Long Story Short

gold rush

Nice, France

The beach was my happy place. This beach in particular was my favourite. It was busy, but in a nice way, beautiful and most importantly, pebbly. I hate sandy beaches. Sand always found a way to get everywhere and for the rest of the week you'd find sand in your shoes, bag, sun cream, lipgloss, purse. It was a huge inconvenience to say the least.

But Nice had a pebble beach, with beautiful blue waters and the sky to match. When I first moved to Nice a month ago, the first thing I bought was a beach towel and, before I had even unpacked, I marched down to the shore, book in hand, and soaked in the view. It was a far cry from Manchester.

I put down the book and lay my head down on the towel covering the stones, sunglasses over my eyes, soaking up the UV. I could hear people chattering around me which calmed the city girl in me and I almost fell asleep.

As I felt myself drifting, a cold shadow fell across my legs. Annoyed, thinking a cloud had  wandered in front of the sun. I removed my sunglasses and blinked a few times, waiting for my eyes to readjust to the light.

I gasped as I saw a man peering over at me. Startled, I sat up quickly and stared at him. "Do I know you?"

"I don't think so," he said, I recognised his accent from somewhere from the south of England, and then stretched his arm out to hand me back my hat. "This blew down the beach, it nearly went in the sea, but I caught it."

I opened and closed my mouth, unsure of what to say next. "Thank you."

He smiled and his face seemed to light up, it was strange but also kind of captivating.

"Is that Pride and Prejudice?" He asked, pointing at my book.

"Yes," I nodded, picking it up. "It's one of my favourites. Have you read it?"

"No," he chuckled, "but my sisters have, and watched the film about a million times so I'm familiar with the story. I'm Lando by the way."

"Beatrix," I held out my hand and he shook it.

"As in Potter?"

"Yeah, my mum used to read all of her books to me was I was small," I smiled, although I couldn't remember any of it.

"Mine too," Lando nodded and then turned around to see one of his friends signalling to rejoin them. "Well, I'll see you around Beatrix."

"Yeah," I managed to stutter before he disappeared into the crowd.

I blinked a few times before I tried to process what had just occurred. It had been weeks since I had proper human interaction, well, apart from the waitress at my favourite cafe on the promenade. I grabbed my phone and FaceTimed the group chat.

After a few rings they all picked up.

"Look who it is," Sophia smiled from her room.

"How's sunny France?" Millie asked from what looked like a rainy Manchester street.

"Great," I grinned at my best friends through the tiny screen.

"So what did we do to deserve a call from Miss International?"

"I just met this guy."

"Woah."

"No way! You talked to someone?" Sophia laughed.

"Wait, let me just unlock my door," Millie tussled with her phone in one hand, keys in the other, bag hanging off her elbow. "Ok I'm in."

She plonked herself on the sofa as her and Sophia stared at me with bated breath. I told them the story of how he chased after the hat and then our short conversation afterwards, as a couple of seagulls argued with each other somewhere behind me.

Millie interrupted me,"Ok that's cute and all but what did he look like?"

I smiled. "He was about average height ish, tanned skin, pale eyes, brown curly hair and English. He looked like some sort of prince or an underwear model."

"Bit of a contrast there Bea," Millie laughed.

"He sounds amazing, did you get his number?" Sophia looked hopefully only to be met by my scrunched up face. "Beatrix, come on. We live in a modern world. You can't just look him up in the yellow pages."

"I can't even do that," I added. "I've only got his first name."

Both of them rolled their eyes in unison making me smile, but also aware of how delusional I was being fawning over a man I had just met.

"What's his first name then?" Millie sighed.

"Lando."

"As in Calrissian?" Sophia laughed. "No way."

"That's what I thought too," I nodded, "oh well, it was a nice thought for a minute."

"Hang on one minute," Millie said slowly standing up and walking into her room with her phone by her side. "His name is Lando?"

"Yeah, unusual isn't it?"

"Beatrix Rhodes," Millie spun her camera around to point at her calendar hanging from her wardrobe. "Is this him?"

"Oh my god, yes," I exclaimed startled. I stared at the picture, Lando was stood by a dark blue sports car somewhere extremely posh, smiling at the camera. "Why is he on your wall."

"Because that's Lando Norris the McLaren F1 driver you fucking idiot," she yelled down the phone.

"What?" Sophia and I yelled down the phone.

"I can't believe you met Lando Norris and didn't realise," Millie looked shell shocked whilst Sophia laughed uncontrollably in the corner of my screen.

She managed to take a breath and say, "this is brilliant, I really wish I didn't have to go to work now."

"Me too," Millie was still shaking her head. "You better find that man Bea or you'll never forgive yourself."

"Bye," I waved at them and turned off my phone.

I held it to my chest at I took a breath and looked out over the glistening water. My brain was running at a million miles an hour trying to shut down the fake scenarios that were already forming whilst also trying to figure out how the hell I was going to continue with my life knowing I'd blown the chance with a Formula 1 driver.