The Waffle House on the Pier - Tilly Tennant Page 0,16
able to help all that much but I’ll do whatever I can.’
‘I’ll tell her that – it’ll mean a lot to her.’
‘Well…’ He shrugged. ‘That’s what we do, isn’t it? In Sea Salt Bay, I mean.’
Sadie gave a stiff nod. ‘How’s your mum and dad, by the way?’
‘Oh, the same as ever,’ he said, his tone more cheerful now, more certain.
‘And Melissa?’
‘She’s good too. We’re looking for a house, actually.’
‘A house…’ Sadie hesitated. What was she supposed to say to that? She was supposed to be pleased for him, she decided quickly, and she would be. ‘Wow… so things are going well.’
‘Yeah. She says it’s about time we thought about living together and I suppose she might have a point. I mean, it’s been three years now.’
‘It’s not all that long – not for a huge decision like moving in together.’
‘Try telling that to Melissa.’
‘Will you stay in the bay? There aren’t so many places around here for sale and they’re certainly not cheap.’
‘Don’t I know it. We’re looking here first though. I’d like to stay, and I don’t mind if it takes us a little longer to find the right place if it means we can do that.’
‘And Melissa?’ Sadie asked, sensing a caveat to his statement.
‘She says she’d leave given half a chance. But then she doesn’t have the same ties here, does she? She wasn’t born and raised here like me so I can hardly blame her for being less attached to the place. I think we’ll work it out in the end – she knows that I love it here so even if we had to leave we wouldn’t go far.’
Sadie nodded. ‘Well, I’m pleased for you if that’s what you want. I know you have to find the right place for both of you but I hope you don’t move too far away; I’d miss you.’
‘Nah, you wouldn’t,’ he said with a warm smile. ‘You’d soon forget about me. Anyway, won’t you be on your way out of the bay when you qualify? Wasn’t that what you always said? That there was nothing in Sea Salt Bay – no jobs, no prospects, no excitement? Once upon a time you were desperate to get out.’
What he didn’t add, but what they both knew, was those exact reasons were the ones Sadie had given him the day they’d split up. He’d wanted to settle, but she’d been restless, and after a long and tiring argument they’d decided that the two simply couldn’t be reconciled and that had been that. Looking back, Sadie had had plenty of time to regret her decision, but that regret hadn’t come until much later – too late to put it right and too late to take her place in Declan’s life again.
Sadie shrugged. ‘I know. But all this with Gampy has changed things somehow. I don’t know what I want these days. My family are here and at times like this that seems more important than anything else.’
‘But not Lucy. Unless she’s moving back to England… to the bay?’
Lucy. The prime culprit in Declan’s eyes – at least she had been that fateful day when she and Declan had split. Sadie had looked up to her big sister, had watched her leave the bay and achieve amazing things, and she’d wanted to do that too. In reality, with the age gap, Declan hardly knew Lucy, and yet Sadie knew he disliked her sister for something that Lucy didn’t even know she’d done; an innocent and unintended consequence of the life she’d chosen to live. She’d set an example that Sadie had been desperate to follow and, eventually, it had led to the end of Sadie and Declan. The irony was that things hadn’t worked out like that at all in the end – Sadie was back where she’d started, the big ambitions silenced, while Declan, the one who hadn’t wanted to, had moved on.
‘No chance,’ Sadie said. ‘She’s got some big deal going down – her biggest yet, she says. She’s always got some big deal going down to be honest. This is something as glamorous and showbizzy as ever but these days even I’ve started to glaze over when she tells me about it. I mean, we’re all incredibly proud of her and everything, but it all seems so far away from our lives here that it’s hard to get your head around it, you know? I can’t help feeling like she’s… well, it doesn’t matter.’