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Probably the Best Kiss in the World
Probably the Best Kiss in the World

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Probably the Best Kiss in the World

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Initially on reaching the others, sitting at the pavement table, Jen had resumed her slightly braced stance. She’d expected them to crack open the nightmare hen accessories any second, but nothing had happened – not even willy-straws in their drinks. In fact, her mad clothes aside, the four of them were having a lovely time, chatting and continuing their normal banter. No one mentioned the wedding (which was turning out to be the norm as nothing had happened on that front in the last week, given both she and Robert had been madly busy.) The general consensus was also that it was a bloody good thing Ava and Zara hadn’t been able to make this trip either. Lydia was still stubbornly insisting she’d already booked the tickets by the time Jen had given her the dates memo and Jen conveniently chose not to call bullshit. In the interest of not hurting feelings, by which Jen meant not raising two she-devils, they all readily agreed to keep this trip secret.

“What happens in ‘hagen, stays in ‘hagen,” Lydia tried with a smutty wink, but the others were adamant it didn’t work as well as Vegas. Jen prayed there wouldn’t be any strip clubs involved later. And that was another thing; she had no idea what the plan for later was and that never sat well with her. The others didn’t appear as concerned by this as she did. Thankfully their Copenhagen Card travel passes came with an app, and she started paging madly through the screens, the snaps now making her feel slightly light-headed.

“Put the app away, Attison,” Max growled, “we’re in Lydia’s capable hands.”

“What? Really?” Jen couldn’t hide her dismay. There were things she wanted to see and only two days in which to see them. She’d cobbled together an emergency list on her phone during the flight, but she had a full Copenhagen plan on her laptop at home. Other people did that, didn’t they, devising fantasy trip itineraries? Sort of mood-boarding, but in words and lists.

Lydia disregarded the dismay. “My hands are very capable, Jen,” she insisted, slurring slightly. Clearly beer and snaps in the sunshine was having its effect. “I can give you a list of guys who can vouch for that.”

“Sometimes, Lydia, you say things I’d instantly like to unhear. That was one of them.” The bill being paid, Jen figured it was time to move on. “What’s next?” At her best in a proactive role, Jen concluded if she couldn’t be the one deciding what they saw, at least she could take a role in making sure they got there.

“Seriously, where are we going?” Jen asked again, after thirty minutes of seemingly aimless wandering through the streets. Her own itinerary, had Lydia only asked her for it, had everything for a weekend break broken down hour by hour. There was a glass-topped boat tour around the canals, trips up spiralling church towers, dinner in Tivoli Gardens which had inspired Walt Disney to start his theme parks.

“Somewhere.” Lydia was being annoyingly obtuse in answering her questions.

“I’m sure we just passed the Round Tower. That was on my list.” Jen waved her phone at Lydia. “No stairs all the way up, just a winding ramp, so the king could stay on his horse to the observatory at the top.”

“Lazy arse,” Alice said, still walking, “we’re not encouraging that sort of thing.”

Jen threw a small hissy-fit insisting she had “Bridal rights”, until the others relented.

Never had the seventeenth century tower been scaled so quickly, nor the view of the city’s rooftops, towers and entwined-dragon-tail’ed spires admired so briefly. To be fair, the height wasn’t conducive to the amount of booze in her belly. Hoofing back down, getting dizzy with the perpetual turn, the others acknowledged the lack of stairs as a boon. Alice reckoned all olde worlde towers show be retro-fitted with no stairs. The snaps was definitely having its moment.

Back on the street, Jen was keen to know the next port of call. “Is it something on my list?” she asked, brandishing the screen in Max’s face. Max would give her a sensible answer.

“Relax, Jen. You’ll see.” Well, how was that helpful?

At the next corner Alice and Max ducked into a grocers while Jen sat with Lydia on a bench in the shade.

“Leg all right?”

“S’fine,” Lydia answered, head thrown back, eyes closed, enjoying the sun on her face.

“We can stop more often if you need to.” Lydia had her everyday leg on – a micro-prosthetic; a far more robotic looking piece of kit, its shiny metal pylon connecting the socket and foot. While she wore her cosmesis – her “fake leg” cosmetic prosthesis – on dates and if wearing skirts to the office, Lydia rarely hid her prosthesis and today was wearing shorts.

“Jen? Stop fussing. I’m fine. Try doing what I’m doing, it’s lovely.” Jen looked at her sister. As far as she could see she wasn’t doing anything. She took a look at her watch. It was nearly five. Touristy things would be closing soon and here they were dawdling. Jen really hoped they weren’t just killing time before Tivoli Gardens opened. The mid-city park and funfair was the thing Lydia seemed most fired up about and while Jen was keen to eat in one of the many restaurants there, she drew a line at the fairground rides. Rollercoasters were beyond her comfort zone. That kind of control relinquishing was impossible. Even for kicks. She wondered if she’d played her “Bridal rights” card too early. With this hen-do being Lydia’s “domain”, she doubted she had any rights of veto.

For want of anything else to do, Jen scrolled through the pictures she’d taken at the Kronegaard museum, especially those of the main building. They made her feel slightly melancholy. She’d once been about start work in a place like that, to be part of that industry. It felt a world away and a lifetime ago. The feeling made her lean back and close her eyes just like her sister.

“Wake up, you lazers,” Alice commanded, giving Jen a light kick to the foot, “hurry up or we’ll be late.” She and Max stood in front of them with two bulging carrier bags. Seriously, thought Jen, this group behaved unlike any tourists she’d experienced before. They weren’t bothered with guidebooks or visiting the obvious sights. They were NOT doing it properly.

Surveying the little GoBoat in front of them, Jen wasn’t convinced. It was like a blue plastic bath toy, except grown-up sized, with a solar-cell motor and a picnic table bang in the middle. She’d seen groups pootling along the canals in these, all having a cheery time with their food and drinks in the sunshine. Seeing other people in them was one thing, actually venturing out in one herself was another thing entirely.

Thankfully, Max was up for driving it. She’d once spent a school trip on a narrow-boat and could at least steer the thing. Meanwhile, Alice and Lydia gleefully unloaded the bags, and suddenly their table was adorned with snacks and beers. Trying a bottle of Mikkeller, Jen was touched they’d sought out local indie beers. They knew her so well, and all of a sudden she realised the joy of a hen-do. It was time away with the women most precious to you, who knew you best and who had your happiness at heart. She swallowed the lump in her throat and whacked her sunglasses over her eyes so the others would be none the wiser.

Their boat was launched from the jetty by a baby-faced attendant and they commenced their route into the canals. Begrudgingly, Jen conceded this was a fine way to see the city, puttering along between the old buildings with beers in hand, hooting and faking echoes as they passed under low bridges. Crossing the harbour got a bit choppy, but they’d necked a couple of bottles by then, so nobody panicked. Instead they cheerily waved at the tourists in the glass-topped tour boats, at the cyclists on the bike bridge and at the commuters on the yellow water buses. And there was singing. Any song they could remember with a water theme was mauled by their astonishing lack of musical talent. Jen couldn’t remember the last time she’d sung. School perhaps. Dreadful as it might be on the ears, she wondered if it wasn’t actually rather good for the soul.

Following the map, Max steered them into the calmer waters of the Christianshavn canal where tall colourfully-painted houses lined the streets on either side and boats of all kinds, from small yachts to hydrangea-laden houseboats, were moored.

“They modelled this part of the city on Amsterdam, you know,” Jen said, dreamily. The warmth of the day and the beer had sloughed the efficiency off Jen’s sightseeing needs. She was feeling quite idle now and more surprisingly, she was rather enjoying it.

“Who’s they?” asked Alice, who was leaning into Max, face to the sun.

“The King. Christian, I think, or Frederik.” She’d seen this on a BBC4 documentary. All Danish kings were alternately called one or the other since the 1500’s, which had struck her as rather tidy. “Duh,” she slapped herself on the forehead, “must have been a Christian, he named it after himself.” But annoyingly she couldn’t remember which one had established this gorgeous part of the city and in her tipsiness, it suddenly seemed imperative to know. She dug out her phone and started swiping to locate her Copenhagen app.

“Put the phone away, Jen,” Lydia murmured, “we can look it up when we get home. Just enjoy it.” She was laid back along the side of the boat, sun bathing. Her prosthetic lay discarded at her side, the socket liner next to it, leaving her scarred skin free to the warm air. She seemed in a state of bliss.

“Won’t take a second,” Jen insisted.

“Seriously, Jen. It’ll keep.” Without opening her eyes, Lydia tried to swat the phone aside but misjudged both her aim and velocity.

The phone flew from Jen’s hand into the canal.

Heads from the surrounding homes and boats turned towards the ensuing squawking. Jen was instantly hanging over the side trying to reach the phone which currently floated on the surface but was beginning to take in water and start its descent into the murky depths. Jen saw her whole life descending before her.

“Nooooooooooo.”

Max thankfully cut the engine, but they were drifting nonetheless, necessitating Jen to stretch further than was comfortable as she willed her fingertips longer. This could not be happening.

Suddenly a small net appeared in her field of vision, deftly scooping the phone up. Thank god. Jen’s eyes followed the attached stick up to the deck of a long black barge moored to the quayside. On the deck, her eyes met with a pair of bare feet, travelled up the blond-haired legs to baggy navy cargo shorts, via the bare torso, to, wow, back to the torso because ripped, and then reluctantly further on to the face.

“Well, hello,” Jen heard Lydia say in a salacious tone entirely inappropriate to the urgency of the moment. “Hottie alert.”

He was clearly a Scandi; straw blond hair, blue eyes and very tall from what Jen could see from her contorted position. There wasn’t time to consider what he made of them … of her. She needed to rescue the phone. Who knew how much water had got in? She stretched for it, but they’d drifted further, and even as he scampered to the end of his boat and hung off it himself, they couldn’t reach. Lydia held onto Jen as she leaned herself out beyond what felt logistically possible or sensible.

“I can meet you further along the quay,” he called. And Jen was about to say yes, that was a marvellous idea, when Max decided to restart the engine. The jolt sent Jen’s momentum forwards, and surprised, Lydia didn’t have a firm enough grip on Jen’s hips. Aided by the high nylon content of her skirt on the smooth plastic, Jen sailed headlong into the water like a liner descending the slipway on her maiden voyage.

Coughing and spluttering Jen surfaced and took a moment to gain her bearings between the barge and her GoBoat – which seemed to be moving away in the opposite direction.

“I don’t know how to reverse, Jen!” Max shouted. Looking around, Jen saw the canal was too narrow for Max to simply circle the boat. A horn blared from behind her as a tour boat made its approach. The man on the barge shouted for her to grab the net. She didn’t need telling twice and she felt herself being pulled towards him. Once she’d grabbed onto the barge, the net was pulled up and a hand grasped hers before she was yanked up to lie like a flapping fish on the hot deck.

The first thing she checked, as her cheek dripped on the tarred felting, was that her phone was safely aboard. Turning her head then to the canal, she saw the GoBoat, with the three other girls watching them. They weren’t looking particularly worried. More amused, in fact.

“Keep her!” Lydia called from the back of the disappearing boat. “She’s staying at the boat hotel.” Looking up, Jen saw him nod, clearly understanding where she meant. “Jen! We’ll be in Tivoli if you want to join us for the rides. Don’t worry, it’s on the itinerary!”

Jen stared aghast as it dawned on her that along with taking the mick, they really weren’t stopping. It appeared, primarily by the enormous grin on Lydia’s face, that her hens were abandoning her, sopping wet in bad clothing, in the hands of a topless stranger. That was NOT normal hen-do practice either.

The chill of a breeze hit the back of her thighs at approximately the same moment she registered the sodden orange fabric Lydia was waving at her. Apparently, Lydia had made a final grab for her, and hung onto her skirt.

Ah bugger.

Chapter 8

She wasn’t sure she could style this out.

“Yes, so, hello,” she mumbled, shuffling around to sit on her bottom, obscuring her knickers and unpeeling the wet peasant blouse from her skin. Bloody, bloody Lydia.

“Hello,” he replied. His voice had a highly amused tone to it. “Your friends seem to have left you …”

Jen looked back at the canal. The boat had turned a corner and gone. “Those women are not my friends. Those women are dead to me,” Jen said deadpan, “especially the one I live with and who calls herself my sister.” It made him smile and she didn’t feel so pathetic.

No longer flailing in the water or on the deck, she took a proper look at him. Aside from the blondness, his face was an impressive construction of planes and angles, and he had that fine layer of stubble, more style than laziness. His shortish hair was rebelling, but against what, she had no idea, and the complete package was what she’d class as Exquisite. However, it was his eyes which had her fixed. They were a soft cornflower blue and calmly focused on her. Which brought her consciousness back to her own face, which she was sure looked bleeding awful. She gave her cheeks a quick swipe in the hope of clearing any running mascara. Alice Cooper wasn’t a look she was going for.

He looked her up and down, but with concern as opposed to a leer. “Would you like some dry clothes?” Yes, so he had just suggested she get her kit off, but it hadn’t felt untoward, more like common sense. He grabbed a folded fleece blanket from a garden chair perched on the deck and handed it to her. “I think I can find a t-shirt and some shorts.” He nodded towards a set of glass doors, which Jen supposed to be the galley and wrapping the blanket around her middle, followed as he led the way. He stopped abruptly, causing her almost to walk into him as he turned.

“I’m Yakob,” he said. There was the merest hint of an accent, but really only just.

“I’m Jen.”

“It’s great to meet you, Jen,” he said with a smile. It was a friendly smile; he had nice teeth, with one slightly crooked incisor which she particularly liked. Jen was quite happy with flawed perfection. Especially in lieu of those eyes. Being a realist, Jen knew she’d be scouring Well, Honestly!’s Pantone reference book until she found its match. She had plans for that blue. “It was nice of you to drop in.”

She couldn’t help but roll her eyes. “That’s very funny, Yakob.” He laughed lightly, as he moved on again towards the galley, picking up her phone as they passed. A small piddle of water poured from it, and Jen tried not to sob.

Apparently she’d just walked into a magazine spread. Think designer apartment, minimalist, white walled, but with the smooth curves of the ship’s hull to soften the starkness. The floor was covered in a pale wood and all the soft furnishings were in various greys, right down to the soft wool blanket hanging over the side of the wooden-framed sofa. Aside from a black cast iron wood-burner, every piece of furniture was modern, but it worked with the old walls. Jen knew she shouldn’t be surprised: she’d been seeing it all day around the city – modern and vintage design blended together with ease to give the city a guise of being comfortable in its own skin. Here, in his home, it appeared obscenely smart while still being unspeakably cosy. And it all looked so infuriatingly effortless.

“Wow,” she breathed. “Makes my place look like a charity shop.” Years of curation by two floundering girls, desperate to hang on to every scrap their parents had ever touched, had rendered their home a showcase of shabby chic, with numerous projects they’d started but not quite finished. This place made her embarrassed about it. She so needed to sort it out when she got home.

He’d walked into a room while she stood gobsmacked in the centre of the lounge area. Considering it was a boat, the space was still bright and airy owing to the full length of the ceiling being bisected by one long strip of glass, showing the early evening blue sky above along with glimpses of the tallest buildings on the canal side.

“That’s amazing,” Jen breathed.

“I wanted to have a feature window along the end wall,” he explained from the room beyond, “so I could look out at the canal, but then the tourist boats would also be looking in. So we did this instead. It’s very pretty at night too with the lights from the houses. I have blinds if I don’t want them to see in.” Jen’s mind wandered to what Yakob might be doing at night that he didn’t want the neighbours seeing. She felt some heat rise in her face. Dear God, what was the matter with her? She wasn’t normally prone to inappropriate thoughts like this.

Blushing and flustered, she hustled to the pristine white and chrome kitchen. It was smart and functional rather than an ostentatious showpiece. A narrow window in the wall gave her a view up onto the quay and cobbles. The whole space had her enchanted and amazed, not least because he was a bloke and this place was immaculate. “We? That explains the tidiness. You’re married?” She thought it was a fair question, then checked herself with another blush – she was an uninvited guest and a complete stranger at that, it was none of her business.

“Ha! No. No wife, no husband, no children,” he insisted, walking back out. She did her very best to keep her eyes on his face, not on his abs, but some things in life are tough. “I meant the architect and me. It’s tidy because I’m not here very often. I’ve left you a towel and some clothes. You can use the shower in there. The canal water isn’t the cleanest.”

The thought of a shower was highly appealing – until she realised she was going to be naked in a stranger’s home. She tried to suppress her eye goggle: the Scandies were so much more relaxed about their bodies and she didn’t want to come across as a prude.

“Great, thanks,” she managed, trying to sound as if she de-kitted in people’s houseboats all the time.

He handed her his phone. “Text your sister, let her know you’re safe.” Jen looked at her own phone, a small skirt of water surrounding it on the counter top. She appreciated his tact at this difficult time.

“Am I safe?” she asked, looking at him. Man, those eyes. She’d meant it to be jokey, but realised it came out slightly flirty and Jen did not generally deal in flirty.

A slow smile spread across Yakob’s face making her suddenly scuttle off into the bedroom, to send her short, but not remotely sweet thoughts to Lydia and to take that shower – in this case a cold one.

He wasn’t in the main room when she came out, damp clothes in hand. He’d found her a pair of drawstring shorts and a Kronegaard promotional t-shirt to wear, it’s huge logo now emblazoned right across her chest along with an image of the iconic green bottle uncapped and spraying foamy beer from the top. While advertising their wares was the last thing she wanted to do, requesting alternative clothing seemed rude and she already wasn’t feeling on her strongest footing.

Creaking from outside told her he’d headed back out on deck. Following him, she saw a drying rack was optimistically primed in the setting sunlight and at the end of the deck, feet dangling off the side above the water sat her host, a cooler box and a bottle opener at his side. He looked back and sent her a beaming smile. It completely took her mind off wearing his clothes. She’d kept her underwear, having hung them off the open porthole handle as she’d showered. Thank god for the minimal fabric in underwear. For once she didn’t curse the extortionate pennies to fabric ratio.

“Hello again,” she said, registering with a little dismay that he’d pulled on a short sleeved shirt in her absence.

“Hello again.” There was that smile as he looked her over, assessing her as she wore his clothes. She was just going to have to accept he was amused by her. Shuffling aside he made space for Jen to join him in his twilight sun spot. She noted that he hadn’t done the buttons on his shirt. Well, it was a warm evening, so totally understandable and Jen approved.

“Beer?” he asked, taking his phone back as she offered it to him.

“Love one,” she replied, following his nod to the cooler. There was a range of bottles inside, all Kronegaard she noticed, but then she supposed it was their home territory, so she could make allowances. She picked one in a brown bottle to match his. It wasn’t one she’d seen before. The only Kronegaard beers she knew came in their famous green bottles.

She settled into her spot next to him and at first sat in awkward silence. He didn’t appear to feel awkward however. He seemed completely relaxed, simply enjoying the setting sun and calm of the ending day. Gradually, she tried to follow his lead on the relaxation as they sank the first of their beers. A couple of kayakers paddled past them and a few more GoBoats, the passing picnic tables increasingly stocked with evening drinks. Finally, ready to talk again, she pointed to a Tupperware box at his side which he’d regularly move to be directly in the receding sunlight.

“What’s that?”

“Your phone,” he said. “I’ve switched it off, removed the SIM and put all of it in rice to draw out the water. Keeping it warm helps too. In a couple of days, you might get lucky and have it working again.”

“Really?” She’d been trying to hold onto her grief until she was back in her hotel room, her panic locked away in her head until then. “Does that work?”

“Did for me when I dropped mine in a toilet. Worth a try.”

Delighted there was a plan afoot she held up her bottle to clink it with him.

“Skaal,” he said. It sounded like Skorl, and she returned it to the best of her ability, which made him smile again. He obviously found her entertaining, and not generally having that role when in company, Jen didn’t quite know what to make of it.

“So Jen, is this your first time in Copenhagen?”

“It is,” she said with a nod, “it’s been on my wish list for years, but you know, ‘life gets in the way’.”

“And other than the underside of a GoBoat, what have you seen?”

“Well, I did have a to-see list on my …” she barely managed to point at the Tupperware box, feeling a lump beginning to form in her throat but reining it in so as not to completely overreach her prat quota for the day by crying in front of him, “however, as you’ve seen, my travel-mates are a rather unruly bunch and do not respect lists and planning.” His chuckle was somewhat disconcerting. Clearly he thought she was being funny and actually she wasn’t, not about the value of planning. Robert would have been nodding with her. Perhaps Danes were different. She gave him the benefit of the doubt. “I had a detailed plan on my laptop, but … well, I had to cobble together a replacement on the plane.” She reeled off the points of interest she could remember, which was all of them, probably mangling the pronunciation of some.

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