“As it happens, I’m very into bobble hats.” He grinned.
She felt immensely pleased. Banter—tick!Their eyes met. He had good eyes, dark blue irises circled with silver. He fixed her with a smile so sexy it made her want to bray like a donkey.
She swallowed down her inner silly ass and said, “Shall we begin the tour?” She needed to break the intensity of his gaze before she became tempted to nibble him.
“Lead the way,” he said, gesturing.
They joined the throng and fell into step as they began to wander the market stalls. Enticed by the scent of hot sugar on the cold air, they stopped to purchase two bags of hot candied chestnuts from a man who was turning the nuts in a giant steel pan with what looked like a garden spade.
“Okay,” Warren said when they had meandered down past the first bend in the high street and had begun a slow ascent along the second stretch, slightly uphill. “So, I’m just going to come out and say that I am rubbish at this, awkward as hell at trying to get to know someone. I almost always mess it up by saying the wrong thing, so I’m going to start with a tried and tested question to kick things off.”
She laughed. “I admire your honesty. Hit me with it.”
“You have been warned,” he said, smiling. He cleared his throat. “Ahem. Where do you see yourself in five years’ time?”
She almost choked on a chestnut as she tried to stifle her guffaw. “Did you find that question on a ‘how to interview’ website?”
“Hey, give me a break,” he said, laughing. “I was married for eight years, I’m a novice at this dating malarkey.”
“Sorry”—she held her hands up—“but that’s a big question to kick off with, so you need to give me a minute.”
“I’m in no hurry; I’m just here, soaking in this winter wonderland of a town with the prettiest woman in it.” He grinned.
Fred rolled her eyes at him, throwing another hot chestnut into her mouth and chewing slowly to buy herself time.
“Do you know what?” she said after another moment. “I honestly don’t know where I’ll be in five years. And trust me, that pains me to say. A few years ago, I thought I had my life trajectory all mapped out till retirement. Now, I don’t even recognize that plan anymore. Or myself. How’sthat for an early midlife crisis?”Still think I’m lovely?she wondered. One of the things she had discussed with her therapist was how, going forward, she could squash the urge to shape herself into what she assumed men wanted her to be. It wasn’t sexy to admit that she didn’t have a plan, but it was honest.
He was quiet for a moment before answering. “I think it’s brave to admit that you don’t have it all worked out. Maybe your new trajectory will be better than the original. That’s what I keep telling myself anyway.”
Well, he hadn’t run a mile; score one for veracity.
“That’s very…” Her words got stuck as a moment of unwelcome introspection stopped her in her tracks. Ten years ago, if she’d met someone who’d told her they had no plan, she’d have written them off immediately. She wasn’t proud of that. Warren was looking at her, waiting for a response. She rallied. “Thank you for…Winging it doesn’t come easy to me. I like order.”
“I understand,” he replied, sounding like he really did.
She needed to steer this conversation away from herself. “What about you? What will your life look like in five years’ time? Do you have a master plan?” she asked, teasingly.
“Ah, that’s an easy one.” He threw a hot chestnut into the air and caught it in his mouth. “I’m going to be the next Anthony Bourdain, writing my way around the restaurants of the world. I’ll have my first book deal by then.” He winked at her.
“Is that all?”
He laughed and steered them toward a stall selling hot mulled cider, where he ordered them one each. As a woman with rosy cheeks ladled their drinks into paper cups, Warren said, “All I’ve got to do is convince my editor to give me my own column.” He thanked the woman and handed a steaming cup to Fred.
“Ooh, lovely, thank you!” She inhaled the fragrant steam; notes of orange and clove danced at the back of her tongue. “And that’s all that stands between you and food writing domination? Getting your own column?”
“It would be a start. I feel like I’ve paid my dues; ten years working my way up through the regional papers.” His tone became serious. “I’m tired of waiting for my career to get started. I need to make a splash, you know, get things moving.”
“Your career sounds more than started to me. What paper do you work for now?”
“TheDaily News. It’s mostly London based at the minute, but it’s slowly spreading out into other regions. It’s exciting being part of something that’s still growing, it gives me more scope to make my mark. Being a journalist was all I ever wanted to do. I guess it was my calling.”
“That’s a nice thing to have. I don’t know if I ever had a calling. I loved my job in advertising, but I never did get to head up the campaigns like I thought I would; I was mostly creating storyboards for designers higher up the food chain to use as springboards for their own ideas. And now I have no career at all.”
“Not at the moment, perhaps, but your skills are transferable, you haven’t lost them.” He was very sweet, but this was in danger of becoming a counseling session and she was sounding like a moaning minnie.
She gave herself a mental shake. “Absolutely,” she said with her best jolly-hockey-sticks delivery. “Something will come up.” She thought of the cozy workshop at Hallow House.Worse places to be.
“We have a lot in common; I cut my journo teeth sifting through emails from people with stories to sell, and passing them on to the reporters to follow up,” he said, taking aim and throwing his empty cup into a bin across the way. “It took me three years of making tea and finding stories for other writers before I finally got a byline.” He sighed. “And now we both find ourselves at a crossroads in our careers.”
