Page 37 of Love from Pretty Beach
I t was an incredible morning when Darby woke up.
One of the most incredible things about it was the fact that she was not in her own bed.
What the actual? Sitting bolt upright, she looked around, grabbed the duvet, pulled it up and swore.
For sure, she was in Archie’s bed. For sure, he wasn’t in it.
The sash paned window on the far side of the bedroom was ajar at the bottom and a sea breeze coming in from the harbour nudged the curtain back and forth.
For a minute, she just sat there like a lemon as Pretty Beach sounds swirled around her.
On a bed she’d got quite familiar with the night before in a T-shirt that wasn’t hers, she tried to work out where she was and what had happened.
Outside the window, life went on as usual; the sea lapped, she could hear boat masks clunking, a seagull somewhere called out and voices carried on the wind. Darby Lovell sparkled.
Save the noise going on outside, the house was silent.
There wasn’t a sound of someone downstairs in the kitchen making a cup of tea or perhaps in the bathroom having a shower.
Instead, there was an almost eerie kind of quiet.
The night came back to Darby as she reached over to grab her phone.
On seeing her clothes strewn on the floor, she smiled, closed her eyes for a second and heard an elongated, slow exhale come out of her lips.
What an evening it had been. A long, luscious carb-filled meal.
A glass of wine too many. A falling. Falling for all of it.
Falling for him. Falling into bed. Falling for finding herself again.
There was a message from Archie on her phone.
Archie: You might not have remembered I had to get up for the hotel job. Help yourself to whatever you want.
Darby read the message three times, gathered herself and went into the bathroom.
Oh, okay, that’s rather abrupt. Right. She wasn’t sure if she liked the message.
No, thank you, she did not. No, it wasn’t nice.
Blunt, yes, very blunt, punchy, erring on the side of very rude.
She had to try hard not to feel a bit used.
After doing a wee, for a bit she just sat on the loo and wondered what to do.
Shower, walk home, text him back. Do what? Deflated sprang to mind.
Ten or so minutes later, Darby stood in the doorway of Archie's ensuite bathroom and observed. When she’d sat on the loo staring at her phone, she’d not really looked at it properly; now she did.
The room was everything her own cramped bathroom wasn't - spacious, elegant, thoughtful details.
A standalone bath in an ensuite, really?
White subway tiles from floor to ceiling.
Actual clean white grout. Large pale stone tiles on the floor that clearly had underfloor heating. Talk about another world.
A walk-in shower, a showerhead the size of a dinner plate, a sparkling basin, a window looking out to sea.
Definitely a cleaner. Screwing up her nose, Darby felt as if she were in an American film.
Even the toiletries were nice. Curated even.
Everything was sort of classy, chosen and expensive; a wooden shaving brush, Aesop, a matching bowl, bottles of cologne and aftershave with fancy labels, posh skincare products, Jo Malone.
Picking up a bottle of shower gel, Darby read the label: an artisanal blend of bergamot and cedar from a boutique in London.
She unscrewed the cap, inhaled and smelt the scent of the night before.
Gulping, she also blushed a little bit. Everything in the bathroom screamed at her that she was way out of her depth.
Turning on the shower, the rainfall showerhead did just what it promised.
It felt luxurious, hot, perfect. Lugging on loads of the shower gel and shampoo, by the time she got out, she felt like she’d just stepped from one of those annoying adverts for spa treatments where women wrapped in brilliant white turban towels floated out of rooms in full faces of make-up.
As she dried herself with a plush towel from a heated towel rail, she caught sight of herself in the mirror and did a triple-take.
Lord, she was glowing. For someone who had spent the night in an unfamiliar bed after rather more wine than usual, she didn’t look like it.
Back in the bedroom, she continued to think about the abruptness of the text as she gathered up her bits.
Her blouse was draped over the chair by the window, her jeans had somehow ended up near the door, and her underwear was tangled with a white linen sheet that had been kicked to the foot of the bed sometime during the night.
Getting dressed in a strange bedroom and on her own wasn’t that pleasant.
Regret may have waved at her. What had she been thinking?
As she was examining a photograph on a small occasional table near a window looking out to the harbour, her phone buzzed with another message.
Archie: Assume you’re up by now. I kept it short before, so you knew what was what. Last night was wonderful. Sorry about the early start. Would love to see you later if you're free. x
How strange, almost completely different in tone from the first message.
Darby typed back quickly, not wanting to overthink her response. Did she want to see him again? Oh, you know, just about every single day for the rest of her life.
Darby: Thanks, I slept well. Would definitely like to see you later.
About ten minutes later, Darby was walking home.
However, she was not strolling along on the pavement like everyone else in Pretty Beach.
Nope, she was walking on air. What a wonderful evening she’d had.
What a turn up for the books. As she passed a few morning walkers who nodded hello and she recognised a few familiar faces on the laneway, she felt as if she was seeing things with new eyes.
Possibility enveloped her. Whatever had happened or would happen with Archie, she felt different for herself .
Even if she never saw him again, she didn’t care.
The night had done something to her soul.
A tide had turned. It felt as if she'd bloomed.
By the time she reached her front door, Darby was actually humming.
Charged up, on fire, raring to go, she positively radiated happiness with a capital ‘H’ again.
She wasn’t on the scrap heap; she did have potential.
Her life belonged to her and she’d rescued it.
Life wasn’t just happening to her. She’d changed it and she could see sparkles. Fab-you-lous.