‘Because I know you love your sausage.’ He paused and pressed his lips together as if that might recall the inadvertent double entendre. ‘What I … I … um … meant … is that I know you really like …like ham. Meat. So I kind of figured…’
‘I’m happy to share, Leo,’ she said. Amused by him tripping over his words but keen not to be a complete pushover, she added, ‘But I do want to try a dumpling so why don’t we order a main course, Czech Goulash, dumpling and dill sauce.’
‘Done,’ said Leo. ‘I’m starving.’
‘You’re always starving,’ said Anna, once again without even thinking.
‘I know.’ Leo grinned, his eyes meeting hers in that shiny joyful way that made her heart speed up. Being around him was always fun but she had to remember that that was all it was. You could never take Leo too seriously. She’d made that mistake before.
ChapterNine
‘Leo! Leo! I need your help.’
At the sound of Anna’s shout, his heart lurched and he jumped off the kitchen bar stool, turned the pan on the cooker off and ran to the top of the stairs. Over the last two weeks, they’d fallen into an easy routine of travelling to work together very early and returning separately at around four o’clock. Nice and natural. Today he’d beaten Anna home and had decided to cook a pasta dish for dinner.
‘What’s the matter? Are you okay?’ At the foot of the stairs, Anna stood panting, looking dishevelled and red-faced. Despite that, something caught at his heart. He’d always thought she was beautiful, with her fine-boned features and that delicate chin, which gave her a touch of the fey.
‘F-fine. I need your help. Come on, hurry. I don’t want to miss them. Put some shoes on.’
She nodded towards his bare feet as he came skittering down the stairs. Before he could ask any more, she’d turned and was running back down the flight of stairs to the hall. Reassured that she wasn’t hurt or in any real distress, he stood for a moment to catch his breath and let his heart subside into its rightful place. Even so. as he yanked on a pair of trainers to follow her, he wondered what had got her in such a tizz.
‘Come on,’ she yelled as he approached the front door downstairs and then, like a puppy playing a game of catch, she dashed away down the street. Intrigued, he could do nothing but go after her as quickly as he could. He caught up with her as she turned the corner and came to a halt in front of a large skip.
‘Look what I’ve found.’ Like a monkey she was already mountaineering her way up the side of the skip. She scrambled into it and with her arms held out for balance stood on top of a pile of discarded furniture.
‘Junk,’ he said.
‘Not junk. Furniture. Vintage furniture. A table, four dining chairs, a stool and two armchairs. Perfect for the apartment.’
Leo squinted at the motley assortment of furniture. ‘They’re knackered. Which is why someone’s throwing them away.’
Anna held up one of the dining chairs. He winced. Not only was it falling apart, it was also bloody ugly. ‘That is hideous.’
Anna put a protective arm around the chair back, cuddling it, and gave him an earnest look. ‘Shh, you’ll hurt its feelings.’
Something inside Leo lit up at that moment and he remembered exactly why he’d fallen in love with Anna Love. That hidden whimsy that every now and then surfaced, pushing aside the too serious, conventional approach to life. It had been that side of her that had enchanted him. The side of her that was sublimated most of the time.
‘I don’t think it’s the sort of chair that has feelings,’ he said smiling up at her, amused to see the old Anna back in force.
‘You don’t know.’ An impish smile filled her face as she handed the chair down to him. ‘Besides, when it’s been done it up, it will look completely different. With a bit of sanding, a coat of paint, some glue and TLC, you’ll change your tune.’
Leo wrinkled his nose, taking the chair from her and looking more closely at the scarred wooden legs and the stained upholstery. ‘Anna, it’s going to take more than TLC to make this look anything other than a reject from the big furniture sale in the sky.’
‘Want to bet?’ she said standing above him. With the sun behind her catching the red lights in her hair and her fists planted on her hips in that take-no-prisoners stance, she looked like Wonder Woman on a mission. ‘Here.’ She handed him a second chair. ‘You can take them to the flat. I’ll keep guard so that no one else takes the rest of the stuff.’
‘No one else is going to want it,’ he said.
‘It’s free furniture. And we don’t have any furniture.’
‘If it looks like this we don’t want any furniture.’
‘When did you get so negative?’ she asked, clearly forgetting their ground rules.
He rolled his eyes. ‘Getting that table up the stairs could be fun.’
Forty-five minutes later, he found himself opposite Anna trying to manoeuvre the table around the return on the first floor.
‘It’s stuck,’ he said, unable to lift it over the railing as Anna pushed from the other end.
