guarded, and I know there’s more to his time in Florence that he’s letting on, but it’s not my place to ask. ‘Have you sold any of your work yet?
‘Some.’ He shrugs modestly. ‘I made enough to buy my place on the bluffs and add an extension. It still needs a lot of renovation but it’s mine.’
’Wait a minute.’ My gaze narrows thoughtfully as we reach the car. ‘It isn’t the little silver blue sea cottage with the wonky chimney, is it?’
‘Yep.’ He leans his back against the car door as he looks at me curiously. ‘That’s my place.’
‘It’s gorgeous,’ I say a little enviously. ‘That view is to die for.’ I’m seriously impressed. He’s only sold a couple of pieces, and yet, he’s made enough money to buy a beautiful, old coastal property in Cornwall. His work must be extremely good, especially considering he learned his craft in Florence. I’d love to see some of his work.
‘Can’t argue with you there.’ His mouth curves. ‘I was lucky I made enough money to buy when I did. The previous owner’s husband had passed away, and she was going into a retirement home. She wanted the cottage to go to a local who’d love it and cherish it. Not someone who wanted the land overlooking the bluff and would bulldoze it to the ground to make way for some expensive holiday rental.’
‘I’m glad.’ I lean against the car next to him.
He stares at me for a moment. ‘Can I tell you something?’ he finally says quietly.
‘Sure.’
He blows out a deep breath. ‘I’ve been approached by a gallery, and they want to host my first showing.’
‘Beck.’ I smile widely. ‘That’s amazing! You must be so excited!’ I study his expression, and I can tell immediately by the slight furrow between his brows that excited is not the right word. ‘What is it?’ I ask softly. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I don’t know.’ He shakes his head. ‘I know I should be ecstatic but…’
‘But what?’ I coax gently.
‘It’s one thing selling some of my pieces,’ he admits. ‘They’re listed, they’re paid for, they’re shipped and out the door, but to pick pieces to put on display. To have dozens of people dissecting them and critiquing them, it makes me feel…’
‘Vulnerable? Exposed?’ I guess.
‘I suppose so,’ Beck replies. ‘Some of those pieces are intensely private. I made them when I was… I was going through some stuff at the time. Some of them I made when I was grieving for my dad too. I’m not sure I can put them out there for people to tear apart.’
‘Beck, you don’t have to,’ I tell him quietly. It’s strange seeing him like this. Up until now, I’ve seen him angry and worried, I’ve seen him happy and flirty, but above all, there is this air of confidence about him. He seemed so laid back and at ease with himself, which to be honest was a little intimidating to me. It seemed like he had it all figured out while I was just a hot mess diving headlong from one disaster into another, but now that I look at him, I can see his frustration and indecision, but beneath it,
there’s just a glimpse of hurt. I know he’s still grieving for his dad, but something deep down in my gut tells me there’s something else there. ‘What gallery is it?’ I ask.
‘The Dalton Gallery.’ He looks across at me. ‘It’s in Greenwich.’
‘Ellen Krenshaw’s gallery.’ I nod.
‘You know it?’ he replies in surprise.
‘I do. I’ve visited the Dalton several times,’ I muse. ‘I’m rather fond of watercolours. Ellen usually lets me know when she’s sponsoring showings that would interest me.’
‘Ellen?’ Beck studies me curiously. ‘You know her personally? How?’
‘Same social circles.’ I shrug. ‘I also know her daughter, Meena, we were friends at Uni.’
‘Small world,’ Beck mutters.
‘Beck.’ I turn, angling my body so my hip is pressed against the side of the car and I’m facing him. ‘I do know Ellen well, and trust me, if she’s interested in your work then it must be really good. She’s notoriously picky, but she’s also very understanding. If there are certain pieces that are too personal to you, then you don’t have to show them.’
‘Without them I don’t have enough bronzes to make a collection,’ he breathes out in frustration.
‘So, you defer for a year and make some new pieces,’ I say calmly, and my words seem to soothe his ruffled feathers. He watches me thoughtfully, and I can tell he’s considering my words. ‘Like I said, Ellen’s not unreasonable, and if she wants you, she’ll be prepared to wait until you have a collection you’re happy to show. Ellen doesn’t waste her time; she wouldn’t have made you an offer if she wasn’t very impressed with you. Trust me, give her a call, and tell her you need more time and wouldn’t be interested in a showing until next year at the earliest. You’ll see I’m right about her.’
‘Maybe I will,’ he mutters. ‘Thanks.’
‘No problem.’ I grin. ‘I mean, it’s not diving into the ocean during a biblical tempest to rescue an idiot, but I’m happy to help.’
‘You’re not an idiot,’ he replies.
‘I do recall you calling me an idiot at the time, along with several other unflattering things.’
