LITMIR.BIZ

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away, not a ten-minute walk.

      ‘I knew there had to be a reason,’ she said, trying to subtly pull a strand of hair out of her lip gloss. ‘Are you excited about the christening?’

      ‘I can’t believe my brother is a dad,’ I replied, still staring at my phone. ‘He wasn’t even allowed to bring the school guinea pig home during the holidays and now he’s got a baby.’

      Recalculating the route, I looked down at Liv, wincing with every step she took.

      ‘Anyway, it really has been the best holiday ever,’ she said slowly. ‘I can’t imagine anything nicer.’

      ‘Yeah, incredible,’ I agreed, a cold sweat running down my back. How could I have messed this up? ‘Total once-in-a-lifetime thing.’

      ‘And I can’t imagine anyone I’d rather be with, yeti.’ She looked up and gave me the smallest, sweetest smile and I thought I was going to be sick. In a good way. Sort of. ‘Ever.’

      Oh god, I was actually going to be sick. Everything had been planned so carefully, right down to the smallest detail, and I had cocked up the directions. Maybe it was a sign. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to propose after all.

      ‘You obviously haven’t given it enough thought,’ I said, forcing out a laugh to distract from the fact I was dying inside. ‘You’re saying you’d rather be on holiday with me than Channing Tatum?’

      ‘Why Channing Tatum?’

      ‘I don’t know,’ I admitted. ‘He’s good looking, isn’t he? All buff and that. And he can dance. Women love men who can dance.’

      ‘You can’t dance – and I love you,’ she said, curling her fingers tightly around mine. ‘And I’d definitely pick you over Channing Tatum.’

      ‘Really?’

      ‘You’ve got better hair,’ she nodded thoughtfully. ‘And I couldn’t do that to his wife. She seems lovely.’

      I’d been so worried about what to wear, about getting the music right, the menu right, about fixing my massive Teen Wolf eyebrows, I’d completely messed up our timing. We were supposed to get to the restaurant in time to watch the sun go down. At this rate, it would be the middle of the night before we got there.

      ‘Really, though,’ Liv started with a crack in her voice and my stomach turned over again. ‘I don’t want to be with anyone other than you, Adam. There’s no one else for me, ever.’

      I let go of her hand and wiped my sweaty palms on the back of my jeans.

      ‘Yeah, better the devil you know,’ I said, my tongue tripping over my words. ‘It’s like Star Wars. You’ve got the original trilogy and they’re great, but then George Lucas says he’s going to make new films and you get all excited but you end up with The Phantom Menace.’

      Liv knitted her perfectly groomed eyebrows together. I always hoped our children would have her eyebrows.

      ‘You’ve lost me.’

      ‘I’m saying, our relationship is like the original Star Wars,’ I explained. ‘So I can’t dump you in case I end up with The Phantom Menace.’

      The sun had already started to slip away over the horizon but it was not difficult to make out my girlfriend’s expression. She didn’t look nearly as pleased with the analogy as I was.

      ‘What I’m saying is …’ I rubbed my palms together then took her hand back in mine. ‘You’re A New Hope. That’s good! And it’s better to stick with you because who knows if the next girl is going to be a Force Awakens or a Phantom Menace.’

      ‘If I were you, I’d probably just stop talking.’ She looked around the deserted beach, clearly confused. ‘Yeti, where is the restaurant?’

      ‘So, there’s a small chance I was looking at the driving directions when I said it was ten minutes away,’ I replied, reviewing the map. ‘It’s further than I thought?’

      ‘How much further?’ she asked, a noticeable hobble in her walk.

      I bloody well knew those shoes of hers would be trouble.

      ‘The good news is, we’ve already been walking for twenty minutes,’ I replied with a tentative smile. ‘And it’s only fifty minutes away altogether.’

      ‘Fifty minutes!’

      Liv stopped dead in her tracks, looking at me as though I’d just told her she had to walk the rest of the way barefoot, over hot coals.

      ‘I can’t walk another half an hour in these shoes.’ As she leaned forward, her blonde hair fell in front of her face, showing off her long neck as she messed around with the miniscule gold buckles. I hated those shoes but I loved that neck. I wanted to kiss it. But this really was not the time. ‘My foot is killing me.’

      I bloody knew it.

      ‘Well, take your shoes off and we’ll walk on the sand,’ I suggested, looking at the uneven path that ran down the side of the beach. Even my leathery Hobbit feet wouldn’t fancy that much.

      ‘I can’t,’ she said, wincing as she removed her left shoe. ‘My foot is a bit of a mess.’

      ‘Oh my god, there’s a hole in your foot!’ I made an involuntary gipping sound as she pulled the shoe away to reveal what must have been a particularly nasty blister about fifteen minutes ago. ‘Why didn’t you say something?’

      ‘You were in such a rush.’ She leaned against the low tidal wall and poked gently at the weeping mess formerly known as her foot. ‘I didn’t want to be late.’

      ‘I told you not to wear those shoes,’ I said, mad at her foot, mad at Google and possibly, very slightly mad at myself.

      ‘You also told me the restaurant was ten minutes away,’ she snapped back. ‘I can’t help it.’

      I checked my phone one more time before taking another look at Liv’s gammy foot. It was utterly disgusting but I couldn’t tear my eyes away.

      ‘If we walk around the beach, we’ll be there in ten minutes,’ I said, enlarging the map to make sure of my short cut. ‘Then we can clean that mess up there.’

      ‘There’s no way I’m walking down the beach,’ she said, folding her arms across her chest. ‘It’s filthy. Do you want me to get an infection in my foot? Do you want me to get septicaemia?’

      No, I almost shouted, I want to bloody propose to you! Instead, I took a calming breath, put my phone away and smiled.

      ‘Have you got a plaster?’

      ‘Of course I haven’t got a bloody plaster!’ she exploded. ‘Why would I have a plaster?’

      ‘Because you’re a vet?’ I suggested. ‘Don’t you carry that sort of thing?’

      ‘What, in case we pass an Alsatian with a splinter?’

      I turned my back on her and looked out at the setting sun, the last sliver hovering over the sea, and fingered the ring in my pocket. We were supposed to be there by now. We were supposed to be drinking champagne, surrounded by white roses and enjoying all the other amazing things I’d paid an arm and a leg for Pablo the events manager to organize in The Arse End of Nowhere, Mexico. I should have been the one down on one knee with a ring in my hand, instead Liv was crouching on the floor and tending to an open wound.

      ‘Maybe we should go back to the hotel,’ I suggested weakly as the sun drowned itself in the ocean. ‘It’s dark; it’s late. We’re not going to get there on time.’

      ‘You want to go back?’ she asked, hesitating over every word. ‘You don’t want to go to dinner?’

      ‘Well, I don’t want to sit here,’ I replied. ‘What would you suggest?’

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