Harri was hit by the anxious thought that his own date might not show up. He hadn’t even considered that as an option until now, but what if he had to watch these two being adorable together all night? As much as he hadn’t wanted to come on this date, he didn’t relish the thought of going back to the bookshop by himself and explaining to the gossips how he’d left Annie and Kit to their evening.
Kit and Annie were admiring one another’s accents. Kit was calling themself a ‘Cockney Sparra’ and making Annie laugh.
‘Drinks?’ Harri said, interrupting.
They decided on ciders and Harri was putting in their order with the barman – who clearly knew all about their date, judging by the amount of smirking he was doing – when someone appeared tentatively by his side.
‘Are you Harri?’
Anjali was small, dark-haired and beyond pretty in a midnight blue sweater and jeans with strappy black boots up to her calves. Tiny gold studs traced the shell of her left ear. Harri gulped away his nerves and tried to shake her hand, managing to knock one of the ciders so it spilled on the bar.
‘Oh god, sorry.’ He took her hand, realised too late that his was wet with cider suds, apologised yet again, and would have prayed for the ground to open up and swallow him if it wasn’t for Anjali’s reassuring laugh. She shook his hand in spite of the wetness and told him it was nice to meet him.
The barman mopped up the mess while Harri suffered.
‘You want a cider?’ he said, aware that Annie and Kit were already taking their seats at an elaborately set table by the fire. None of the other tables had white cloths and fresh cut flowers. The work of Mrs C., no doubt.
‘Coke’s fine, thanks,’ said Anjali.
‘So, you’re the vet who tackled Aldous, the ungroomable beast?’
She laughed again at this, thank goodness. ‘It was a piece of cake now he’s used to me. When he first came to us, I had to shave him under sedation.’
‘You or the dog?’ Harri blurted, then wished he hadn’t when Anjali didn’t laugh quite as much as before.
‘You take a seat, I’ll bring these over,’ Harri said. ‘That’s Annie Luna over there with Kit.’
Anjali walked away, leaving Harri alone to have a stern word with himself.Stop fumbling! It’s not an audition. It’s a date. And not even a real date. This is just to get the villagers off our backs.Only, the way Annie was laughing sure sounded like this was a great big, very real, double date.
When he’d paid for the drinks and turned to face the room, Annie was sitting right next to Kit and telling them she loved their t-shirt.It’s just a plain old striped t-shirt, Harri thought, grudgingly.
‘How long have you and Kit known each other,’ he asked as he set down Anjali’s Coke and took a sip of his cider. He hadn’t known how dry his mouth was until the bitter apple tang hit his tastebuds and he wanted to down it on the spot.
‘We don’t,’ they both said at the same time.
‘I don’t come into the pub much,’ Anjali explained.
‘And I’ve only been chef here for a year or so,’ Kit added.
‘You’re an incomer like us,’ Annie said, and Kit agreed they sure were.
There came a moment of awkwardness when Harri settled on the chair next to Anjali, directly facing Kit, and the barman appeared with the menu, which listed a few simple, wholesome pub grub dishes. He was wielding his order pad and asking, ‘Did Kit tell you the specials tonight?’
‘Not yet, Finan,’ Kit replied. ‘It’s my individual steak and pastry bakes with blue cheese,’ they told the group.
‘You’ll be wanting fish and chips, right, Annie?’ Harri said with confidence, adding for Kit’s benefit, ‘She loved a chippy tea when we lived together in Wales.’
Annie looked straight at Harri with a fixed smile and announced that she had a hankering for Kit’s steak bake, actually.
Harri wondered why he felt stung. He fell quiet while Anjali explained she didn’t eat meat and asked for the roast Mediterranean veggie pasta. Kit said they’d join her; they weren’t all that hungry after cheffing all day. Last of the group, Harri placed his order for his long-awaited cod and chips with tartare sauce, and extra mushy peas, his favourite.
He realised his cheeks hurt a little from trying to smile. Was he being weird? How come Annie managed to be so calm in situations like this? She was already set upon interviewing Kit about the tattoos across the backs of their fingers, which spelled out the letters of their name with tiny blue swallows in flight.
Harri watched as she very nearly touched her fingertips to the inked spots, unaware it was awakening something within him that he wasn’t used to dealing with. It would be a good fifteen minutes before he recognised it for what it was: jealousy. And he wasn’t proud of it.
Anjali had drunk all her coke. They’d covered where in Wales Harri was from and she’d discovered he made coffee for a living, and he’d learned how she’d lived all her life along the promontory and that her dad was a vet and her mum was a surgeon.
‘My mam’s a housewife and Dad installs conservatories,’ he said, killing the conversation dead.
