The Little Teashop in Tokyo by Julie Caplin Page 0,97

relax and not think about Gabe’s long, lean body in the shower, she put her head back to gaze up at the sky. As her eyes grew accustomed to the dark, pinpricks of light started to appear, thousands of tiny stars millions of years away. The sight of them and the thought of the size of the universe and how insignificant a human life span was in the scheme of things made her realise that her fears about nudity, about falling in love with Gabe, about not being good enough, were all really quite inconsequential. This time was a gift and she would be daft to waste it worrying about things like the shape of her body and how much it would hurt when she had to say goodbye to him. She’d seized the moment last night and the joy and pleasure would stay with her for a very long time. Surely that was what life should be about, focusing on the good bits rather than the bad bits. Like her mother.

When Gabe sauntered out of the changing room with lean-hipped grace, her breath caught and all her good intentions about looking away went up in smoke. Embarrassingly, she let out a little mouse-like squeak as she tried to breathe normally.

He smiled and shook his head as he stepped into the water with total unconcern.

All she could do was nod, her mouth too darned dry to speak. Life was so unfair – his body looked as if it had been honed in a gym although to her knowledge he didn’t work out. But then she remembered the running shoes she’d had a near miss with in his room this morning.

‘Do you run or anything?’ she blurted out.

As if he knew exactly the tangent of her thoughts, he lifted his eyebrows and one side of his mouth lifted in a twisted wicked smile.

‘I run and do a few weights every now and then. Why?’

‘Just wondered.’ Her attempt at being blasé came out high and squeaky.

Gabe laughed but immediately stepped down into the water, coming to sit opposite her. Now all she could see was the dark hair in the vee of his chest, much to her relief.

They sat in silence for a while and she went back to stargazing.

‘I should do this more often,’ observed Gabe idly, lifting his toes out of the water and pushing his shoulders back. ‘I’m not sure I want to go back to Tokyo tomorrow.’

Fiona sighed; she definitely didn’t want to go back.

‘We could ask Kaito if we could have the room for another night.’ Gabe looked at her as he said it, a question on his face.

‘I’d really like that, but I ought to get back. I still need to take pictures of the tea house and I provisionally agreed tomorrow with Setsuko. I don’t want to let her down.’

‘You’re right, I have work to do too. The Sunday Times has suddenly decided I’m flavour of the month; they’ve offered me a couple more jobs and so has a film studio in LA. I’m hoping I’ll be able to coordinate everything so that I’m not flying back and forth all the time. Jet lag to LA’s a killer.’

‘I wouldn’t know,’ said Fiona practically. LA sounded glamorous and exciting.

‘You could come with me. Be my assistant again.’

Startled, she glanced at his face, surprised by the sincerity she read there.

‘I get the impression you can work anywhere.’

‘But … I’m going home soon.’

‘They have planes from London.’

At his quietly sincere words, her heart seemed to think it was doubling up as a Mexican jumping bean. The water was probably rippling around her chest.

‘They do,’ she acknowledged. Expensive planes probably, but that seemed a minor thing to bring up when he … he was wanting to see her again.

‘I’m in London quite often. My agent is always badgering me to spend more time there. I’ve been asked by a gallery in Dover Street if I’d like to put on an exhibition. They’ve refurbished the building and have a new space. I’m thinking about it. Been thinking about it for a while, except I didn’t think I had any decent material. I was going to do a retrospective.’

Gabe gabbling was cute and she wasn’t about to rescue him.

‘And of course, I’ll come to your exhibition. You could stay at my place if you like. That’s if you wanted to …’

He finally petered out.

‘I’d like that,’ she said softly. Amused and touched by his unexpected diffidence, she moved towards him. It