“Great,” Kit muttered, catching his mum’s eye as she lingered outside the post office. “Now I’ll have my mum asking me twenty questions about you.”
Holly told him she’d see him later and looked amused as she wandered away.
Kit crossed the road to greet his mum.
“Who was that you were talking to?” Mirren asked.
“Holly. I went to school with her.”
Mirren nodded. “I thought I recognised her. She works in the tourist information now, doesn’t she? I didn’t know you were friends with her.”
“I see her around sometimes,” he said vaguely.
“She looked as though she was flirting with you. I could hear her laughing from here.”
“I’m a funny guy,” Kit said flatly. “And I’m not sure why you sound so surprised by the idea of someone flirting with me.”
“Is there something going on with the two of you?”
“No. She’s just a friend.” He wasn’t about to tell his mother he was taking her out on a date later. “I have to go,” he said, kissing her cheek and rushing away.
CHAPTERSEVENTEEN
Kit’s enthusiasm for the evening with Holly waned before he even picked her up. After the exertion of rowing he could happily have gone and lazed around at home for the evening but reminded himself that going for dinner with Holly was a better option than feeling sorry for himself.
Conversation felt slightly strained as they walked up the hill to Juliet’s Garden. The highlight of the casual cafe was the view over the harbour. They grabbed a table outside to enjoy the sunset, which had turned the sky a wonderful shade of peach and dappled the sea with flecks of red and orange.
“This is way better than what I had planned for dinner,” Holly remarked as she tucked into a seafood salad.
Nodding, Kit swallowed his mouthful. “I really like the food here.”
Usually, he was much better at keeping conversation flowing, but he was in the wrong frame of mind and was wishing he hadn’t been so hasty with his decision to ask Holly out. Staying at home wallowing in self-pity suddenly felt like a decent plan for the evening.
Once she’d finished her food, Holly took a long swig of her wine and looked at him intently. “I was sorry about your dad.”
Her words took him by surprise and he only managed to murmur an unintelligible reply.
“This is probably a weird thing to say, but I think about him often. I guess that’s normal when someone dies in such tragic circumstances.”
Again, Kit couldn’t find words. He shrugged and wondered how to change the subject. Chatting about the weather and the view and the food had felt strained, but talking about his dead dad didn’t seem like an improvement in the conversation.
“I spoke to him a day or two before he died,” she said. “He was in the hotel doing some jobs.” Her face cracked into a smile. “I’ll never forget it. He stole food for us from the kitchen.”
Kit tilted his head. “He didwhat?”
It took her a moment to stop giggling. “He was renovating a couple of the hotel rooms and I was supposed to hold the ladder while he hung the curtains. After that I was going on my lunch break. I made some comment to Terry about the owners not being very generous with the staff food. We could order food from the kitchen but only soup or sandwiches.”
She put a hand over her mouth as she stifled more giggles. “Your dad started complaining about George – saying how he was always so grumpy. He agreed it was a bit naff that we couldn’t get a decent meal while we were working, so he called down to reception from the hotel room and put on this stupid posh voice to order two lots of steak and chips to be sent to the room.”
“Seriously?” Kit asked, amused.
She caught a tear at the corner of her eye as more laughter came. “I didn’t believe for a second it would work. But the receptionist didn’t think to check that there was someone staying in that room. I guess if you get a call for room service it doesn’t even occur to you to check it might be a hoax.
“Anyway, fifteen minutes later there was a knock at the door and your dad put on his posh voice again and told them to leave it outside the door. I could hardly eat for laughing.” She held her stomach and took deep breaths. “Your dad joked about calling down again for dessert, but we decided that might be pushing our luck. I swear that was the best meal I’d ever had.”
“I never knew that,” Kit said wistfully. “It totally sounds like something Dad would have done though.”
“I couldn’t tell anyone about it because I couldn’t let anyone at the hotel find out. I felt a bit guilty a couple of days later when Kirsty on reception got into trouble for charging two steak dinners to a room that didn’t have anyone staying in it.”