‘Logging my alcohol units,’ I tell him.
He looks amused. ‘That’sverydisciplined of you.’
‘Not really. It’s been days since I did calories . . . and don’t even get me started on water intake.’
‘Do you have an app for everything?’
‘I draw the line at bowel movements.’ He bursts out laughing.
‘Sorry,’ I cringe, feeling myself blush. ‘I haveno ideawhy I said that.’
But he’s still grinning. ‘You are hilarious, Lisa.’
‘Yeah. Thanks,’ I say, pulling a face.
‘Hey, what’s wrong with hilarious?’
I lean in, elbow on the bar. ‘Nothing. Though I think most women have a list of adjectives they’d prefer over that.’
He narrows his eyes, mimics what I’ve done with my elbow and faces me as he lowers his voice. ‘You’re not fishing for compliments, are you?’
It strikes me that this moment – everything about it – is so far removed from anything that’s happened to me for . . .
oh,years, that it feels almost cinematic. Like when you go on holiday to New York and everywhere you look makes you feel as if you’re in a movie. Except here I am in a cocktail bar, twirling my straw and stealing sideways glances at a guy who looks like the love interest in a big-screen blockbuster.
This is not my life.
My life is budget meetings and parents’ evenings. It’s standing at the side of muddy fields in the rain, watching kids play rugby. It’s crashing into bed every night with a to-do list that only grows and grows. It isn’t flirtation. It isn’t attraction. Only, just being here next to him, so close that I see the directionof the tiny hairs on his neck, has awakened some fire inside me that I really need to put out. But something is stopping me and all I want to do is bathe in the warmth of its flames.
‘Ido notfish for compliments,’ I whisper back.
‘Good. Because you shouldn’t need to.’
I take a sip of my drink and gently lick the residue from my top lip. ‘You’re not flirting with me, are you, Russo?’
His eyes are heavy, yet he’s unable to fight the upward curve of his mouth. ‘You know what, Darling? I think I might be.’
Chapter 21
One cocktail turns into three, or possibly more. I couldn’t exactly say how many because the one thing I know for sure is that I stop logging any of them on my Drinkaware app. Instead, I sit, watching the light in Zach Russo’s eyes as he laughs, and concluding decisively that he might one of the most handsome men I’ve ever encountered. The longer I talk to him, the more details of his face I notice. The way the hairs on one eyebrow go in crazy directions. The slight asymmetry of his cupid’s bow. The tiny lines that fan from his eyes when he smiles. Individually, they amount to nothing more than quirks; together, they make a masterpiece.
Over the course of the evening the bar has become slightly busier. It’s full and a little noisy and, when two guys arrived earlier, Zach had to shift his stool towards mine. Now, he’s close enough that I can see the pattern of veins on the inside of his forearms. That when he reached for a napkin, his hand accidentally brushed mine, causing a ripple of pleasure to sweep up my skin. That every so often I get a warm waft of his aftershave and have to fight the urge to close my eyes and just inhale.
‘So, what’s your story, Russo?’ I find myself asking, as I slowly stir the ice in my glass, then lift it out to suck the straw. His gaze drops to my mouth every time I do this, and the subsequent prickle at the base of my spine gives me no incentive to stop.
‘Mystory?You’ll have to be more specific.’
‘Well, how long were you married?’
‘Oh. That’s what we’re doing now, is it? Delving into our sordid pasts?’
‘Yours is sordid then?’
‘Actually, it’s kind of uninteresting,’ he sighs. I doubt it somehow, but either way, there’s a long enough pause for me to regret my question.
‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.’
‘You didn’t,’ he says, taking another sip of his drink, before lowering it onto a coaster with a ponderous look on his face. ‘Sara is a very nice, smart,likeablewoman – and a wonderful mom. But we’re very different people in lots of ways. The ways that count.’
