His shoulders stiffened.
‘Your flat?’
‘That’s right,’ I said with confidence. ‘My flat, so will you please leave before I am forced to do kung fu.’
He raised a dark eyebrow.
‘Not that I wouldn’t love to see that,’ he replied, a Scottish accent roughing up his words at the edges, ‘but are you sure it’s not Callum McClay’s flat?’
‘Callum McClay?’ I repeated faintly. ‘That’s my landlord’s name.’
The man nodded.
I blanched.
Oh no.
Chapter Two
In theory, I’d met Callum McClay twice. In reality, it was more complicated.
According to Desi’s sister, Stella, we’d both been at her wedding to Dave, where I’d spent the majority of the day convincing a very drunk, Speak Now-era-obsessed Desi that she really should rethink her maid of honour speech and not use it as an opportunity to list every perceived infraction Dave had ever committed. I failed, spectacularly, and after she went on to make a woman cry in the toilets by passing judgement on her shoes, I’d made the executive decision to take Desi home and we missed almost the entire night do.
The supposed second time was two years later at the Brit Bat ceremony of Stella and Dave’s firstborn, a child inexplicably named Lemon Marge Kaplan O’Brien. It was a much smaller affair than the wedding, and even though Stella had checked the guestlist and insisted Callum was there, I couldn’t remember anything about him at all.
But as I stood in the middle of the living room, staringinto a pair of unamused blue eyes, there was a certain similarity between this man, with a shadow of stubble covering the lower half of his face, and the clean-shaven person whose erratic social media I’d been casually stalking ever since I heard Dave had a friend who was moving to Paris and needed a tenant for his Clapham flat. Instagram Callum hadn’t seemed quite so tall and Instagram Callum was facial-hair-free with close-cropped hair, but when the man in front of me took a cautious side-step toward the wall to turn on the overhead light, I realized he was absolutely, positively my new landlord.
‘Callum,’ I said, the red rash of rage that had been slowly creeping up my face flourishing into a scarlet stain of humiliation. ‘You’re Callum McClay.’
He inclined his head politely.
‘Pleasure to meet you. Laura Pearce, I’m guessing?’
About five minutes too late, I spun on my heel, facing the bare, beige wall behind a navy-blue IKEA sofa, covering my eyes with my hands for good measure.
‘I amsosorry,’ I said, babbling all the words at once. ‘I didn’t know you were here. Dave gave me the keys and said you’d already moved out so I came round to measure up so I could order some bits in the New Year sales, not that I need many bits, I know the flat comes furnished and it’s very nice, you know I’ve always liked a Klippan, very underrated, I’d say, design classic in fact—’
‘OK, I think I’ve got it,’ Callum interrupted before I could talk myself into a hole in the ground. ‘Dave doesn’t pay attention, I’m not leaving until the twenty-seventh. Didn’t you hear the shower running?’
More sheepish than a rack of lamb, I turned back around, keeping my eyes trained on the ground. Therewas still so much of him on display, including a not insignificant rug of dark, curling chest hair and a surprising amount of muscle for someone I’d been reliably informed was moving to Paris to train as a pastry chef. Were pastry chefs usually this solid? Was there any call for this degree of burliness in the kitchen?
‘Earbuds,’ I explained, pointing to the little white balls of plastic peeping out of the rich brown rug underneath his coffee table. ‘Noise cancelling. They’re very good. Most noise cancelling headphones don’t really cancel out everything but these ones go right in the ear and—’
‘Do feel free to stop talking,’ he cut in.
‘Do feel free to put some clothes on,’ I replied.
For the first time since I’d walked into the flat, he smiled. Just a little, head ducked, lips crooked up at one side like he didn’t want to commit to it, but his blue eyes lit up and crinkled at the corners, and I found myself wondering how devastating a full-on grin would be.
But there wasn’t time to find out.
Two seconds later, a commotion sounded outside the flat and Callum’s expression flatlined. Keys in the door, voices in the hallway, shoes scuffing on the mat.
‘Shit,’ he said, looking around in a panic, still clutching his privates in his hands.
‘Shit,’ I echoed as the living room door swung open towards us.
‘Hello, hello, hello, don’t mind us, we’re only burglars!’ someone called and for the want of a better option, I yanked my bobble hat off my head and tossed it to Callum, who caught it in one hand and placed it over his crotch with the other.
