Page 44 of Second Chances at the Board Game Café

She put two teabags into two mugs and began to fill them. ‘Milk? Sugar?’

‘Just milk please. I’ll go and take these off.’

She waited a minute or two for the tea to brew, before removing the teabags and adding a splash of milk to each mug. Then Harry appeared again, still wearing the new jeans.

‘I can’t get them off. The zip’s stuck.’

‘Oh, gosh. Maybe that’s why they were in the unwanted pile. A ripped seam and a dodgy zip. May I?’ She gestured at the stuck zip.

‘I um…’

‘I’m a professional,’ she said. ‘Seen it all before. I’m presuming you’ve not gone commando under there, have you?’

She dropped to her knees in front of him in the kitchen and looked at the zip. One of the teeth near the top appeared to be missing. She tried to wrench the zip down, but couldn’t. ‘Nope, it won’t budge.’

She couldn’t resist glancing up at him. He was looking out of the kitchen window and appeared to be reciting numbers to himself silently. He was scarlet too, clearly not finding this funny. She scrambled up off the floor, stifling a giggle.

‘Keep trying to get them off whilst I find a new zip,’ she said. ‘I’ll have that one replaced in a jiffy.’

‘I think you might need to cut me out of them.’

‘Could be dangerous. I’m prone to getting a bit overenthusiastic with the scissors.’

He laughed nervously. ‘Seriously though. I think it’s the only option.’

She shook her head. ‘Go in the lounge. Lie on the rug.’ She realised too late that she sounded far too bossy; she usually reserved that tone of voice for Max.

Harry obediently lay down. Taylor straddled him. She found the whole situation hilarious, but since he was clearly embarrassed, she bit her lip and tried to sound professional. ‘Lift your hips and hang on to your boxers. You don’t want them coming off as well.’

‘No, quite,’ he said, grabbing hold of them.

Taylor grasped the waistline of his trousers and began to wiggle them down. ‘Try and relax. Trust me, I’m a dressmaker.’

She was hoping this would make him laugh and ease his discomfort, but it didn’t appear to. She continued to tug at the waistline of the jeans. He had slim hips but it was still a struggle. She could see the top of his boxer shorts; they were covered with bright red steam trains. Cute, she thought. They put her in mind of Max’s Thomas the Tank Engine pyjamas. She almost said as much, but didn’t want to embarrass the guy any further by implying his underwear was childish.

She’d just managed to pull the stubborn jeans over Harry’s hips, when there was a knock at the door. Before she could shout, ‘Hang on’ or ‘Don’t come in’, it opened and Mr B walked in.

The elderly man’s eyebrows shot up when he saw the scene before him; Taylor knew exactly what it looked like, but before she could explain he retreated backwards out of the door, mumbling, ‘Przepraszam, przepraszam. Sorry, sorry.’

Harry was sitting up now. His eyes met hers.

The laughter that she’d been fighting so hard to suppress burst out now, so much so that her eyes began to stream. ‘Heaven only knows what Mr B must now be thinking! I’ll have to apologise to him next time he comes in. If there’s a next time. He mightn’t dare set foot in here again.’

Harry began to laugh too.

How had she ever found him unattractive? she wondered. He was such a gentleman. Most of the men she’d previously been involved with would have been unable to resist making some crude joke had she dropped to her knees in front of them to look at a broken zip. Never mind straddling them and tugging their trousers off. Yet Harry had said nothing. No smutty innuendos or double entendres. In fact, he’d been embarrassed by the whole thing, and there was something she found rather endearing about that.

As their laughter subsided and they patted their wet cheeks dry, Taylor wasn’t quite sure who leaned into who first, but the next moment, Harry’s lips were on hers, so lightly that they were barely touching, and his hand was on her face, gently brushing a stray hair from her eyes, and Taylor found herself wondering if Sylvia might miss her grandchildren so much that she’d agree to spent another evening with Max, in the event that this rather sweet man plucked up courage to ask her out for a drink. Or maybe she could ask him?

And then the kiss was over, and Harry was looking even more embarrassed, and resembled that awkward man she’d first met in the board game café. Taylor wanted to kiss him again, but wasn’t sure if that was what he wanted, so found herself saying instead, ‘I’ll make some more tea.’

As she waited for the kettle to boil, she heard Harry going upstairs. A minute later, he came back down again. He’d put his trousers back on, and was now studying the broken zip on the jeans. She took two clean mugs out of the cupboard and plonked a couple of teabags in them.

She was taken aback by the sheer speed, the urgency by which Harry appeared next to her as the kettle came to the boil and automatically clicked itself off. For a second, she thought he was going to snog her against the kitchen cupboards. Hoist her onto the worktops perhaps. Tear off her clothes and make love to her right there and then.

But then he seemed to think better of it, peering instead at the plug of the kettle and saying, ‘Sockets all working in here?’

She nodded, feeling a weird mixture of disappointment and relief. Disappointment because she’d enjoyed that first kiss and definitely wanted more, but relief because however exciting it might look in films when people had sex on kitchen worktops, the kettle had boiled and you could get a nasty scald from steam. Plus the mugs would probably end up broken, and even though none of her crockery matched, almost every item she owned had its own little history. A gift from a friend. A hand-me-down from her gran. A find in a charity shop.