“Better be on best behaviour then.” She grins and strolls out of my office.
Nick and Priya know about Salt, though they’ve never visited, but none of tonight’s other guests do. It makes it a tiny bit awkward when the dinner chat moves on to polite enquiries about work.
I just need to get through tonight without betraying what – or rather who – has been on my mind for nearly two weeks straight.
I’m 30 minutes late by the time I get there. I smooth out the creases in my suit as the cab pulls away, mentally bracing myself as I walk up the path. I can hear laughter coming through the front door as I arrive on the front step and knock.
It’s Emmy who opens it, grinning at me with a glass of red in her hand.
“There he is! Fashionably late, darling?” She ushers me in and closes the door behind me.
“Meeting overran,” I grunt back. She leans up to give me a kiss on the cheek and my traitorous cock stirs in my boxers. For fuck’s sake.
“On a Sunday?” She cocks her head and I shrug, hoping she doesn’t push it. “You haven’t missed much. Nick’s still workinghis way through a story about the new nappy system they’ve bought. If we kill some time out here, he might even be finished by the time we go in.”
Her smile is free and easy, her dimples lending her a very girl-next-door vibe. Her hair is trailing down her back in gentle waves, perfectly accentuating her soft curves. I’m hit by the sudden urge to twirl one of those curls around my finger and I blink, scrambling to remember what the fuck she said before my brain basically went offline.
“We live in hope,” I reply, hoping it fits her last comment. It seems to do the trick because she smiles again and offers me a drink. I follow her into the kitchen, where Priya is throwing a salad into a bowl.
“Luke, darling!” Priya strides over as quickly as her baby belly will allow and gives me a quick squeeze. “You’re just in time. Can you two take the chips and dip out to the living room? Nick’s mid-monologue and if no one stops him, we’ll starve.”
“Of course,” I reply, grabbing a basket of kettle chips as Emmy hands me an enormous glass of malbec.
“Cheers!” She clinks her glass against mine and her eyes crinkle as we both drink.
She’s got a lightness about her that I haven’t seen in a long while. There are dark circles under her eyes but she’s full of easy smiles and mischievous humour. She’s barefoot. Why the fuck do I notice that?
“Right, show time!” she says, grabbing the dips and jerking her head so that I follow her into the living room.
Show time indeed.
“So, darling, how did flat hunting go?” Chloe, Emmy’s best friend, asks from across the table. I’m sat between Josh and Priya, with Nick, Emmy, and Chloe on the other side. The four of us have known each other since childhood but Josh and Priya have slotted straight into the dynamic.
“Flat hunting?” interrupts Nick, before Emmy has a chance to reply. “You’re not staying in the house?”
“I’ve had enough of Fulham and that house was always more Colin than me,” she says breezily, helping herself to another piece of garlic bread. “I want a fresh start somewhere new. And I’m delighted to say I’ve found something!”
“What, wait? It was that easy?” replies Chloe, incredulously, a risotto-loaded fork suspended in mid-air. Everyone knows the rental market in London is a total car crash.
“Christ no, every viewing was practically worse than the last,” laughs Emmy, chewing on her garlic bread. “The place in Camberwell was a cupboard. A literal cupboard. No windows, very thin door, space for one single bed and that was about it. The guy said their last roommate just had a mattress he used to prop up against the wall during the day. Didn’t see the issue.”
Josh chokes on his wine. “No window?”
“Not unless you count a hole in the plasterboard which I’m pretty sure once had a peeping Tom style camera in it, no,” she confirms. “Second place, I was greeted at the door by a man in a kimono who asked me if I was into taxidermy. I sense he had a somewhat loose acquaintance with personal hygiene.” She shudders as everyone laughs.
Emmy smirks, sipping her wine. “Then there was the one with five flatmates, who all argued over the colour of my ‘aura’ before declaring that the friend I came with was giving off dangerous energy.”
“Oh no,” Priya laughs. “Did you escape without joining a cult?”
“Only after I accepted a jam jar of homemade kombucha and took a flyer for their monthly crystal healing workshop.”
Josh is practically crying with laughter. “Please say there’s more.”
Emmy nods solemnly. “A bed in a literal shed. Not one of those fancy post-pandemic garden studios but a literal garden shed with a bed in it. There was a place with a dead rat in the stairwell – we didn’t even get as far as the actual flat with that one. And the last one was actually ok but I could hear a child playing a recorder through one wall and a screaming match happening through the other. So, it was a no from me.”
Nick leans across the table to refill her wine. “So, who did you pick then? Please tell me it’s not the kimono guy.” He grimaces.
“None of them! I took a new friend with me to the viewings and by the end of that tour through hell, she offered me her spare room. I’m going to Bermondsey!” She raises her glass and beams.
