Summer at Blue Sands Cove by C.P. Ward
Tired of the city, Grace Clelland returns to Blue Sands, the quiet Cornish seaside village where she grew up. There she will meet old flames and old friends, rekindle old loves and ignite new ones in a novel that will have you dreaming of the soft crash of the waves on the shore, the feel of sand between your toes, overloaded ice-creams and smoky beach barbeques.
Summer at Blue Sands Cove – Grace gets Dumped
One of the catalysts for Grace moving back home is when her sports fanatic boyfriend dumps her.
It didn’t bode well that Gavin suggested a neutral location for their evening meeting, a park which happened to be a couple of miles closer to his place than to hers. She got off the bus, walked up the street and through the park gate, only to be confronted with Gavin standing by a fountain in his running gear, already warming up.
‘Hi,’ Grace said, approaching him. ‘Should I have come prepared? I dressed for something a little more casual.’
Gavin shook his head. ‘You look fine.’
Fine. Just fine. It was what her mother would have said before a job interview.
He was all thick shoulders, lyrca running trousers, and an expensive Mont Bell running jacket, his breath puffing out in little gasps as he pumped his legs up and down.
‘Did you want me to hold your stopwatch or something?’ Grace asked, the sinking feeling that had left her unable to eat anything after lunch making way for something just a little more hopeful, that her sports-mad new boyfriend wanted something other than what she had been suspecting all day. Perhaps he was planning to run around the world or something. Only five people had supposedly done it, and while it might mean they were apart for most of the next two years, at least it was something she could—in a superficial way, at least—support.
‘I wanted to talk. About us.’
Nope. It was heading in the same direction that her other relationships had gone.
‘Look, just get it over with. I like you, Gavin, but it’s only been a couple of months. I can handle it. You don’t think we fit well enough. That’s okay.’
It wouldn’t matter that it was the fourth guy in three years who would duck out before the three-month mark had passed. Grace would get over it; she would drink and message-Joan her way through it, like she had the previous three. The world wouldn’t end, even if it felt like it might for a while.
Gavin gave her a pained smile. ‘You’re kind, Grace,’ he said. ‘And there’s a lot to like about you. I mean it. It’s just … there are a couple of things.’
Which I don’t need to hear.
‘Like what?’
Gavin grimaced again and Grace hoped he would save her the humiliation of a list. But when he cleared his throat, she knew it was coming. Perhaps that was why he had worn his running gear: so he could get away.
‘You get up too late,’ he said. ‘I mean, you’re not going to get anywhere in life getting up at seven, are you? The day’s half done. And you have no ambition. You’re what, thirty-five and you work in a café.’
‘I’m twenty-eight.’
Gavin sighed. ‘Well, you look thirty-five. Okay, maybe that’s harsh. Thirty-two at least. It must be the way you do your hair. I mean, can’t you go somewhere a little more upmarket?’
Instead of ripping off one of her shoes and hitting him around the head with it, Grace just felt an easy sense of resignation. Best to let him have his moment and be done with it.
‘I have a mortgage to pay,’ she said. ‘I don’t live with my parents, Gavin.’
He scowled. ‘That was cheap. It’s temporary.’
‘You’re calling me cheap?’
He obviously misunderstood. ‘Look, I appreciate that you always contribute to dinner when we go out, picking up the odd.’
‘I always pay half! It’s you who “picks up the odd”.’
Gavin ignored her. ‘It’s very modern of you. But your money doesn’t impress me.’
Grace sighed. ‘You’d have low standards if it did.’
‘I’m just not a materialistic guy.’
Grace could have picked five labels off his current attire which suggested otherwise, but she was too tired to prolong this torture any longer than necessary.
‘Goodbye, Gavin. It was nice, for a while.’
She started to turn away, but he danced around her like some kind of exercise fairy, doing little sidesteps, puffing out his breath in short, sharp gasps.
It gave me night terrors. I thought I’d got over my childhood traumas, but since I met you, the nightmares I’ve had … they’ve been strong. I’ll say that. Strong.’
‘I’m sorry that your childhood sucked.’
Gavin shook his head. ‘I opened the car door and fell out on my parents’ drive when I was just five years old,’ he said. ‘A lorry was passing on the other side of the street, and the sound left me crying for a week. So my mother said. And your snoring brought that sound back. I’m going to a therapist tomorrow. I don’t like to say this, but I think you could have ruined my life.’
https://books2read.com/Summer-at-blue-sands-cove
CP Ward is an author from the UK who currently lives and works in Japan. For more information, please visit http://www.amillionmilesfromanywhere.net/cp-ward.html
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