Blowing It (3 page)

“But you must have days off?”

“Occasionally. When I’m not on a deadline.”

“So what do you do?”

I squirmed. “The usual stuff. See my friends,
remind myself there’s still a three-dimensional world out there. I’m very
boring really.”

Magnus wasn’t being put off. “Where do you go with
your friends?”

“The pub, usually. The Drake does a quiz on
Wednesdays, karaoke on Fridays. I’m not adverse to a bit of ritual
humiliation.”

“You sing?” Magnus’s eyebrows rose towards his
hairline.

“Terribly.” I grimaced. “And only when I’m drunk.
Ryan says I sound like a cat being strangled.”

“Ryan?”

“My best friend.”

“The one who bet you couldn’t write a children’s
book?”

I nodded. “That’s the one.”

“How did you meet him?”

“Uni.” I smiled, remembering. “I was studying
Literature—such a cliché, right?—he was getting his teaching qualification, but
we chose the same free credit course. Ancient Philosophy.” I pulled a face,
sticking out my tongue. Abigail giggled, so I exaggerated the gesture for her
benefit.

“Sounds interesting,” Magnus said, unfazed by my
attempt to downplay my education.

“Not really. Zeno’s paradoxes. The slowest runner
always wins the race, a moving object can never reach its destination.
Something about an arrow in flight being motionless….” I frowned, trying to
remember a lesson ten years old. Shrugging, I gave up. “It didn’t make sense at
the time and still doesn’t now.”

 “And you can get a degree in this stuff?” Magnus
asked.

“Useless, isn’t it? At least if I’d learnt to plumb
a sink, I could have stopped my first flat from flooding when a pipe burst. I
didn’t even know where the stopcock was.”

Magnus laughed easily. “Don’t tell me you’re completely
helpless?”

I nodded. “Guilty as charged. If I could hire
someone to hang a picture for me, I would.”

Magnus dropped his gaze to the tabletop, swirling
the cold dregs of the coffee in his cup. “Sounds like you need a builder in
your life.”

I looked at him, waiting for him to meet my eyes before
I answered. “I think you might be right.”

CHAPTER THREE

That Friday I was a bundle of nervous energy.
Following what had been the most unexpected, but one of the best dates I’d ever
had, I’d exchanged numbers with Magnus and he’d asked me out for dinner, minus
our young chaperone. I was supposed to be finishing my novel, but as the end of
the week inched closer, the words became harder and harder to get down. It had
been longer than I cared to remember since I’d last gone out with someone, and I
didn’t have much experience of conventional dating. All my previous boyfriends
had been one-night stands who hadn’t gone home until we’d broken up.

Not that Magnus was my boyfriend. Not yet.

“Where are you going?” Ryan asked when I called him
for last-minute fashion advice.

“I don’t
know
!” I wailed, pulling various
shirts and T-shirts out of my wardrobe and tossing them onto my bed. “If I knew
that, I wouldn’t have such a dilemma.”

“And you like this one, huh?”

“He’s different.” I held the mobile between my
shoulder and chin, weighing a pair of fashionable jeans against plain black
slacks. “He’s all… mature.”

“Older?”

“No, I don’t think so. Just, I dunno, grown up.
He’s a
building surveyor
.”

Ryan sounded amused. “What does he look like?”

“Gorgeous.” I sighed and threw the jeans onto the
bed along with most of the rest of my clothes.

“Gorgeous, like Leonardo DiCaprio, or George
Clooney?”

“Gorgeous like big ole papa bear
let-me-drag-you-back-to-my-cave gorgeous.”

“So, conservative?”

“Rugged.”

“Old-fashioned?”

“Gentleman.”

“Okay, wear your single-breasted black suit and the
grey T-shirt with the silver cross on it.”

“Really?” I dug out the clothes he’d suggested and
scrutinised them anxiously.

“Yeah. The suit works if he takes you somewhere
really nice, but the T-shirt is less formal and fits in all the right places.
He won’t be able to resist you.”

My insides squirmed pleasurably at the thought.
“Okay, I gotta go. He’s supposed to be here in half an hour.”

“Have fun.” I heard another voice in the
background, muffled through the connection. “Sameer says don’t do anything we
wouldn’t.”

I laughed. Sameer was Ryan’s husband; I remembered
the days when they were wild and young and still dating. “That doesn’t exclude
much.”

“Exactly.” I heard the smile in Ryan’s voice. “Have
a great time. We love you.”

I disconnected, tossed my phone gently onto the bed
beside the piles of clothes, and held the outfit Ryan had suggested against
myself in the full-length mirror on my wardrobe door. The suit was a staple,
wheeled out for the occasional dinner or gala hosted by Squire, my publisher,
but it wasn’t really
me
. Then again, neither was the man Magnus had met
on Tuesday, the man he had researched on the internet, the man he saw in press
photos or sitting on talk show sofas. But I wasn’t dick enough to swan into a
nice restaurant wearing my casual scruff if Magnus had gone out of his way to
book us in somewhere fancy.
How much money do building surveyors make,
anyway?

The T-shirt appeased me. I suspected Ryan had known
it would. Made of thin, clinging cotton, almost transparent in the right light,
it gave definition to my skinny chest and shoulders, while skimming my stomach
loosely enough it still looked casually, artfully done. And I liked the
pattern, the Celtic cross wrought in bright silver which caught the eye in
dramatic fashion. These days, it was about as dramatic as my wardrobe was
allowed to be.

I showered quickly. I wore my black hair long—“shaggy,”
a magazine had called it—but it was thin enough I didn’t have to worry about
taking time for it to dry. I brushed my teeth and shaved, touched the little
eyeliner pencil I kept in the bathroom cabinet but didn’t pick it up. Some guys
were funny about me wearing makeup, and Magnus didn’t seem the gender-bending
type. Besides, if Max found out, he’d have a fit.

My phone rang at seven thirty on the dot, just as I
was shrugging on the jacket. It was tailored, bought from Savile Row with the
first cheque from my advance, and fit like a glove. I did a last quick twirl in
the mirror, checking my arse in the reflection, then skipped to the hall to
answer the phone call which was, as I knew it would be, the doorman in the
lobby of my building telling me a Mr. Cassidy was waiting. I told him I’d be down
in a moment, pulled on my favourite pair of black leather ankle boots, with
pointy toes and silver chains wrapped around the heel, and went to meet my
date.

Magnus rose from the white leather sofa in the
foyer and smiled as I exited the lift, and my heart did a rapid double-beat in
my chest. He’d shaved and had a haircut. Promising signs.

“You look nice,” he said, clasping my arm and
bending to kiss me on the cheek.

So did he. Dressed in a charcoal suit with pink
shirt, the collar open at the neck to expose the hollow of his clavicle, he cut
a fine figure. He wore a light cologne, something sandalwood-y and masculine,
which emphasised the overall impression of virility and manliness. I felt
positively delicate by comparison. Just the way I liked it.

He drove a black BMW, a couple of years old.
“Company car,” he explained as he unlocked the doors.

“Nice.” I got in and looked around the spotless
interior. I hoped he wasn’t a neat freak.

Magnus chuckled as he started the engine. “I was
about to say the same thing about your building.”

I shrugged. “It’s a glass box.”

“I’ll admit it wasn’t what I expected.”

“Oh?” I twisted in my seat to face him. “What were
you expecting?”

“I don’t know,” he confessed, manoeuvring the car
through the busy East London streets with calm efficiency. “Something older, I
suppose. Something with more character.”

“It fits the stereotype, doesn’t it?” I smirked. “The
truth is I haven’t a clue when it comes to renovations, and didn’t trust myself
to find a property that wasn’t going to have the roof fall in within the first
year. At least with a new build, there’s more guarantee.”

“I can understand that.”

“Old houses, they’re pretty, but they need
maintenance.” I shuddered, recalling too well some of the places I’d lived.
Unreliable plumbing and ill-fitting windows, stairs which creaked like a
gunshot on every tread, and the exorbitant price of contents insurance because
they lacked the security of modern houses. I caught Magnus’s eye and grinned.
“I bet you live in one, don’t you? Some little rundown fixer-upper you bought
as a wreck and renovated into a show home?”

He laughed throatily. “Not exactly.”

“But I’m not far off, right?”

“Someone else did it up,” Magnus admitted. “I
bought it already finished.”

“What’s it like?”

“Small.”

“Isn’t everything in London?”

“I bet your place isn’t,” he commented wryly.

“Ha!” I laughed. “You should have seen where I
lived before.”

“I can imagine.” He stopped for a set of traffic
lights and smiled at me. “I can’t wait to be out of London.”

“You’re not native, then?”

“You mean you can’t tell?”

I admitted I could. His accent lacked the lazy
vowels of the estuary.

“I’m more Hampshire than Hammersmith,” he said,
edging the car forward as the lights changed.

“Why did you move?”

“Bright lights, big city. Usual story. Jobs in
London paid more, and at twenty-four that’s all that matters, isn’t it? You
don’t think about the reasons why they pay more. Plus my brother already lived
here.”

We were travelling northwest through narrow roads
lined with 1970s council tower blocks and red London buses, past Shoreditch
Park and towards the Angel, where the utilitarian architecture gave way to
terraces of yellow-bricked and white-clad Georgian townhouses, much easier on
the eye.

“You live around here?” I asked.

“Not far.”

“So where are you taking me?”

“One of my favourite restaurants. The Smokehouse.
You heard of it?”

I shook my head.

Magnus grinned. “I hope you like meat.”

“Love it.”

“Excellent.”

The smiles we exchanged were decidedly wolfish.

҉҉҉

The Smokehouse lived up to its name. Situated in a
converted pub, the interior was decked out in dark wood and wrought iron,
candles on the table, and the specials chalked on a blackboard hung on the wall
next to a timbered bar. We were shown to a table at the rear, in front of a
large window overlooking a small garden where a couple of smokers stood, arms
crossed against the chill in the late-March air, the smoke from their
cigarettes rising over their heads in thin plumes.

I ordered a glass of Bordeaux and Magnus, an
imported Belgian pale ale, and the waiter left us with menus while he went to
fetch the drinks.

“What’s good here?” I asked, studying the a la
carte menu, all of which looked delicious and wasn’t as pricy as the decor had
led me to believe.

“I’m a sucker for the fried oysters, and the beef bourguignon
melts in the mouth.” He indicated the dishes. “But everything I’ve ever had
here has been fantastic.”

“It smells good.” I looked around the busy dining
room, spying on the meals the patrons alongside us were eating. The rich,
savoury scent of the food made my mouth water. “And oh my god, they do pulled
pork as a side!”

Magnus chuckled. “Whatever you want. This is on
me.”

I gave him a long look. “Okay,” I agreed. “But only
because I’m paying next time.”

“Deal.”

I went with Magnus’s recommendation of oysters to
start, and a Korean-style smoked duck for my main course. Magnus ordered the
oysters as well, the beef for his main, and a side of pulled pork, which I
magnanimously offered to share with him. We drank our drinks and ate hunks of
warm, crusty bread while we waited for the food to arrive, making small talk about
work and the weather.

He spoke about some of the building sites he was
overseeing, the tradesmen’s gossip, and the nightmare homeowners. I told him about
my second novel, and he solemnly swore not to give away the ending to another
living soul. By the time our plates were clean, and I was draining my second
glass of wine, darkness had fallen, half the tables were empty, and I never wanted
the evening to end.

“Dessert?” Magnus asked when the waiter reappeared
to clear our table.

I patted my stomach ruefully. “I don’t think I
could.”

“I’m going to, so you might as well.”

I shot him a look. “You’re leading me astray.”

His answering smile contained more than a hint of promise.
“I certainly hope so.”

I ordered a rich, creamy tiramisu cannoli with the
perfect amount of bitter bite from the coffee, and Magnus chose caramelised
mandarins served with some sort of mousse. He offered me a piece when it
arrived, and I groaned with appreciation on tasting the sharp, sweet fruit.

“God, that was delicious,” I said, laying my napkin
on the table. “I have no idea how I’m going to top that next time.”

“You don’t usually dine out?”

“Hey, I was an impoverished writer, remember? If I
had the change to go to the chippy once a week, I was doing well.”

“So you haven’t forgotten your humble roots? Fame
hasn’t gone to your head?” Magnus smiled, keeping his tone light.

I decided against flippancy for my answer. “Truthfully,
I’m a homebody, at least when it comes to food. Not that I’m a good cook or
anything, but whenever I went out with my friends, it was usually to the pub or
clubbing, rather than eating.”

“I was never really into the club scene,” Magnus
admitted.

“I loved it.” I relaxed in my chair, letting my
memories come to the fore. “The thumping music, the smoke and the noise, sweaty
bodies and endless possibility. Ryan and I would get glammed up and dance the
night away.” I laughed. “I was hung over through most of uni.”

Magnus leant across the table. “Glammed up?” He
raised a quizzical eyebrow. “Define that.”

I blushed. “I don’t mean drag or anything, but y’ know,
a bit of glitter didn’t go amiss. Maybe some eyeliner….”

Magnus’s eyes darkened. They were blue, I noted,
but not the pale blue of the summer sky. More the deep steel-grey of stormy
seas. “Really?”

I nodded.

“And is that something you still do?”

“Heh. Not so much anymore.”

“But you would?”

I shrugged uneasily. “Sure.”

He sat back, giving me a contemplative look. “I
think that’s something I’d like to see.”