Chapter 20
I have a rare night to myself on Friday. Jacob is at his best friend’s house for a birthday sleepover, while Leo is away for the weekend on his Silver Duke of Edinburgh expedition.
I can’t begin to tell you the amount of preparation this trip required. I’m convinced I’d have a shorter kit list to get someone ready for six months on the International Space Station. I also spent most of last night traipsing around the supermarket (while he was allegedly ‘studying’) to purchase as many lightweight, high-carbohydrate food options as possible. I returned home laden with energy bars, instant oatmeal and Super Noodles, at which point Leo informed me that I’d failed to provide him with a mosquito net and water purifying tablets and if he came home from the Lake District with malaria then it was all on me.
I tell myself I’m going to really make the most of the breathing space. Perhaps I could get round to reading that novel I keep opening and managing half a page of before falling asleep? I could give myself a pedicure, have a long soak in the bath, or finally manage that elusive two-day streak on Asana Rebel.
Instead, I end up staying late in the office. It’s not exactly ‘me time’, but I do get a lot done – including an overdue clear-out of my desk drawer. I’m shocked at some of what I find in the back of it: out-of-date Well Woman supplements, a couple of Fox’s Glacier Mints and a menstrual cup that I was once convinced I’d lost in my actual vagina. I was on the verge of seeing the GP about an ultrasound but, after a rummage in the ladies’ loo, concluded – rightly as it turned out – that I must have left it elsewhere.
I slip it in my bag, when a light flickers on the other side of the office and Zach walks in, heads to Andrea’s desk and places something in her in-tray. His shirt is burgundy, a colour I never ordinarily like. Yet, on him, I could look at it all day. The way it warms his tanned skin and skims over the swell of his biceps and shoulders, the sinews of his neck just visible beneath the collar.
He spots me just as he’s about to leave and responds with an unselfconscious smile, all cheekbones and twinkly eyes. He makes a beeline for my desk.
‘Haven’t you got a home to go to?’
‘Haven’t you? ’
‘I was planning to head to the gym, but lost interest. What’s your excuse?’
‘The kids are both away tonight. I had a lot to catch up on.’
‘ Surely you had somewhere better to be than this place?’ he says.
‘Well, I did have a ticket for the opera in Paris but had the option to stay here looking at a proposal for a show called Haunted Supermarkets . There was really no contest.’
‘Sounds it. So, come on. Don’t keep me in suspense. How’d the meeting with Krishna go? Did I ruin your week or did you manage to get things back on track?’
I’m about to answer, but hesitate. ‘How about I tell you all about it over a drink?’
When it becomes apparent that Zach has seen little of Manchester, we take a short tram to Piccadilly Gardens, before I show him the way to one of my favourite places to go for a drink. The distance from the office feels like a bonus because I don’t want anyone to see us. Not that I’ve got anything to hide, but still – I don’t want people getting the wrong idea. And while there’s no chance of bumping into Calvin or Daisy on a pub crawl, I wouldn’t put it past Andrea to be propping up some bar with a Richard Madeley lookalike she met at last year’s Baftas.
The brasserie’s decor is so apparently contradictory that you’d never think to put them together – manor-house-style wood panelling and comfy leather chairs, with brutalist metal pipes on the ceiling and huge plants spilling out of free-standing pots.
‘I think we need a cocktail menu,’ he decides, as we climb up on two stools. They’re the only ones left and we’re at the end of the bar, tucked away in a relatively secluded spot.
‘You’re a bad influence.’
‘I like to think so.’
He picks up the card and I notice how beautiful his hands are: strong fingers with tanned skin and neat nails.
‘What’s yours?’ he says.
‘Something fruity. A cosmopolitan maybe.’
As he studies the choices, I am assaulted by a vivid memory of my dream again. The way he slid his belt slowly from his trousers, the taste of that drink on his lips.
‘Whisky sour?’ I suggest, before I can stop myself.
‘No, I’m not a fan. I’ll take a dirty martini.’
He gestures to the bartender with a single finger, who appears immediately to take our order. I don’t know if it’s Zach’s size, or something else less easily defined, but he has a kind of presence . He really isn’t easy to ignore.
‘Come on . Don’t keep me in suspense about Krishna any longer,’ he says.
‘Well, I put up a good argument, I think . . .’ I begin. ‘But then I kind of stalled.’
He looks surprised. ‘Doesn’t sound like you.’
‘Rather than going all out and fighting for Our Girl In Milan – which part of me still thinks would have been the sensible thing to do – I said I was going to outline the pros and cons of both that . . . and another show.’
He raises his eyebrows, hopefully. ‘ My Teenage Bombsite ?’
I nod.
‘You are full of surprises. So what did he think?’
‘He likes both. As do I. But on balance, we’ve decided that we wouldn’t want to plough on with Our Girl in Milan without further investigation into a couple of things. Which basically meant, when I telephoned the producers . . . we’ve lost the show to YouTime.’
He exhales. ‘I don’t know what to say. Sorry? Thanks?’
‘I think you were right about it being unoriginal. I’m big enough to admit that,’ I confess. I don’t want to admit I’ve been snooping around on his Insta. ‘I still think I might have lost a massive hit though.’
‘We’ll never know.’
‘Until it appears on YouTime. So you’d better be right, Russo,’ I warn, with a smile.
‘I’m always right,’ he says, dismissively.
‘Really?’
He shakes his head and scrunches up his nose. ‘No.’
I laugh.
‘But on this occasion . . . you did the right thing. I’m sure of it.’
Our drinks arrive and I take a sip of my cosmopolitan. A fuzzy, electric warmth spreads through my chest and I find my eyes drawn to that dimple in his chin again. A ripple of laughter rises from the other side of the room, while the opening bars of a soft piano tune drift from a distant corner. I feel suddenly quite warm and go to remove my jacket. As he helps me shrug it off, his fingertips brush through the sleeve of my shirt and something flutters in my belly.
‘I am not supposed to be drinking on weeknights,’ I say, tapping on my phone.
‘Says who?’
‘Me. I still feel pickled after that night at the school.’
‘Well, it was a Wine Quiz. What are you doing?’ he says, glancing on my app.
‘Logging my alcohol units,’ I tell him.
He looks amused. ‘That’s very disciplined of you.’
‘Not really. It’s been days since I did calories . . . and don’t even get me started on water intake.’
‘Do you have an app for everything?’
‘I draw the line at bowel movements.’ He bursts out laughing.
‘Sorry,’ I cringe, feeling myself blush. ‘I have no idea why I said that.’
But he’s still grinning. ‘You are hilarious, Lisa.’
‘Yeah. Thanks,’ I say, pulling a face.
‘Hey, what’s wrong with hilarious?’
I lean in, elbow on the bar. ‘Nothing. Though I think most women have a list of adjectives they’d prefer over that.’
He narrows his eyes, mimics what I’ve done with my elbow and faces me as he lowers his voice. ‘You’re not fishing for compliments, are you?’
It strikes me that this moment – everything about it – is so far removed from anything that’s happened to me for . . . oh, years , that it feels almost cinematic. Like when you go on holiday to New York and everywhere you look makes you feel as if you’re in a movie. Except here I am in a cocktail bar, twirling my straw and stealing sideways glances at a guy who looks like the love interest in a big-screen blockbuster.
This is not my life.
My life is budget meetings and parents’ evenings. It’s standing at the side of muddy fields in the rain, watching kids play rugby. It’s crashing into bed every night with a to-do list that only grows and grows. It isn’t flirtation. It isn’t attraction. Only, just being here next to him, so close that I see the direction of the tiny hairs on his neck, has awakened some fire inside me that I really need to put out. But something is stopping me and all I want to do is bathe in the warmth of its flames.
‘I do not fish for compliments,’ I whisper back.
‘Good. Because you shouldn’t need to.’
I take a sip of my drink and gently lick the residue from my top lip. ‘You’re not flirting with me, are you, Russo?’
His eyes are heavy, yet he’s unable to fight the upward curve of his mouth. ‘You know what, Darling? I think I might be.’