‘You’re not trying hard enough, Lissa,’ Mia scolds. They’re only a few months apart, but Mia has scolding down.
‘How do you know? And you’ve never even met him.’
‘Well now’s the perfect time, isn’t it? Come on.’ She links her arm with Lissa’s, steers her towards the pub. Lissa resigns herself to being overruled as she slips her phone out of her coat pocket.
‘Looking for an excuse to get out of this?’ Mia asks.
Lissa rolls her eyes – okay, so youcanstill do it at her age – and looks down at her screen. ‘I’m not that immature. I like Mark. I just don’t like being ambushed on what’s supposed to be a nice quiet Sunday evening.’ No new messages, no missed calls. ‘I’ve done the food shop for Mum,’ she explains, at Mia’s questioning look. ‘Sometimes they ring me rather than her when they’re there, and then she misses the delivery.’
Mia raises her eyebrows and Lissa pre-empts her. ‘Stop it. I know what you’re thinking.’
‘No you don’t.’
‘I do. You don’t think I should still do that for her.’
Mia shrugs. ‘Your words, not mine.’
A burst of warmth greets them as they step through the blue oak door and into the little pub with its low timber-beamed ceilings. There’s a crackling fire in the main room, its flickering light dancing off the old plaster walls.
‘Oh look,’ Darcy says, indicating a table a few feet from the bar. Lissa follows the direction of her gaze to see Mark on one side of the round table, hand around a pint, talking to …
‘Who’s the hottie?’ Darcy asks.
Lissa frowns. ‘That’s Ash. You invited Ash?’ There is no reason her voice should sound this panicked. What’s one more person in the grand scheme of things?
‘Seeing as I have no idea who Ash is, I’m going with no. I told Mark to bring a friend if he wanted. Thought it might make it seem less weird.’
‘Did he know I was going to be here?’
Darcy hesitates. ‘I said it was a group of us.’
‘Oh for God’s sake, Darcy,’ Lissa snaps. ‘Bad enough that you set me up, let alone him.’
Mark looks over then, and a flicker of surprise crosses his face before he smiles, waves.
‘There we go,’ Darcy says, clapping her hands in satisfaction. ‘I told you he’d be happy to see you.’
‘No you didn’t,’ Lissa mutters. Mia gives her a sympathetic pat on the back.
‘Well I thought it. Come on. I’ll get us drinks.’
Mia and Lissa make their way over to the table while Darcy heads to the polished bar. Ash is looking at them too now, and for a second Lissa’s gaze snags on his as the corner of his mouth turns up in greeting. She forces herself to focus on Mark instead as they come to a stop. There are pens and paper already in the centre of the table, and the smell of beer and fried food fills the air.
Lissa takes a seat next to Mark, smiles as best she can. ‘Mia, this is Mark and Ash. And this is Mia, my cousin.’
‘Your cousin?’ Mark cocks his head in surprise, then holds his hand out to Mia across the table.
‘Doesn’t talk about me much then, does she?’ Mia asks wryly, shaking Mark’s hand.
Mark gives Lissa a small smile. ‘I take it Darcy played you too?’
Lissa shakes her head. ‘Don’t know why I’m surprised, really. Not that I’m not happy to see you,’ she adds quickly. Although she’d been all set to start phasing out their interactions at work as of tomorrow, and put the whole one-night-stand thing firmly behind them.
‘Well that’s something then.’ His voice is low, his gaze very focused on hers. She wishes she had a drink to distract herself with. Instead, she glances down, sees a motorbike helmet under the table. Very unlikely to be Mark’s. And of course Ash is the bloody motorbike-riding type.
‘I got us all chips,’ Darcy announces as she joins them at the table, handing Lissa a white wine and Mia a cider. She takes the remaining seat next to Lissa, forcing her to move up slightly so that her thigh brushes against Mark’s under the table.
Darcy pulls the piece of paper over to her. ‘It’s about to start,’ she says, with enough command in her voice that they all go quiet. Then she smiles at Ash. ‘I’m Darcy, by the way.’ She’s giving Ash a very direct look – one that Lissa recognises as, in Darcy’s own words, hercome hitherlook.
