Chapter 2
I guess I fell asleep before the podcast finished, because when I woke up the next morning I still had a headphone in one ear.
The speaker wires were tangled around my neck and the empty ice cream carton was next to me on the pillow.
My mouth tasted sour and I felt hot, sweaty and quite honestly a bit gross.
Sunlight was streaming into my bedroom through the open curtains – that must have been what woke me.
Shit. It must have been a knock on the door that had woken me. The tree guy, who Henry had told me to expect. I pulled on a pair of jeans and hurried downstairs in my bare feet.
I opened the door.
‘Sorry, sorry,’ I said. ‘I was…’
‘Having a lie-in,’ the man on the doorstep said, smiling.
Fuck. Opening the door to a stranger with yesterday’s make-up still on, my hair unbrushed and morning breath, would have been bad enough if the stranger didn’t look like he’d stepped straight out of a Google image search for ‘hot tradesmen’.
He had bright green eyes and floppy, shiny brown hair.
There were deep dimples in his cheeks, not quite concealed by a layer of stubble.
His high-vis jacket was unzipped, showing what looked like an impressive chest and a full set of ripped abs under a white T-shirt.
‘I’m here from Tim’s Trees,’ he said, and I realised I’d been standing there like a numpty, staring at him.
Fortunately, I hadn’t taken my bra off the night before, so although I was highly dishevelled and had quite obviously just woken up, at least my boobs weren’t flopping all over the place under my vest top.
‘Tim’s Trees,’ I parroted.
‘I’m here to take a look at the branch that’s overhanging your neighbour’s roof,’ he said.
‘Overhanging branch,’ I said. ‘Right. Got you. Of course. Er… it’s in the garden.’
The dimples in his cheeks got deeper, and although his lips didn’t move, I realised he was suppressing a smile. Or more likely a hoot of laughter at my stupidity.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘I’ll just get my gear from the van.’
‘Great,’ I replied. ‘I’ll leave the back door open for you. I’ll be down in just a few minutes.’
I legged it upstairs to the bathroom and locked myself in.
I turned the shower on full and sat on the edge of the bath, my face in my hands.
Surely things couldn’t have got so bad over the past few years that I couldn’t even talk to a good-looking man without stammering and blushing like a twat?
Not to mention with yesterday’s ice cream smeared around my mouth.
But, I told myself, I talked to good-looking men all the time.
Only that was at work, when we were all there for a reason, and weren’t expected to like one another.
But this bloke, this Tim, is working, Charlotte, I reminded myself.
Now get in the shower, put some clothes on, and go down and flirt with him.
Flirt with him? Where the hell had that idea come from?
Then I remembered. The Sorry Not Sorry podcast.
Her first challenge, which I must have heard just before I drifted off to sleep: flirt with a stranger.
Flirt? What was that again? I literally couldn’t remember the last time I flirted with anyone.
Oh, wait – it must have been the summer before last, when I was at the Creamfields festival with Henry and Maddy.
We were queuing for ramen noodles when the guy in front of us started chatting to me.
I chatted back, our eyes met and then, just as I was thinking, Hold on, is he flirting with me?
his girlfriend appeared and chucked a full pint of Pimm’s over his head. Not exactly Romeo and Juliet, was it?
You don’t have to, I told myself. Go on. Fall at the first fence. Or you can woman up and do it. It’s not like you’re ever going to see him again.
So I had a shower and put on a pair of shorts and a different, clean vest top, and looked at myself critically in the mirror.
At brunch a few months back, we’d got talking about politics – well, kind of.
To be perfectly honest, we were discussing whether it was more likely that Melania Trump or Victoria Beckham would ever be seen to crack a smile.
And then Maddy had said, ‘You know, Trump’s daughter Ivanka’s the total spit of you, Charlotte. ’
I pointed out that, while Ivanka and I both had straight blonde hair and were somewhat puddingy about the face, she was six foot tall and I was five foot five, and we probably both weighed the same.
So if you squashed Ivanka down as if you were tamping coffee, and put the result into cheaper clothes and a Geordie accent, you might get someone who slightly resembled me, only not really.
Especially as my father was about as far from being a billionaire as you can get.
And now, whenever I looked in the mirror, I wondered whether other people looked at me and thought, My God, she’s like a shorter, chubbier Ivanka Trump only with less good teeth!
And you can imagine what that did for my self-esteem.
I followed the whine of what I guessed must be a chainsaw downstairs and out into the blazing sunshine.
The paving stones were littered with leaves and twigs, and several smaller branches, but at first I couldn’t see Tim, although I could see Freezer, the neighbour’s white cat, watching from the safety of an upstairs window, looking majorly pissed off.
Then the noise stopped and I heard his voice say, ‘I’m up here! ’
I don’t know how I’d imagined tree surgeons worked. Ladders, I guess. But he was actually in the tree, right up high, perched astride one of the branches, safety goggles obscuring his face but not making him look any less fit.
‘I’m almost done,’ he shouted down. ‘Then I’ll clear this mess up and be on my way.’
I said, ‘Can I offer you a cup of tea, or something? Something cold? It’s hot today.’
God, you sound like an actress in a bad porno, Charlotte, I thought, cringing. But he didn’t seem to mind.
‘That sounds great,’ he said, switching on his chainsaw again and getting back to work.
I stood for a moment and watched him. There was something about him – about a man doing a skilled, physical, dangerous job – that was undeniably sexy.
The way his body stayed firm and still, anchored on the branch by the strength of his thighs.
The way his face had gone all sort of stern with concentration.
The way he seemed entirely unfazed by being several metres above the ground with a bit of kit that could have had his arm off in seconds if he wasn’t careful.
Of course, it helped that he was young and hot.
I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have felt the same about a middle-aged, beer-bellied tree surgeon, if they even existed.
Perhaps they didn’t. Perhaps they all fell to their death or lopped off a limb or lost their head for heights and retired.
Reluctantly, I stopped watching him and went inside.
There were some cans of Diet Coke in the fridge, and a few bottles of beer Henry had left.
Presumably Tim wouldn’t want one of those as he was working and driving (and wielding a deadly chainsaw) but I’d offer anyway.
And I put the kettle on for good measure.
My hands were shaking a bit, I noticed, which was ridiculous.
I remembered the words of the narrator of the Sorry Not Sorry podcast – the Bad Girl, as I found myself thinking of her.
Now don’t be nervous! You don’t have to sleep with him, you know! Just a bit of fun, a bit of flirting. Just catch his eye, say something witty, laugh when he does. Maybe even a bit of physical contact, the brush of an arm, that kinda stuff.
How hard could it be? I knew the answer: it was going to be really bloody hard. When it came to flirting, I was as rusty as Paul Gascoigne making a comeback to football.
I waited while Tim lugged all his gear back to his van and tidied up. Then he came into the kitchen, and said, ‘All done. Your neighbours won’t need to worry about their roof tiles now.’
‘What can I get you to drink?’ I asked, gesturing vaguely towards the kettle and the fridge.
He’d taken off his working jacket and my suspicions about his body were confirmed.
His arms were so muscly they stretched the sleeves of his white T-shirt, which was now stained from the sap of the tree and damp with sweat where it clung to his torso.
There was more serious muscle action going on under his jeans. Very, very, very hot.
‘Just a glass of water would be great, if you don’t mind,’ he said, and I realised I’d been staring at him again.
I filled a pint glass from the tap and added some ice cubes, wishing I could rub one over my burning cheeks. Or over his taut abs, where it would instantly melt on contact with his skin and run in a lickable rivulet down towards his— Charlotte! What are you even thinking?
‘So, what you were doing up there, is it very dangerous?’ I asked.
‘It’s like anything, really. It’s dangerous if you don’t know what you’re doing.’
He stepped over and took the glass from my hand. This close, I could smell him: his deodorant, or shower gel or whatever, and the smell of the tree clinging to his hands, and himself – that musty, sexy, masculine scent. I thought, This is dangerous. I don’t know what I’m doing.
‘What is it you do for a living?’ he asked.
‘I work in finance,’ I said. ‘I’m an admin assistant for a hedge fund in Mayfair. Not as exciting as what you do.’
‘It’s not always exciting. Only sometimes.’
He looked down at me, and I looked back at him.
We held each other’s gaze for a long moment, and something changed, right then.
I knew he knew what I was feeling, and I knew he felt just the same.
The quiet, sunny kitchen was suddenly as charged with sex as if it had been the dance floor of a club or the honeymoon suite of a flash hotel.
I’d caught his eye all right (plump Ivanka lookalike or not), but I couldn’t think of a single thing to say, witty or otherwise.
He took a long drink of water, then handed the glass back to me, taking one step closer, his eyes still on my face.
‘Your other half isn’t home, then?’ he asked.
I’d only listened to one episode of Sorry Not Sorry, and not even the whole of that, because I’d fallen asleep. But I was pretty sure I knew what the podcast’s narrator would have done in my position.
She would’ve channelled her inner bad girl and said, ‘As it happens, I’m single,’ while glancing at him through her eyelashes and flicking her hair.
And then she’d have taken one step forward herself, the only step there was room to take.
She’d have reached out a hand and touched his arm, where his bicep bulged out from his sleeve, and discovered that his skin was as hot and smooth as it looked, the muscle beneath as hard and strong.
She’d have smiled and tilted her face up to his, and waited for his kiss, his touch, and whatever happened after that.
Or maybe she’d really give it some and go in for a snog herself.
But me… I did none of those things. I bottled it. I heard my voice blurting out, ‘Actually, I’m expecting him home any minute.’
And he said, ‘I’d best be on my way, then.’
I waited until I could no longer hear the engine of his van, and then I collapsed on the sofa, fizzing with excitement.
I hadn’t touched him. I hadn’t even properly flirted.
But I’d done something – a part of me that I’d forgotten was even there was wide awake again.
I felt more alive than I had for months.
Oh my God, Charlotte, you almost shagged the tree surgeon!
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