" 'you sure you're not cold? You're OK being outside?"

"Of course, it's such a beautiful evening, we should make the most of it."

"In more ways than one," Dylan says with a smile that's not hungry just for food.

"Look, there's the fountain right here," Gemma points at it, her cheeks hurting from smiling all the way here, she's so out of practice. "And there's the tree in the middle, and birds singing in the middle of Mayfair, and there's you: what's not to love?"

"You're sure you'd not rather we sat inside?"

"Seriously, Dylan, are you OK? It's not like you to get worked up about logistics."

"I know, but this needs to be perfect."

"That's sweet, but it really doesn't. Besides it already is, perfect."

"Thanks, but…"

"What?"

"Nah, you're going to freak out."

"Try me. I marked a queen today," Gemma says, looking straight into his beautiful eyes. It's such a joy being able to do that again. And a bit weird too, because Gemma can't remember Dylan ever looking this… What is he, shy?

"OK," he says, then takes a big breath and holds onto the edge of the table: "Tonight needs to be perfect, Gem, so that when we've been married for yonks, and the eldest's kept you up all night puking all over her bedroom carpet, and then you find out I bought the wrong nappies for the boy, and then I say something really stupid instead of just apologising, then, I can still take your hand and remind you of our first date together, and that I might just be worth sticking around for."

"Wow."

"Told you you'd freak out."

"Oh no, no I'm not freaking out. I'm impressed: you never used to plan anything two days ahead, Dylan, let alone two kids ahead."

"Fair cop."

"And you're right: you did freak me out with that talk of nappies. We're not buying disposables, Dyl, not over my dead body."

He looks amused, if still not entirely reassured.

"Hey, look, it's fine," she says, "We're going to have kids, well I hope we manage to have them, it's cool. And when we do, I know that you'll be there for me. You've been there for me the moment we met on Helvellyn, Dylan. We'll always have that, for a day to remember."

Now, now Dylan is amused:

"Helvellyn? come on, that was a miserable, Gem. You were miserable."

"Yes, and a lot more miserable before you stopped, believe you me. It's not just my bag you carried up that blasted hill. One way or another you got me up there too, and that's what I think of when I get mad at you."

"Really?"

"That and…"

"What?"

It's ridiculous to feel embarrassed about it, now of all times, but Gemma does feel a blush rise to her cheeks:

"See, our first kiss has a way of popping into my mind at the most inappropriate times."

"Tell me about it! And our second too."

"Well, there you go. And if I still freak out after remembering all of that, then tell me to close my eyes, breathe in and think of Floris."

"Your Mum?"

"Oh no! No, the queen bee I just marked."

"Right."

For a while they look at each other, flustered and shy, as if this really was a first date. And so it is, in the sense that the Dylan now sitting in front of Gemma feels like the new and improved re-release of something you thought could not possibly get any better.

"Gem?"

"Yes, my love."

She smiles as she watches him reel back and gather himself again. She reaches for his hand.

"Dylan Mann, are you freaking out on me?"

"Maybe that's what this is."

"Breathe, think of our first kiss. Or better still, think of our next one?"

He smiles.

"I'm thinking that I've been a jerk, Gem, and you're being so..."

"I know, you're not used to me being nice to you but it's OK, Dylan, you'll get used to it."

"It's not that. You've always been lovely to me,"

"Whenever I wasn't being infuriating."

"Yes, ...no. OK, look, Gem, stop interrupting me because this is hard enough as it is. I've got ten years' worth of apologising to get on with in one night, and I'm not even sure where to start."

Ten years?

"What ten years? We're still two weeks short of five months since you stopped taking my calls, Dyl, it really is not that bad."

"You've counted too?"

"Obviously," she nods. "Besides, I was definitely on the wrong side of the argument we had that day. Martin's a lovely guy and I was wrong about Vikas too, though he's not that bad a guy either – well not compared to Frank anyway, but then who is? I'm still pissed off with Martin for taking Hari from us, mind, but I'm also delighted that he's made her so happy and... well… you were right, and I was wrong. That day."

"Thanks. But not as wrong as I was about you, I should have..."

"Let's not turn being wrong into a competition, Dyl. That could get ugly," she says, grabbing his hand again and squeezing it.

"Yeah, trust us to manage to argue about who needs to apologise more."

"I disagree: we're not arguing," she says, smiling at him until he gets it, and smiles, and kisses her hand, and starts apologising again, but this time without that really weird insecure look on his face:

"OK you're right. We're not arguing. But can you imagine the summer you and I could have had, if only I'd had the guts to show you that picture and ask for an explanation?"

"To be honest I had absolutely no idea what was really going on back then. I couldn't possibly have guessed, mind, but I'd probably just have been smug about it."

"I was so angry with you, Gem."

"I noticed."

"I'm sorry. The thing is, I looked at that photo and I wasn't just pissed off at him, or at you. I was pissed off with myself, for being such a monumental idiot. I'd spent the best part of ten years fantasising about you and I getting together, and all I'd ever thought to do about it was kiss you half-cut once, and then arse about for years playing you at foosball and betting you coffees for kisses hoping you'd get the hint. Then Frank swans in and in five minutes flat he's not only asking you out, he's whisking you away to Paris for a snog."

"For the last time it wasn't a snog!"

"Wow, sorry, Gem. OK. Kiss. Whatever: but bloody Paris? The worst thing about that photo was: I looked at it and I thought hell, I can't blame her, I'd choose him too, he's got his act together."

"Yeah well, an act was all that it was, Dyl. All smoke and mirrors – and warrants."

"I'm sorry, Gem. You must have been through hell."

She nods. But hell actually looks pretty awesome, when it's vanishing away fast in your rear-view mirror.

"And instead of being there for you, I was busy feeling sorry for myself."

"And wooing Kat."

"Ah yes, Kat."

x

Dylan is saved from having to elaborate by the appearance of a lovely waitress, and the need to make a decision about dinner. This takes a while because they've not so much as glanced at the menu since they sat down. But it also doesn't matter much, because neither of them is here for the food experience right now.

"So, why don't you tell me about Kat before our grub arrives?" Gemma says as soon as the waitress is gone. They might as well get it over with. It would seem a shame to waste precious bed time together discussing Kat, though discussed she must be.

"Sorry, you must really hate her."

"It's more like you with Frank: she makes me feel deeply inadequate, that's all."

"Inadequate? You?"

Lord knows why, he seems to find it funny.

"She did tick all the boxes."

"Gem, if you mean that her parents did come from the Punjab, that was never a consideration. Not for me anyway."

"Mind you, if my dad had indeed come from the Punjab, maybe he'd not have been such a condescending old racist towards you all these years."

Dylan smiles, which is very good of him, considering:

"Hey, if that makes you feel any better, Amma didn't exactly cover herself in glory either, when I told her you'd ditched me."

"I never ditched you."

"Snogged another guy."

"Dylan!"

"Kissed! Been kissed by another guy. Perhaps that's not exactly how I put it to Amma, sorry. Anyway, she was all what did you expect, and girls like her and then yeah, it was a small step from that to you should meet that lovely Katiya I've been telling you about," Dylan says in an accent he's not done for Gemma yet, which is a shame, because his Punjab-meet-Belfast is a corker. Then he sighs and adds, back in his Cambridge voice: "She really had been going on about Kat for ages, to be fair, and I was convinced you and I were finished."

"You kind of made sure of that when you blocked my number."

It's strange to find that she's still a little sore about it, even as they're physically holding hands. But then:

"I guess that photo must have looked a lot like you and I were finished, and I hadn't even bothered to tell you."

"Aha, and bear in mind that there was a very good reason you'd not have bothered to tell me, which was that I'd been such a twerp and a chancer for ten years."

"You weren't a twerp or a chancer."

"All I had to do was not get drunk, and ask you out properly, Gem. How difficult is that?"

"I don't know."

"Actually, it's terrifying. I mean, what if you'd told me tonight that you really would rather have Hansi smell your hair?"

"OK enough about Hansi smelling my hair! Who told you about that?"

"Duh: Agnes told Hari?"

"Ah, yes, 'course."

"Did he really smell your hair?"

"I guess, yeah."

"And?"

"Dyl, Hans is a lovely guy, but you've got nothing to worry about."

Dylan holds her gaze for a moment, like there's still a shadow of doubt in his mind about it.

As if.

"Hmm," he says, crossing his lovely arms in the lovely pink t-shirt he hadn't thrown away after all, and which she can't wait to whip off him later, "the paradox is, that asking someone out is only terrifying when you really care about them. I wasn't one bit scared of asking Kat out, because I really didn't give a monkey's whether she wanted to or not. I did things by the book, mind. I asked her where she'd like to go, took her to some poncey Japanese, tried not to go on about you too much, failed miserably..."

"Sounds like a fun date."

"Perhaps it was only slightly worse than trudging up and down Helvellyn in the rain for eight hours, wondering whether you were loving me or hating me for trying to be nice to you."

"Loved you for it. Definitely."

"Well anyway, I stuck it out with Kat, asked her about her job and family, and all the while I kept thinking what an idiot I had been all these years, waiting for you to somehow just get it some day, that I was in love with you, instead of booking this place and telling you myself without getting half-cut first."

"Sorry, telling me what again?"

Dylan leans forward, grabs her hands and locks eyes with her:

"Telling you that I love you, Gemma."

"Well that's really lucky, Dylan, because I do love you too."

Damn that table between them. Were she five inches taller, would she be able to lean over and reach out to his mouth with hers? And now the waitress is back with bread, hot and crunchy-crusted from the oven, and a little white dish with two portions of French butter each individually wrapped in wax paper, which is not environmentally friendly at all but oh-so-pretty, and two bottles of water, one fizzy and one still. When the waitress is gone instead of grabbing Gemma's hands again Dylan leans back into his chair and starts looking awkward. And also yummy with his big long brown arms crossed, a tad defensively, in front of him.

"Right, so please remember that you do love me while I tell you the next bit. Kat called me back, after what must have been the worst date of her life too. I couldn't figure out why she'd ever want to see me again, but I knew Amma would make my life even more of a hell on earth if I didn't, so I did see Kat again, and it turned out the answer was bloody Geneva."

"Right."

"I can't blame you for hating her, Gem, but Kat is nothing if not one of your Queens. She's at least as determined as you are. I must have mentioned Switzerland on our first date, but I was still in two minds about going until Kat argued her case. Her dream job was in Geneva, her parents wouldn't let her leave the country on her own, but they would let her go with me."

"What?! That's awful, poor her!"

"Quite. And a bit rich when you consider her parents left their parents behind when they moved to Northern Ireland. Anyway, she reminded me that Switzerland would do my tax rate a power of good, and give me the space I clearly needed to get over you. New start and all that: no brainer. Well... Anway, as she pointed out we didn't even need to like each other, just pretend to until we'd been there long enough for her folks to stop questioning it, and for me to get over myself, and then we'd see. In the context of you and Frank it did make a lot of sense, Gem. I didn't stand a chance against him, so I might as well get the hell out of there. You know, flee the scene of my exploits, as I do."

"Hmm, well from where I stood on the night of Agnes and Ade's party, it looked more like you'd won the lottery."

Dylan winces:

"Yeah, sorry about that. The whole matching outfits thing was Kat's idea, but she meant well. No sorry, I mean: she meant well for me, especially given that she never particularly liked me, I don't think. But she knew I was in a right state about seeing you again that night, and with Frank too, so she went all out with the outfits and the snogging and everything. Sorry, that was really crass. God, but you showing up in that dress! For him! Do you have any idea what that did to me?"

"Dylan, you idiot! I wore that dress for you!"

"Did you?!"

"Seriously, Dyl, what's so astonishing about me wearing your favourite dress for your benefit!"

Dylan takes a moment to let it sink in:

"Honestly? Everything."

"Duh! Well, that dress is ruined now. I wept and snotted all over it in front of Isa that night. Yours and Kat's fault."

"Hey, hey, it's only a dress. There'll be others."

"Would never fit me now anyway…"

"And… do you give a monkey's?" Dylan asks, squeezing her hand, "Cos I don't. You'd do it for me in a potato sack, Gem. In a pink beesuit, even."

That's really sweet of him, and perhaps even true, but:

"What a shame," Gemma sighs, "If you and Kat had done less great a job that night impersonating hip young brown couple of the year, I'm pretty sure either Agnes or Ade would have said something to you afterwards. But us queens got rules about other women's men. Or women."

"You really do, don't you? Didn't anyone think I'd bounced back a tad quick?"

"Frank did. But then everyone probably thought that about me and him as well. Plus, you two really were very cute together."

"Thanks, I guess. And again: I'm very sorry."

"I was actually happy for you, you know. It wasn't easy, but I was. It was my own stupid fault anyway: the only reason I couldn't tell Agnes what I'd really been up to with Frank was because I wouldn't tell anyone about the mess I'd made at Queen Bees."

"It wasn't just your mess."

"I should have thought about those warrants."

"So should bloody Rob, so should Agnes. So should I, for that matter. You did tell me about them way back, and I even told you they were a great idea."

"That's right, because of the lower interest rate."

Gosh, it's good when someone gets it first time round.

"Quite," says Dylan, "but I forgot all about them too. I was too busy being jealous of Frank to think of how he'd go about trying to screw you. Financially, that is."

"Yeah, well if I'd owned up straight away instead of…"

"…trying to fix it?" Dylan interrupts. "Trying to shield Agnes? Those aren't bad instincts, Gem. You're a sucker for fixing things and people."

"That's a terribly generous way to put it, Dylan. But I think all I was, was scared and ashamed," she says, staring a little sadly at their hands. Dylan gives hers a squeeze before he lets it go to make room on the table for the food.

x

"So, I see that you're no longer scared of full fat food either. That bodes well for your week in Switzerland," he says when he clocks her side order of triple cooked chips.

"Oh no, I'm only going to eat a quarter of that, maybe less. Now I really do want to get back into your favourite dress again."

"Don't starve yourself for my sake, Gem, I love all that I'm seeing tonight."

"Again, very generous of you. So when did Agnes and Ade tell you what really happened?"

"They didn't."

"What?"

"Yep, what do you know, they kept out of it – queens' rules, I guess. I knew some time before I left that you'd signed with Montage and everything was fine, and so I flew on my merry way out to Geneva with Kat and that was that, you know."

"I don't think I do, no, but I'm really not sure I want to know."

"Really?"

"No! Dyl, you don't like thinking of Hansi smelling my hair: what makes you think I'd want to know about you and Kat…"

"…being incredibly awkward around each other? I don't know. I thought perhaps you'd find it reassuring that I literally couldn't bring myself to have sex with the poor woman. Not that she was mad keen either, mind, but she did try to initiate things, once. I don't think it was a coincidence that that was the day she finished her six weeks' probation at work. I'd somehow been hanging in there that long because for once in my life I was going to try not being a quitter, you know. Try acting like a grown up, instead of just walking out on things and people as soon as the going got tough. But that night, what can I say? I was unforgettable. Unforgettably crap. Called her Gem at some point too. Not on purpose, mind, it just came out, but that really finished killing the vibe."

"Poor Kat."

"Honestly, I think she was relieved. Actually I know she was, because we stopped pretending after that. She was on the payroll at her bank by then, she thanked me profusely for helping her out, wished me well and got on with her life."

"Wow,"

"Told you, Gem, she's a queen, she'll go far. She deserves to."

Gemma nods.

"Then I realised that Martin was another person who didn't deserve to be made miserable just because I was. So I talked to him, and he talked to Hari, and I talked to Hari, and then I had to call you and my god, I knew it was going to be hard, but..."

"...hard doesn't even begin to describe it?"

"Quite. One look at you, and there I was, right back at square one thinking fuck me I love this woman so frigging much it hurts! Honestly, Gem, this is why I had to block you out of my life, out of my phone anyway. And you looked so… come to think of it you looked like you had on Helvellyn, that must have been it. And without that stupid necklace. I just wanted to swoop you up, instead of which I dealt you yet another low blow you'd done nothing to deserve, and then I hung up and felt like a complete and utter jerk, and that was when I finally dug up Jane's email and read it."

"Sorry, what?"

"Jane. Jane Fairfax? She'd written me some rambling email with your name in the subject, so naturally I'd deleted it without reading it because I was still trying to get over you, and nothing good had ever come out of Jane Fairfax's gmail account."

The latter is true, for sure, but:

"Wait: she wrote to you? When? Oh that woman, did she write to you after we…?"

"Yep. Nice heist, by the way, nice teamwork. I was impressed. And entertained. And, well…"

"I can't believe she did that, Dyl. I'm sorry, I want you to know that she asked me first, and that I categorically, explicitly told her to leave you and Kat alone, I swear. I never..."

"Yeah well, I'm glad someone did bother to bring me into the loop, and I'm glad frigging Apple never finishes deleting anything properly. But God, did reading that email make me feel even more of a right monumental arse! You've got to believe me, Gem, until that time I had no idea what you'd been through. No one told me: why you'd tried so hard to get through to me, why Ade and Agnes had gone a bit quiet since I'd left, why… why you and Frank. Jane went on and on that it was all on him, nothing you could have done, he was the bad guy."

"And what a bad guy…"

"And then I realised that that whole Zoom call I'd…you must have thought I was such a callous git, not even mentioning what he'd put you through."

"I'm not sure I was fit to think anything at all during that call, Dyl. I think I just drank you with my eyes mostly, and tried not to weep."

"Did you run your hand over the screen at the end?"

"Oh crap, it was still on?"

Dylan nods slowly, smiling but then sighing almost at the same time, and finally reaching for Gemma's hand again.

"It was this one, wasn't it?"

Gemma nods, staring blankly into space. Her mind has just time travelled back to that horrible day and she doesn't want to stay there. She closes her eyes and thinks of Floris, reopens them. The real Dylan is here, and he's holding her hand.

"I'm so glad you did that, Gem. That's what I hung on to after I'd read Jane's email, I hung onto to that memory of your hand, like the desperate man that I was. Maybe, I thought, just maybe, she still wants to stroke a screen with my face on it, God only knows why, but if she does I'm the luckiest guy on earth."

"That was the day I took up beekeeping," Gemma says in a small, far-away voice.

"Was it?"

She nods:

"Had to do something even scarier than missing you."

"Did it work?"

"In part, yes. Out with the bees has pretty much been the only time I'd stop thinking of you and hurting like hell every time. It gave my brain somewhere else to fly to, other than Geneva. Oh but why didn't you call me straight away, Dyl! This was ages ago, why didn't you just grab the phone and…"

"And what? Turn up back here half-cocked as usual, with nothing but my sweet smile to recommend me? No Sir-ee, Gem, not this time. For once in my life I was going to do things properly, and if you still told me to piss off at least it wouldn't be for lack of trying. I had to get my ducks in a row, Gem. Talk to the fund of fund about moving back here, which wasn't a fun conversation, get Martin fully up to speed to cover for me, and this place books ages in advance for a weekend stay."

"For a what…?"

"And then I had to finish the rugby summer camp."

"Excuse me, what?!" Gemma all but shouts, suddenly forgetting all about that "weekend stay" she was desperate to know more about not ten seconds ago.

She gets her voice back under control and checks:

"Excuse me, Dylan, you left me stuck here, pining after you, so you could go on throwing some oval fracking ball around?!"

Dylan smiles his sweet smile to those diners whose heads have turned to stare at Gemma. Gemma herself is too busy giving him daggers to care about any of them.

"Hey, hey, Gem, it's OK. Only added about a week to the whole thing and I thought it was important I saw one goddamn thing through out there."

"Rugby summer camp though, seriously, how old are you?"

"I was coaching, Gem, not playing. Coaching a bunch of eight-year-old expat kids and diplo-brats two afternoons a week and then every weekend, helping with their fixtures. A guy at the fund of fund had his kid there and asked me to help. It's the best fun I had out there, if I'm honest. Other than watching Hari and Martin get ready for a Friday night on the town."

Nice try, Dylan Mann. He's almost managed to distract her from his rugby exploits with talk of Hari and Martin's antics. And yet:

"So let me get this straight: you gave up all of your weekends this summer to teach a bunch of kids to play rugby?"

"That's right," he nods: "I mean, can you imagine growing up with parents that are too busy the whole summer to even throw you a ball?"

She can, yes, just about:

"So you gave up coming back here, so that you could be there, for them?"

"Only by about a week, but yeah. They're kids, Gem. You can't let kids down, can you? Got to do right by them."

"And… were these kids any good at rugby?"

"Nope, dreadful. They could all do long divisions in five different languages, but not one of them could run and pass a ball at the same time. I suggested we called the team the Bloody Hopeless, but I was voted down."

"So I take it no conservatory windows were damaged in the making of that summer mini-league?"

"That's right, little buggers couldn't drop kick for shit either, forgive my French."

"And to witness this did you have to miss… I don't know, some great kite flying weather, or some ultimate frisbee on the telly?"

"Both, yes. Aha."

"I see."

"Do you? Do you see a bloke who can put his back into something and try and do it right, Gem? Because that's the look I've been going for, I swear."

"Yes, yes I think I can see him," Gemma says. "All of him, he looks even better without the beard."

"And will you head upstairs with him when you've finished your chips? Or not finish them, it's up to you," Dylan asks, setting a key-card on the table between them.

x

Not many minutes, and only two triple-cooked fries later, they head inside and up the stairs to do what they do best. To bend and collapse time by doing all the things they've only been able to dream of doing to each other for months, and some other new things that they couldn't have dreamt of, because those months apart have changed them physically too: added to Gemma's waist, peeled that black fur away from Dylan's cheeks...

Later still, sleep comes to yet another, sated version of them, and time flies somewhere humankind will never fully understand.

Copyright Mel Liffragh 2021 all rights reserved