“You have a cat called Deborah Harry? Named after the singer?”
“She’s a total bi-con,” I tell him with a probably very condescending eye roll.
“You can’t give a cat a first and last name!” Charlie declares with an annoying amount of authority.
“What would you know? You’re a dog person,” I tut.
“And what’s wrong with that? You have a problem with emotionally available animals who only see the good in people?” he bites back.
“You actually have a dog?” I ask and he nods. “Wait, let me guess the breed.”
“You’ll never be able to—”
“A blond Labrador.”
“No, well, not exactly. Goldie is a golden retriever.”
I stare at him. “You have a golden retriever and you called it Goldie? And you’re a copywriter? Garrett should fire you.”
“He probably will if we don’t come up with something in,” he elaborately shakes his wrist in front of his face to bring his watch up, “twelve minutes.”
“Don’t they need a ton of walking?”
“Yes, I take him every evening after work, and during the day I have a dog walker.”
“A what?”
“Her name’s Maggie. She comes and takes Goldie for a walk on Clapham Common every morning. Goldie loves her. She’s like a modern-day pied piper, just with dogs.”
“Of course you live in Clapham,” I say, dryly.
“Battersea, actually. Besides, where do you live Little Miss Judgemental?”
“You mean you didn’t memorise my address from the taxi app?” I ask him and I almost regret it when he looks at me with wide eyes, clearly horrified.
“You think I’d do that? I’m very respectful of privacy.”
“I live in Angel.”
“Can’t say that that suits you.” He gives me an appraising look and I don’t know why but it pushes one of my buttons. Okay, a few of my buttons.
“You didn’t seem to mind me being less than angelic on Saturday night,” I level at him and for a few seconds I feel pleased, that I’ve finally silenced his snide backtalk.
“But who says I like angelic?” he tells me, his blue eyes shining with a glint of mischief.
And suddenly I’m the one silenced.
“Anyway, back to brainstorming, or rather, brain-farting…” Charlie doodles absent-mindedly in one corner of his notebook. He’s drawing a smiling sunshine, because of course, he is.
“Just admit my idea is the one we’re going to end up going with,” I say after the silence has stretched on long enough. Charlie’s notebook page has seven more suns on it, and we only have eight more minutes until we have to leave the room.
Charlie sighs, heavily. “I can’t believe you spent your Sunday working on that.”
“I told you, I want this lead.”
“Well, so do I, but I didn’t think to try and get a head start. Maybe I should just let you be the lead.”
The defeat is so thick in his voice it makes me feel anything but triumphant at the prospect of getting the lead. In fact, I almost feel sorry for him.
