His skin was like perfectly browned toast, but with the smooth perfection of chocolate spread. It had been almost a week already and Emma still loved watching him. It was his athleticism and sheer passion for the game, even just in fun with the children, that she admired, gawped at and lusted after.
He was rangy, almost six feet tall, already with the muscular frame of a man. He couldn’t be more than eighteen, could he? His hair was dark but flecked with gold from the French sun and his eyes were the colour of wet grass – cool and crisp, like giant green mirrors, looking into the soul of anyone that he met. Emma had said four words to him in six and a half days. Bonjour and Oui, ca va. Why hadn’t she learned more French? Or why didn’t she just talk to him in English? She knew he spoke it well, to the children he taught football skills to and to all the other girls who weren’t too scared to approach him and demand his attention. They giggled and adjusted the straps on their tiny bikini tops, flicking their hair and gazing at him with adoration in their eyes. She didn’t blame them. He was something of a god on their Riviera campsite. He deserved all their flirtation and amorous advances. She just wished she had the guts to join in.
‘Brie baguette, Emma?’ her father, Mike, called. He placed a plastic plate on the wobbly table in front of her and launched himself into the canvas seat opposite.
She didn’t reply.
‘Haven’t you finished that book yet? You remember what Mr Devlin said. You must read the required text by the time we get back.’ He bit down into the impossibly tough bread, made so by the blistering sun and the lack of refrigeration facilities in their four-man tent.
‘I know, Dad. I’m getting there.’ She slipped her copy of Cosmopolitan down from her lap and under the table as discreetly as she could.
Chaucer was one thing. But knowing how to put your eyeliner on properly when you were just feet away from the most gorgeous specimen you had ever encountered was far more important. Not that she had got close enough for Guy to have a chance of noticing her eyes, or the make-up outlining them. In fact, the closest they had got was at the clubhouse. Guy behind the bar, her behind her dad, waiting patiently for her Orangina. Her mousy hair un-styled and wet from the cold shower she’d just had.
She bit into the baguette. The fusion of bread and soft cheese warmed her all over and smothered her in gladness. She was so happy to be in France.
It was almost six months since her mother died and it was only on this holiday – her dad’s attempt to get them out of the house and away from the memories of her mother’s slow, painful demise – that she’d started to feel like the teenager she was. Living alongside cancer aged everyone. She could see it in her dad’s face and feel it inside of herself. They were both changed forever. She was that little bit more grown-up and her dad… well, he was supposedly still grieving for his childhood sweetheart. Three weeks in France couldn’t heal them completely, but perhaps it would plaster over the cuts and bruises, act like a liniment and give them the strength they both needed to go on.
Emma took a deep breath and raised her head towards the sunshine. France had so much going for it after all. They had the best food, the best weather and apparently the best-looking boys. They just didn’t make them the same in England. Guy was bright and funny. He made everyone around him feel special just by being in his company. His voice was thick with a low, sultry accent and when he laughed it made her insides tighten. That had to be a good thing no matter how weird it felt.
She was contemplating actually taking a glance at Chaucer when there was a loud shout in French and suddenly she found herself with a football in her face, a baguette on her lap and her backside on the floor. The camping chair upended and lay next to her.
‘You alright, love? Here, come on, let me give you a hand up,’ Mike said, leaping from his seat and going to his daughter’s aid.
He was beaten to it. As Emma slowly began to realise what