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‘And stop walking like a soldier.’
‘Right,’ I say again, and amazingly, right this second, I cannot seem to remember how to walk, despite twenty-eight years of experience.
Cate and I walk in silence, and she cannot stop smiling, which is makingmewant to burst out laughing, and also, turn and run away, all at once. Why am I like this? It’s just Jack. He’s just – a man who works with me, right? A man who is also about to leave the company again, and disappear into Canadian snow and New Zealand rainforests. A man who makes my face hot, has such a teasing, dark little smile that it makes my stomach do roly-polys.
‘The fact you tried to convince me you didn’t fancy him.’ Cate shakes her head, mock-disapprovingly. ‘This behaviour is like –peak fancying. Peak crush. And it’s about bloody time. I’m excited! It’s fun! I’ve missed Millie having a crush.’
And – OK, Cate is right. This is fun. Fancying someone. Giggling with my best friend about it. This butterfly tummy, this alive, electric feeling beneath my skin. Cate’s been there through them all. From sweet, poem-writing Darren Smith at school, in the year above, to ‘Fletch’, a cocky, gangly singer in a cover band who used to play the pub Alexis and I worked at. We kissed eventually, about a year before I met Owen, and I called Cate after, as if I reporting a death, because it was so terrible and tonguesy. (We of course then renamed him ‘Retch.’)
We turn the corner, and now – we’re face on with where Jack is sitting, walking directly towards him down the concrete slope. He’s with a man, who looks about our age; built like a rugby player, heavy beard and a shaved head. A big Alsatian dog sits calmly at his side, keeping watch.
‘Let him see you first,’ says Cate out of the side of her mouth. ‘Just talk to me. About .?.?. I dunno. Erm. Sourdough? Yes, sourdough.’
‘Sourdough?’
‘So, what, you need a starter for everyloaf?’ asks Cate, turning to me and raising her eyebrows. ‘That is truly fascinating, Millie.’
‘Oh. Erm.Yes.Yes, you need to start with something called a sourdough starter, which is super easy to do actually .?.?.’
‘Is it? How interesting. And could I do such a task at home?’ And Cate seems to have slipped into morning TV television presenter mode. (If that TV presenter was talking absolute, out of context dross.) Never the less, I carry on.
‘Oh, yes. All you need is a jar, or something similar—’
‘He’s looking,’ she says through gritted, smiling teeth. ‘Like,actuallylooking. He’s seen you—’
And I’ve already ‘seen’ him see me, behind Cate’s sunglasses, which I am beyond grateful for, and he’s now standing up, his eyebrows raising, and a hesitant smile slowly curving his handsome mouth.
‘Um. Hey,’ he says, gesturing with his arms, turning his palms out. A mix between a shrug and a ‘voila’.
‘Oh! Hi!’ I say. ‘What a surprise!’ And of course, I don’t sound surprised at all.
‘Yeah! Just a bit .?.?.’
He steps over the picnic bench, andugh, casual, day-off, autumnal Jack is so incredibly cool and hot that I swallow. He’s wearing grey-black jeans, a fitted thin light-grey crew-neck jumper, white trainers, and a black gilet. One of those hooded, padded ones, unzipped. And why is the gilet so hot? He looks like a .?.?. hot, smartly dressed farmer or something.
‘Jack, this is my friend Cate,’ I say, as Jack stands in front of us. There’s that aftershave and also, the smoky, salty October sea air that sticks to your skin. ‘Cate, this is Jack. He’s um, Flye’s operations manager?’
‘Excuse me. Slash chief of staff,’ says Jack, throwing me a smirk as he shakes Cate’s hand and says, ‘Very nice to meet you, Cate,’ and she says, ‘Oh, likewise!’ in the voice she always uses on the phone to call-centre staff.
Jack introduces us to his friend, Jonny, who seems remote, but warm, and Jonny’s dog: Elton.
‘Everyone’s in the pub,’ says Jack, ‘but Elton’d had enough. So had Jonny. He’s an unsociable fucker. So, here we are.’
Jonny places a meaty hand to his chest against his sweatshirt. ‘Guilty. And, guilty again,’ he says, patting his dog’s side. And as I lift a hand to stroke Elton’s head, he licks my hand. A big, giant, Fletch-like, area-covering lick.
‘Elton.Jeez, sorry,’ says Jonny, pulling Elton back a little, by his collar, but he doesn’t shift an inch. His paws are cemented to the ground.
‘Ohhh, it’sfine,’I insist, my voice just that little too shrill. ‘I love dogs! Plus, what’s a good lick between new friends anyway?’ Cate cackles beside me and I dig my fingers into her arm. Jack laughs, as he always does, as if surprised; as if he expected something else. And I’m not sure why, but every time I’m around him, I just seem to say what’s in my mind, no filter. Things just roll on out, like a tight coil of ribbon suddenly unspooled.
‘What’ve you been getting yourself up to, then?’ he asks.
‘Just shopping. Nothing exciting.’Except constructing a ‘look’ that hopefully lands you with your crotch in the deep freeze .?.?.
‘And what’s the verdict?’
‘The verdict?’
‘Your colour,’ he says. ‘What’s your colour?’
