“Just completely relax,” he says, as he straightens up. I can feel myself trying not to blush about his patch of taut skin catching my eye.
In the next moment, the flash goes off, startling me. “Sorry. Think I blinked.”
He smiles. “No worries. Would it help if I counted down?”
Oh, he’s so nice.I try to keep my eyes off his body, remembering afresh how attractive I thought he was in The Smugglers that night. “Maybe. Although then I might overthink it.”
“I’ll count to three,” he says. “Blink on two.”
We try it, and of course I blink on twoandthree.It’s a sodding photo, Lucy, it can’t be that hard.And now I am starting to feel self-conscious and stiffening up, but Caleb quickly distracts me with a story about the time he shot nearly an entire wedding reception before realizing he’d been taking photo after photo of the groom’s identical twin brother. And it’s only as I’m laughing—properly laughing—that I realize Caleb’s been snapping away the whole time.
“See what you did there,” I say, tipping my index finger toward him.
“Well, I do have all the tricks.” He smiles at me and winks, one of the few men I’ve met who can do so without seeming creepy. “So, anyway, what brought you to Supernova? The night I met you, you’d just quit your job, and now...”
“I know. Actually, that was also part of the reason I didn’t call you. My friend had a room going free in London, so I thought... why not move here, make a fresh start?”
He meets my eye, and for a moment I think he’s about to ask me about Max. But he just smiles and nods. “Why not indeed. Well, it was great to meet you again. Good luck with everything.”
—
They didn’t scare you off, then? You’re going back tomorrow?”
Max and I are sitting against opposite arms of his expansive mustard-yellow sofa, our legs and feet intertwined, awaiting a delivery of sushi—an order, I noticed in horror, that cost as much as my weekly food bill.
Sushi, I’ve recently discovered, is Max’s all-time-favorite food. Getting to know him again has been such a strange hybrid of the old and the new, a combination of the familiar (his sense of humor, that ever-present thoughtfulness, his kisses) and the new (his tastes having evolved from instant noodles, Britpop, and beer to sushi, electronica, and top-quality wine).
Though my head is still hazy with first-day fog, I smile and nod. “I’m going to work there till I retire. Or die. Seriously. They’ll have to prize that job out of my cold, dead hands.”
Max laughs. “Wow. I could use someone like you in my team.”
“Honestly. I can’t believe I’m actually being paid to write.”
“Why not? You’ve always been a great writer. Why shouldn’t it be you?”
“Writing’s different to the law, though. I mean, you have a vocation. You train for five years—”
“Six.”
“Sorry, six. And then you’re qualified. I mean, don’t get me wrong,” I add, with a prickle of guilt, because I know how hard Max worked to get to where he is, especially at a prestigious firm like HWW. “Obviously you had to put the graft in. But with writing... there’s no clear path. It’s not like you do a course, then, bam—you’re a qualified writer. There’s no such thing.”
“Doesn’t matter. You’re doing it now.”
“Took me long enough.”
“Well, don’t they say the best things in life come to those who wait?”
“They do, yeah.” Our eyes meet, and I smile. “Hey, the strangest thing happened this morning.”
“Yeah?” He pushes a little bowl of wasabi peas toward me.
I wrinkle my nose, shake my head. “I’m more of a... Scampi Fries kind of girl.”
He laughs. “God, haven’t had those for years. Do they still make them?”
“Not sure. We should go to a proper pub and hunt some down.”
“Is it weird that I think I’d prefer wasabi peas now anyway?”
