Ivy snorts into her spoon. “Oh no. Did he cry?”
“He texted me a crown emoji and a threat.”
She shakes her head, still laughing, and something shifts in the air—softens. There’s no pressure. No loomingsilence. Just the two of us, standing in her kitchen, trying to remember how to be... us.
I hand her a tomato and a knife. “You’re on salad duty.”
She raises an eyebrow. “That feels dangerously close to a power move.”
“My kitchen, my rules.”
“We’re in my kitchen.”
I ignore that small detail. “I’m still the head chef. Don’t challenge me.”
She slices the tomatoes carefully, but there’s a smile at the corners of her mouth. I can feel it blooming in the room, that slow, quiet return to something that almost slipped away.
And maybe this time, we’ll get it right.
37
Most Handsome Channel Islander
Ivy
The lasagne is delicious—rich,cheesy, perfectly layered—but I barely manage half a portion. It’s not that I’m not hungry. It’s just… him.
Unlike our last date, tonight is good. Comfortable. Familiar. Like we’ve done this a hundred times before. Like it’s not just dinner—it’s foreplay.
I know it. He knows it.
Every glance, every accidental brush of hands, every low murmur of conversation is laced with tension, and it’s making my stomach do ridiculous flips.
After we finish eating—well, after Theo finishes eating, because I spend most of dinner trying to pretend I’m not hopelessly distracted—we take our drinks into the living room. The sofa is deep and ridiculously comfortable, and I sink into it, tucking my legs beneath me. Theo settles beside me, stretching out in that lazy way of his, arm slung over the back of the sofa.
Too close. Not close enough.
We chat easily, laughter slipping between us as effortlessly as the wine in my glass. And then, between sips, I tilt my head at him, something suddenly clicking in my mind.
“You know, I’ve been meaning to ask…” I gesture at him. “You, Jasper, Geoff—what’s with the old-fashioned names?”
He sighs dramatically, swirling his drink. “Theodor and Geoffrey, oh how we hated it.”
“Fitting.” I start laughing, covering my mouth with my hand. “You all have an air of poshness around you.”
Theo rolls his eyes, but he’s grinning. “Yeah, yeah. Meanwhile, Jasper gets off easy—he’s just Jasper.”
I shake my head, still giggling. “So what, were your parents obsessed with history or something?”
He exhales. “My mum. She’s got some kind of old English upper-class blood, very remotely related to Edward II or something. Not that it means anything.” He rolls his eyes. “But she likes to pretend it does.”
I raise a brow. “Oh?”
He smirks. “Put it this way—she’s your typical eccentric middle-class housewife who somehow thinks she’s royalty. She basically rules the ‘high society’ of Guernsey.”
I stare at him for a second. “You’re telling me… your mum is the Queen of Guernsey?”
Theo bursts out laughing. “Something like that. She insists on calling us by our full names. Theodor, Geoffrey, Jasper—like we’re characters in a Brontë novel. Needless to say, none of us go home often.”
