The Waffle House on the Pier - Tilly Tennant Page 0,44

into his trouser pockets. But then he turned back to Sadie. He paused, and she could see the same cogs and gears shifting into place in his head as were in her own.

‘Haven’t we met…?’

With a jolt, Sadie realised that they had met before and where, and she saw that he’d worked it out too. They’d met before alright!

To his credit, he blushed.

‘Oh, right…’ he said awkwardly. ‘Of course… How are you feeling?’

‘I’m OK,’ Sadie said.

‘I’d wanted to check up on you but… well, I wasn’t sure where to find you or if I’d even be welcome if I did.’

‘To be fair,’ Sadie replied with a rueful smile, ‘I don’t think you would have been welcome. Not that I hold a grudge,’ she added hastily. ‘I think my parents might though. It’s probably a good thing you didn’t come looking, especially not at the house.’

‘Well.’ His hands couldn’t have got any deeper in his pockets but he shoved them down anyway with a half shrug, half embarrassed stoop. ‘I guess it’s just as well I didn’t…’

A brief silence followed. April looked up at him with an unconcerned smile. She didn’t appear to have worked out that this was the man who’d practically mowed Sadie down in his boat, but he clearly didn’t realise this fact because the smile he gave her in return was one that said ‘Ground, please swallow me now’. Sadie didn’t blame him for feeling awkward, and she even felt a bit sorry for him, because there was no obvious polite or plausible escape from this excruciatingly awkward moment. He could run out, but that might leave Sadie or her grandma offended, and if he’d come into the office for something specific then it would mean running out on that too.

‘Oh… this is my grandma,’ Sadie said into the silence, desperate to fill it with something and not knowing what else to say.

April nodded. ‘Hello. You can call me April.’

‘Good to meet you, April,’ he said with an awkward smile. ‘I’m Luke.’ Then he turned back to Sadie. ‘When I left my card for you at the beach, I take it you didn’t…’

‘Oh, Ewan has it,’ Sadie said. Her brother hadn’t offered to give the card to her at the time and in all the excitement of so much else going on she’d forgotten all about it until now.

‘Ewan? That’s your…?’

‘My brother,’ Sadie said. ‘And you’re Luke? I’m Sadie,’ she added, but Luke’s attention had gone to the walls, where various photos of Ewan and Kat showed them out on location with clients and friends, some in their swimming gear, more often than not in wetsuits. His face seemed to lose three shades as he recognised the faces as belonging to the people he’d upset on the beach the day he’d rowed right into Sadie’s head.

‘Your brother owns this place?’ he asked as his gaze settled on one photo that had a smiling Sadie in it, a large crab hanging from a careful grip.

‘Along with his wife,’ Sadie replied. ‘Have you booked a lesson with him?’

‘Not yet but I was hoping… I probably ought to…’

He began to back away, moving towards the exit, but then Kat returned and he turned to her, looking vaguely mortified that he’d been caught here at all. She was carrying a tray of hot drinks and set it down on the desk as her gaze fell on him. For the shortest second she looked as confused as Sadie had when she’d first woken to find him standing before her, but then it was replaced by illumination.

‘Oh,’ she said, though not with the anger that the man might have been greeted with had it been Ewan.

‘I was just about to…’ he began sheepishly, but his sentence faded to nothing.

Kat’s manner – though not angry – was immediately stiffer and more formal than normal, though she remained courteous.

‘Did you want to book a session or something?’

Luke rubbed a hand over his chin, glancing at Sadie and April in turn before looking at Kat again. ‘I had wanted to…’

Kat went to her laptop. The screen had timed out and the screensaver showed a stunning picture of the bay at sunset. She logged back in. ‘Have you ever been diving before?’ she asked as she looked at the screen.

‘A couple of times in Greece. I’m no expert but’ – he glanced at Sadie again, his expression looking more sheepish than ever, but this time Sadie was convinced there was a hint of humour there too –