The Cruise – Part 2: Ports of Call

They docked at Dubrovnik on the third morning, and Andrew insisted on walking the city walls before breakfast. Grace complained the whole way up the stone steps, then stopped complaining the moment she saw the sea spread out below, impossibly blue against the terracotta roofs.

"Worth it," said Andrew, with the smug expression of a man who had been right.

"You're insufferable."

"I'm sunburnt and happy. It's a good look on me."

They wandered back down through the old town, eating cherries from a paper bag and sharing a single café table under a striped awning. Andrew told her a story about his first job at the bank, which had involved a cashier, a broken photocopier and a very angry bishop. Grace laughed until her eyes watered.

"You never told me that," she said.

"You never asked," said Andrew. "We got very busy. Mortgage. Biscuit. Your mother."

"Don't blame my mother."

"I'm not blaming anyone," he said, softly. "I'm just noticing I stopped asking you things too."

Grace set down her cherry. "Ask me something now."

He looked at her across the table, the way he had on the first night of their marriage, when she had been twenty-five and nervous and he had made her laugh so hard she spilt wine on his shirt.

"What do you want from this trip?" Andrew asked.

"You," said Grace, honestly. "Not the spa or the view. You. Looking at me like you did in Dorset, before we had any sense."

He smiled, slow and warm. "Then I'll look."

That evening they dined in the ship's best restaurant, a candlelit room with white linen and a violinist playing soft tunes. Andrew wore the navy jacket he had bought for their wedding, which was slightly too tight now. Grace wore a green dress she had bought in Dubrovnik, on impulse, and had not yet told him about.

"You look incredible," said Andrew, when he saw it.

"Thank you," said Grace. "It's new."

"I can tell. You keep touching it."

She laughed, and pressed her knee against his under the table, and felt him go still.

Later, on their balcony, under a sky thick with stars and the sound of the sea below, Andrew stood behind her with his hands resting lightly on her waist.

"Tomorrow we dock at Naples," he said quietly. "And then the flight home. And then the dog, and the bills, and the usual week."

"I know."

"Do you want the usual week?"

She turned in his arms. "No. I want a better one. And I want you to help me build it."

"Then let's build it," said Andrew, and kissed her, and she could feel his smile against her mouth.

"Green?" he asked, softly, as the kiss deepened.

"Very green," said Grace, and pulled him inside, towards the bed and the rest of their anniversary.