Jess is finally going! That New Zealand holiday is at its dawn, and all she can think of is landscapes, walks and adventures. But what she does not expect to find, is what is waiting around the corner - someone.
Someone who will turn her holiday up...
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Jess stood on the pavement, surprised to feel her heart pounding slightly in her chest.
Standing across from her, close enough for her to hear him in a whisper upon the still evening, stood James. He was not surprised, but very perturbed. His heart was hammering at his ribs, making throat feel as if it had no air.
"D'you want to...", He trailed off, finding himself incapable of thrusting any further words from his constricted airways.
He looked at Jess, finding her eyes wide with something he could not put his finger on. Was it concern? Surprise?... Denial?
Nevertheless she held his gaze, waiting patiently for him to finish. Not rushing him, not teasing him for this strange moment of weakness. And that comforted him. Comforted him enough to swallow the vacuum in his throat, take a deep breath, and speak. In words that actually sounded like words.
"D'you want to go to the beach?"
Jess blinked.
"I mean, it hasn't rained since yesterday, so it won't be wet or anything - it'll be nice." His returning panic made his statement sound much more like a question. He tried to go on, "I just thought you might not have gone and that you'd want to see it, or-"
"I'd like to go to the beach, James." Jess smiled.
The sigh that James repressed in that moment, seemed to be of the most immense relief he had ever felt.
She didn't think it weird; she didn't hate him for it. She'd like to go.
It wasn't even like he was asking her on a date, James thought to himself.Didn't they, after all, meet every day? Wasn't the beach basically within the neighbourhood?
But then again, he had been planning this for a couple of days now - had even had to put it off the day before because she'd been busy. Was not that how it felt to ask a girl on a date?
He glanced at Jess, and fancied her cheeks were a little more flushed than he usually saw them, but other than that she was perfectly herself. He felt his shoulders lower a couple of inches as they turned onto another street, and she began to speak.
It was Jess.
***
James's suggestion led them off their usual sidewalks and onto a narrow path, between houses and beneath the shade of a cluster of low-hanging trees. It was a shortcut to the beach.
Jess knew she had been nervous. She just wished she had the same kind of certainty when it came to the reason for it.
Yet, as they trod down the sandy, cement walk, Obi Wan gleefully sniffing the ground beside her feet, Jess had already shed all she had felt on the pavement. Truthfully, she had all but forgotten about it, once they had begun to talk again, about things that were, for the sake of both parties' sanity, not about the beach.
