Page 78 of Crying in the Rain
“Wow! This is beautiful!”
“Yeah, it is,” Shaunna agreed. “We’ve only been here once, haven’t we?” She nudged Kris.
“Hmm?”
“I said we’ve only been here once.”
“Oh, yeah. Looks a bit different now.”
Shaunna gestured to the staircases. “Those rails were stripped back to bare metal, and the treads were untreated wood. I ended up with a huge splinter in my foot.”
“Ouch,” Ade said with a grimace.
“And there’s a pool house at the back, which is…well, have you seen the conservatory at Kew Gardens?”
“Only on TV.”
“It was like an apocalyptic version of that.”
“Right.” Ade was having trouble visualising it.
“Basically, it’s a big greenhouse with a swimming pool in it,” Kris said. “Except when we came here, it was a pool of green sludge.”
“Nice.”
“Dan and Andy’s mum and stepdad were away for the weekend, and—”
“And we were promised a pool party,” Shaunna interrupted.
Ade nodded, highly entertained by their tag-team storytelling.
“They’d only just bought the place then, and Dan and Andy had volunteered to clean out the pool,” Shauna explained. “Either they were being overly optimistic about how quickly they thought they could get it done or—”
“They scammed us,” Kris finished for her.
“Whatever, we spent the entire weekend clearing a foot of gunk with shovels and a wheelbarrow, then hosing down the tiles. They’re gorgeous—blue mosaic, like something from Ancient Greece.”
“Now you can see them,” Kris said.
“There’s that,” Shaunna agreed. “It was a fun weekend, though, even if the pool was nowhere near ready for water by the end of it and I was stiff as a board for days.”
“They won us over with food and alcohol,” Kris added.
“An excellent strategy,” Ade said, coveting their experience a little. Perhaps now he was rid ofIt, he might be able to do things like that himself instead of enjoying them vicariously.
“What d’you reckon then?” The question came from behind, and the three of them turned to see who’d spoken.
Ade watched Kris and the stranger greet each other with the kind of hug granted only to family and very close friends. Or ex-boyfriends, maybe? Ade really hoped this wasn’t George because the guy was gorgeous—tall, with olive skin, deep-brown eyes, brown-black hair and muscles to die for. He felt himself swooning and tugged at Shaunna’s sleeve, which was enough of a prompt for her to grant the introduction Kris had failed to.
“Ade, this is Dan.”
Kris and Dan released each other, and Dan extended an arm. Ade did the same, expecting a finger-crunching handshake, but it was nothing like that at all. Dan squeezed his hand and dazzled him with a charming smile.
“Good to meet you, Ade.”
“You too. Congratulations on your engagement.”
“Cheers.” Dan briefly glanced around him. “Adele’s here, somewhere.” He turned back to his friends and shrugged. “Ah, well. She’ll turn up.”
