‘Who is it?’ Mia asks.
‘Oh, no one.’ She’s not sure why she lies, only she didn’t mention she’d bumped into Ash yesterday, and now it seems odd to bring it up.
Mia gives her a funny look. ‘Okay.’ She casts her eyes around, locates her shoes and slips them on. ‘I don’t have time to push you on that, because I really do have to go.’ She gives Lissa a quick, hard hug. ‘I’ll text you later.’
Lissa hugs her back. ‘Have a good day, yes?’
When she’s alone in her flat, she picks her phone back up.
Well hello, hero.The nickname seems even more fitting given what happened yesterday.I’m good, v nice of you to check. Hope you’re okay too?
Oh I’m just great. So I think I said – I’m stuck in Bath for the foreseeable at the moment.
She doesn’t miss the word ‘stuck’ – as in, not somewhere he wants to be.
Right,she types back,I remember.Though he didn’t say why exactly that’s the case.
So that means I have lots of time on my hands. Do you fancy a coffee later in the week?
Again that nervous spasm in her chest. Her finger hovers over the screen. She should say no. She doesn’t need any more complications in her life. She clearly unnerved him enough that he felt the need to check up on her, and that’s probably all this is. But he’s helped her twice now, and she owes him.
She tells herself that’s the reason she agrees – that she’ll make it her treat, as a thank you. That it’s not because some inexplicable part of her – the part that felt the echo of something as he took her hand in his – wants to see him again.
*
It was stupid to agree to this. Is she even allowed to see him, given he’s Mark’s friend? Are there rules here?
It’s not a date, Lissa, she tells herself firmly as she makes her way to the café she always goes to with Darcy. It’s a thank-you coffee, that’s all.
She sees him as she reaches the café, coming from the opposite direction, just as the abbey bells announce the arrival of a new hour across the city. Her stomach twists with nerves – what is she supposed to say to him? – but he greets her with a smile and a wave.
‘You look better,’ he says as he approaches, his breath misting out in the cold. His eyes are impossibly blue today, against the backdrop of the clear sky.
‘Than when I was collapsed on the street?’ She flicks back her hair, makes her voice faux-coy. ‘Why, thanks.’
He laughs, and the sound of it makes her relax a little. As does the relief that he’s happy for her to joke about it, that he’s not going to make it weird, the way so many people would. ‘So this place does great coffee,’ she says, gesturing behind her.
He nods, rocking back on his heels. ‘Sounds good. Or …’
‘Or?’
‘Well, as I was walking through town, I saw the Christmas market is up.’
‘Right. It goes up at the end of November every year.’
He shrug-nods. ‘Could be fun.’
She raises her eyebrows. ‘You want to go to the Christmas market?’ It doesn’t seem very on-brand for him, somehow, though maybe that’s a little unfair. She doesn’t know him, does she? Maybe he’s into collecting tiny porcelain Santas or something.
‘Sure,’ he says easily. ‘Why not? I’ve not actually been to one before and I like to try everything at least once.’
He bounces on his feet a little as he talks, a kind of restless energy coming from him. She wonders if maybe he just doesn’t want to sit still.
‘Okay,’ she says. ‘Sure. Why not?’ She repeats his words back to him, and he grins.
They walk side by side, both of them hunched against the cold as they head to the part of the city that has been cordoned off for the market. They pass the charity shop where Lissa applied for the weekend volunteer shift – she is still waiting to hear back, and is beginning to worry that she can’t even get a newunpaidjob – then the abbey, the honey-coloured stone illuminated in the sunlight.
When they reach the market, they turn left onto one of the cobblestoned streets. There are wooden stalls set up on both sides, decorated with festive lights that she’s sure will look gorgeous come dark. The smell of cinnamon and mulled wine laces the air, and there’s a busker nearby singing Christmas tunes, his voice merging with the general chatter around them.
