Summer reads: Lindsey Kelk’s Love Me Do extract

An exhausted Phoebe Chapman heads to LA for a much-needed holiday – and more – in Lindsey Kelk’s new rom-com Love Me Do. But first she has to deal with her high-achieving sister.

An exhausted Phoebe Chapman heads to LA for a much-needed holiday – and more – in LINDSEY KELK’s new rom-com Love Me Do. But first she has to deal with her high-achieving sister...

‘If you ever want to know how someone really feels about you, ask them to pick you up from the airport at rush hour,’ Suzanne said. ‘No one in this town would willingly drive to LAX for anything less than true love.’

‘Flattery will get you everywhere,’ I replied as my sister pulled sharply away from the arrivals terminal of Los Angeles International Airport. She cut in front of ten other cars, all of them hitting their horns at the same time as my suitcase slid back and forth across the boot of her SUV.

I closed my eyes and clutched at my seatbelt, nerves jangling with jet lag. It felt as though I’d left my brain somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, several time zones behind me. Humans weren’t meant to be up in the air for eleven straight hours, it simply wasn’t right.

My watch said it was 4pm but my body said otherwise. Why was I awake? Why was it daylight? And why did I decide to watch the entire Twilight saga instead of sleeping? I had been a fool.

‘You didn’t have to come and get me,’ I said, twisting against my seatbelt to get a proper look at Suzanne. ‘I could have got a taxi.’

Life in California suited my sister. She looked happy and healthy, her blonde hair was freshly cut and coloured, her skin was glowing and there was something else I couldn’t quite put my finger on, a kind of glossy sheen that she definitely didn’t have when she worked in Slough.

‘Phoebe Chapman, sister of mine, love of my life, you know I would go to the ends of the earth for you.’

Author Lindsey Kelk. Picture: Lee Jameson

I yawned and smiled at the same time, utterly exhausted but deliriously happy. It was almost two years since we’d been in the same place at the same time and they had not been the best two years of my life. The thought of this holiday was the only thing keeping me going for the last few weeks: sun, sea and sisterly bonding. It was just what I needed.

‘Also, I was feeling guilty,’ she added. ‘I have to go to Seattle for a meeting. I’m leaving tonight.’

She slammed her foot on the brake, barking obscenities at a little red car as it pulled in front of us. The driver flipped up their middle finger and promptly sped away, drifting across another two lanes, the Fiat and the furious.

‘What do you mean you’re leaving?’ I asked. ‘They’re making you fly all the way to Seattle for a meeting? Couldn’t you Zoom in?’

‘I’m so sorry, Pheebs, I need to be there. If I don’t go and fix things today there’ll be literally no internet by this time tomorrow.’ She pursed her lips and two little lines, permanently etched between her eyebrows, dug their way deeper into her forehead. It was an expression I knew well. Standard Suzanne exasperation. She’d been working on it ever since I was born.

‘How long will you be gone?’ I asked lightly.

‘Two days. Three tops.’

She seemed to have forgotten I spoke her language fluently. ‘Leaving soon’ meant you’d be waiting an hour. ‘On my way’ almost always translated to ‘I’m still at my desk’ and two or three days meant she’d be gone for at least a week. Half my entire holiday.

‘If you’ve got to go, you’ve got to go,’ I said with a half-hearted smile. ‘Can’t have the internet imploding just so you can babysit your little sister.’

‘I’ll make it up to you when I get back,’ she replied, relieved. ‘We’ll go to a fancy spa or something, really push the boat out.’

Flapping a hand in the air between us, I waved away her non-apology. It wasn’t her fault and it was only a few days. I could survive in LA on my own for a few days.

‘You can’t help work,’ I told her. ‘I get it. I had to work last weekend, totally cocked up my plans.’

‘Oh no, was there some kind of greetings card emergency?’ Suzanne said, smothering a half-laugh with an apologetic grimace. ‘Sorry, that was rude. I know your job is entirely as stressful as mine.’

‘Rude but fair,’ I laughed, expertly pretending the jibe didn’t bother me. I was used to it.

‘Everything’s going well though?’ she asked as she fiddled with the airconditioning, setting it somewhere close to subzero. ‘I loved that set of National Pet Day cards you sent me. Your best yet, I reckon.’

‘Thanks,’ I replied, shivering in my jeans and T-shirt and gazing longingly at the sunshine outside. ‘They did really well.’

Head copywriter at the UK’s third largest independent greetings card company was far from the worst job in the world but it didn’t exactly inspire wonder and awe in people when they heard about it either.

I couldn’t quite remember her exact title, but Suzanne was head of something strategic for an app I refused to download for fear of never accomplishing anything meaningful ever again. Was she partially responsible for the downfall of civilisation? Yes. Was she incredibly rich and seemingly happy? Also yes, so, did she care about the first bit? No, she did not.

This is an edited extract from Love Me Do by Lindsey Kelk, published by HarperCollins and available now.

Originally published as Summer reads: Lindsey Kelk’s Love Me Do extract