The sun had barely broken above the horizon the next day when there was a soft knock on Freya’s front door. Freya was already up, dressed, packed and ready to go. She was nervous about this trip and had spent the night playing out different scenarios in her head.

After returning to the glass studio after lunch the day before, she and Rome had fallen back into how they always were with each other, laughing, chatting and working well alongside each other. She liked Rome too much to stay angry at him and Eden was clearly very happy to be working alongside Dougie, so there didn’t seem much point in being upset about Rome pulling rank any more.

She hadn’t brought up his cryptic comment about being attracted to her again and he hadn’t mentioned it either. But tonight they were going to share a room, albeit not a bed, but the room had wonderful romantic views over the sea so maybe, just maybe, something might happen between them. It was wrong to hope, she knew that. It would only end up hurting again if nothing happened but if she really was going to leave the island then it didn’t hurt to try one last time. And Dorothy was right, this time she wasn’t going to wait for him to make a move, she was going to instigate it herself. Maybe she wouldn’t be brave enough to kiss him or tempt him into bed, but she would tell him how she felt. If she was going to leave then he deserved to know why. After everything he had done for her, she owed him that much.

She opened the door and Rome was standing there with a cup of takeaway coffee from Rosa’s in his hand. He was looking sexy in his long woollen coat, his dark curly hair peeping out from the beanie hat he was wearing. He looked like a celebrity.

He smiled. ‘I didn’t expect to see you up and dressed. I expected to have to drag you out of bed. I brought coffee and pastries to make up for the early start, I know you’re not really a morning person.’

‘I’m not.’ Freya took the coffee and sipped at it, smiling to herself that he had got the hazelnut coffee for her which she loved so much. ‘But I’m excited about our trip. I haven’t been to Penzance in years and I’m excited to see our hard work come to life in the Hope Island float. And to see the rest of the parade too.’

‘The weather is supposed to be glorious so there’ll be a lot of people there to see it.’

‘Any clue what the other towns and islands have done for their floats?’

‘No, but Cal said he’s seen a lot of them and ours is by far the best.’

Freya laughed. ‘Cal would say that.’

‘The man has got some talent when it comes to pneumatics and animatronics. Last year was his first year making the Hope Island float. Obviously we didn’t have any part in it last year, but it was brilliant. He probably would have won the parade if he’d had more time but he ended up stepping in at the last minute to do it when the man who normally does it fell ill. Cal wants to bring the trophy home this year so I know he’s pulling out all the stops.’

‘Has Hope Island ever won it before?’

‘Never, but then before Cal came along we never did anything inspiring with it. We stand a really good chance this year.’

‘I can’t wait to see it.’ She quickly glanced at her watch. ‘Oh, we’d better go, what time does the ferry leave St Mary’s for Penzance?’

‘We’re not taking the ferry, we’re flying from St Mary’s,’ Rome said.

Her heart leapt. ‘We are?’

‘Is that OK? You said you’ve never flown before and I thought you might enjoy it.’

Her heart filled with love for him at that wonderful generous gesture. ‘Oh my god, that’s fantastic. Thank you so much. Oh god, I’m so excited. We need to go then, we can’t be late for the plane.’

He smiled at her and offered her the paper bag. ‘We have time. Eat your pastry first and then we’ll leave.’

She took the bag and saw it was her favourite, an apple and pecan puff.

‘Wow, I feel thoroughly spoiled today, hazelnut coffee, apple puff pastry and a flight to Penzance. Anyone would think you’re trying to butter me up.’

‘That’s exactly what I’m trying to do, Freya. I want you to know how important you are to me. I want you to stay and I’ll do whatever I can to make that happen.’

Her heart melted and she put her hand up to touch his face. She was gratified when he didn’t pull away. ‘There’s only one thing you can give me to stop me leaving.’

‘Name it, it’s yours.’

She sighed and let her hand briefly trail down to his heart. ‘It’s not something that you can buy.’

He stared at her in confusion. ‘Tell me, whatever it is, I’ll get it somehow.’

She bit her lip as she thought. Now was not the time to tell him. It’d be awkward for the whole day when she really wanted to enjoy the parade. ‘I promise, I’ll tell you tonight, after the parade. I’ll explain everything then.’

He nodded, seemingly satisfied that he was finally going to get some answers. She could only hope the answers he got were the ones he wanted.

She took a bite of her pastry, closing her eyes at the wonderful sweetness. ‘Do we need to get some tools?’

Rome patted the rucksack he was carrying. ‘I have some glass cutters, pliers, soldering irons, solder and copper foiling, along with a few pieces of blue and green glass just in case we need any spare bits, though I don’t think we’ll need them.’

Freya nodded and took another bite of her pastry.

‘Let’s go then. I don’t want to be late.’

She grabbed her rucksack, turned off all the lights and followed Rome down the stairs. They stepped out onto the street and she closed and locked the door just as the postman walked up the road towards them.

‘Morning,’ Andrew said, handing Rome an envelope.

‘Hi Andrew, looks like it’ll be a nice day later,’ Rome said, shoving the letter in his coat pocket.

‘Let’s hope so, I’ve got some vegetables that need digging out at the allotment.’

He waved goodbye and moved onto the next shop and Rome and Freya set off towards the harbour.

* * *

‘I can’t believe we’re doing this, I can’t believe I’m sitting on a plane about to take off,’ Freya said, almost bouncing up and down in her seat as she looked out of the window onto the small runway.

Rome smiled at her fondly. He loved being able to do this for her. He wanted to make her dreams come true, and while there were a few things on her list that might be a bit tricky to make a reality, he was working on the others.

He took her hand. ‘You’re not nervous?’

‘No, I’m so excited.’

The noise of the engines suddenly intensified and the plane started hurtling down the runway, picking up speed, and they were momentarily forced back into their seats. The nose of the plane started to lift and Freya let out a little scream of joy followed by a laugh that was pure adrenaline-filled excitement.

Rome looked around. The plane had six other passengers sitting behind them, some locals popping over to enjoy the parade, a few tourists. Some of them were amused by Freya’s squeals of delight, some less so. Rome didn’t care. The squeals and laughter continued until the plane levelled out in the sky and Freya didn’t take her eyes from the view out of the window the whole time as the islands disappeared from view and were replaced with the turquoise and gold of the sea.

Freya was silent for a long time, taking it all in.

‘God, it’s so beautiful,’ she whispered. ‘I never imagined it would be like this. We’re so high up.’

Rome leaned over her to look at the view. ‘That’s Wolf Rock Lighthouse. See that weird cone shape near the foot of the lighthouse, that was the original beacon that was built in 1836. The lighthouse itself took nearly ten years to build and was the first rock lighthouse in the world to have a helipad built on top. And over there is Longships Lighthouse,’ he pointed. ‘There’s been a lighthouse there since 1791.’

‘That’s over two hundred years old?’

‘No, the old lighthouse was too short and the waves would crash over it in storms and block out the light so they built a taller tower in 1875. And on a clear day like today, you can see all the way down the coast to the Rose Island Lighthouse which was very nearly demolished last year but was saved by a shark.’

‘A shark?’

‘An angel shark actually, which is quite appropriate considering how it saved the tower. It’s highly endangered and when they found a resident shark near to the lighthouse the council was stopped from pulling it down.’

Freya stared at him with a smile.

‘God, sorry, I let my geeky side have full rein there for a while. I have hundreds of history of Britain books in my bedroom, I spend hours reading this kind of thing before I go to bed. I find it fascinating, I forget that it’s boring for other people.’

‘I don’t find it boring at all.’

‘You don’t?’

‘No, you could keep me entertained for hours with all your facts. It’s like having my own personal tour guide.’

Rome smiled. He was sure she was just being kind but it was nice that she didn’t seem bored by it.

The plane started to drop in the sky and the pilot called out that the plane was coming into land though it was quite hard to hear her over the noise of the engines.

‘We’re coming into land already?’ Freya looked so disappointed.

‘Yes, it only takes fifteen minutes from St Mary’s to Land’s End, but we’re flying back too and I promise I’ll take you on a plane again in the future, a much longer journey next time. There are lots of sightseeing flights round these parts.’

‘Thank you for doing this for me,’ Freya said, squeezing his hand which she had held for the whole journey.

‘It was my absolute pleasure.’

He looked out the cockpit window ahead of them and could see the pilot was lining the plane up with the runway ready for landing. The sun was still rising in the sky, painting the clouds with a wonderful candyfloss pink. He looked back at his best friend who was staring out the window again, still holding his hand. It was going to be a good day.

* * *

Freya got out of the taxi at the disused football field, which was now filled with a multitude of brightly coloured floats as the representatives from each town made last-minute adjustments to their creations. She knew that everyone’s designs had been kept under wraps until that day when they had gathered together for the first time on that field. This was where the parade would start from later as it wound its way through the streets of Penzance.

Rome joined her and to her surprise took her hand again as he led her through the different floats, trying to find Cal. It was an Under the Sea themed carnival and as such there were floats with every sea creature imaginable, from Nemo-type clownfish, whales, sharks, crabs, octopus to even the imaginary or prehistoric creatures like the sea dragons, mermaids or the megalodon. They were all beautiful, clearly having been created with many days or probably weeks’ of hard work. Most of the floats had opted for the traditional wire frames covered with sheets of paper or some kind of papier-mâché. Some had used brightly painted wood panels and, in the case of many of the other islands from Scilly, their floats were made mostly out of flowers to celebrate the biggest export from the Isles of Scilly.

It wasn’t hard to spot the Hope Island float as it was the only one made almost entirely out of glass. It was stunning and completely unique. Six life-size dolphins jumping out of the waves had been made with large pieces of glass that had been placed over a mould and heated to get them into the right shape. Freya knew that Rome had spent a while teaching Cal how to solder the pieces together using copper foiling as there was no way the dolphins could be transported as one whole piece and arrive safely. The waves were a mixture of sheets of fused glass and mosaic work that were mounted onto wood. And judging from what Rome had told her, she knew that many of these parts would move once the parade was underway.

It had taken her and Rome weeks to get all the pieces ready and as much of it as possible had been joined together before it was carefully packed into containers and shipped over to the mainland with ‘Fragile’ stickers placed all over the boxes. A lot of Rome’s pieces were sent all over the UK and the staff at the ports knew to take extra care with anything that was sent out with the shop’s logo emblazoned on it. According to Cal there had only been one breakage once the container was unpacked but it was a clean break and something that was easily fixed by soldering the two pieces back together.

Freya spotted Cal and waved as he came hurrying over. He gave Freya a kiss on the cheek and hugged Rome as if they were best friends. This made Freya giggle – Rome was never a big hugger.

‘Cal, this looks amazing,’ Freya said. ‘It was so hard to imagine what it would look like when we were cutting out all these tiny bits of glass. You’ve done an incredible job.’

‘Thank you, but none of this would have been possible if it wasn’t for you two.’

‘It’s fantastic, Cal,’ Rome said. ‘Is there anything we can do to help?’

‘There’s a few bits of soldering you can do here and there. We’re nearly finished. Rome, can you go and see if Tiffany needs a hand?’ He pointed to the young girl at the back of the float.

Rome nodded and left Freya alone with Cal. As soon as Rome was out of hearing distance, Cal turned to her.

‘Have you and Rome finally got together?’

Freya blushed. Was everyone on the island rooting for them to get together? Did they all know her inappropriate feelings for her best friend?

‘No, what makes you think that?’

‘You were holding hands.’

‘Oh, that. I’m not really sure what that was about. We were holding hands on the plane because it’s the first time I’ve ever flown and it’s sort of continued since then,’ Freya tried to dismiss it but she had been delighted by the hand-holding herself.

‘I thought you two had your big date on Friday?’ Cal said.

‘Jesus, you weren’t even on the island then, how did you know about that?’

Cal laughed. ‘This is Hope Island we’re talking about, nothing goes unnoticed.’

‘Well it wasn’t a date, Rome wanted to ask me to be his business partner so the jungle drums on Hope Island got that wrong.’

‘But you wanted him to ask you out?’ Cal said.

Freya hesitated too long while she thought about an appropriate answer. She liked Cal, had chatted to him quite a bit in the past, and especially over the last few months as he had talked through his design for the float, but she’d never considered him someone she could confide in before.

Cal pounced on her hesitation eagerly. ‘You leave it with me, honey, I’ll sort it out.’

‘You will not. I don’t need any interference. I can cock things up nicely on my own.’

‘I’m not going to interfere. Much. All I’m saying is that part of the prize for the winning float is a night in the Under the Sea themed room at the Bay View Hotel tonight. There’s a four-poster bed, a Jacuzzi, a giant aquarium, the room is beautiful. Very romantic. If we win, or should I say when we win, the room is yours.’

‘No way, you did all this work—’

‘What am I going to do with that room?’ Cal said.

‘Take your husband, have a romantic night together,’ Freya suggested.

‘Honey, Travis and I have romantic nights together every night, we don’t need some fish tanks and a four-poster bed to inspire romantic moments. You two, however, need all the help you can get. Oh look, here’s Travis now, I’ll tell him the plan, he’ll be delighted.’

Cal rushed off to greet his husband and Freya sighed. Tonight was either going to be completely magical or completely cringe-worthy and as she refused to hope for the former she resigned herself to the latter. But regardless of whether they won the parade or not, no matter what happened, tonight she would tell Rome the truth.