‘What, like when you jabbed me in the ribs on our jogging date so you could overtake me?’
Alice chortles. ‘All right then.’
‘Look at the last word of the clue.’
‘Pop. What pops? Pringles?’
‘That’s eight letters.’ I shake my head.
‘Pop pop pop. Pop ya collar, ha ha, good old Usher. Ooh, wait, pop a cork. Is it bubbles?’
I click my fingers. ‘Bingo! I actually wanted to go for effervescence but that felt a bit too long so you got bubbles instead. Well done. Now, where to find some?’
But Alice has already raced out of the room.
Alice gasps as she steps into her kitchen, now lit with candles on every surface. I spent the last five minutes hanging up polaroid pictures of us in here and attaching an X-shaped balloon to a bottle of fizz in the middle of her kitchen table, two of her mum’s champagne saucers next to it.
She looks at me, eyes filled with curiosity.
‘I found the X,’ she says, suddenly ever-so-slightly shy as she points towards the balloon.
‘Congratulations,’ I say, heart halfway up my throat as the nerves take hold.
‘Is that the English sparkling wine I drank most of at our wine tasting date?’
‘You said you liked it.’
‘I did.’ She bounds over to the balloon and I steel myself. Alice’s eyes are on me as spots the key I’ve attached to the bottom of the balloon.
‘What’s this?’
‘It’s a key to, um, my house. I wanted to …’
‘Oh Zach that’s so sweet,’ Alice interrupts. ‘So now I can pop round without having to ring the bell.’
No! That’s not it.
‘Actually I …’
But Alice is on a roll. ‘I could get you one cut for here too, if you’d like? I’d have to check with Natalie first but I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.’
Fuck. I thought I’d been really clear but she’s misunderstood. Hastily I take the envelope I’d left underneath the key and slide it into my pocket while she’s not looking. She seems so happy with just having a key to let herself in, I can’t bring myself to ask her what I really wanted to.
Alice turns back to me and kisses me deeply on the lips before pulling back with a big smile on her face. ‘This feels like a big step for us.’
Then she pauses. ‘Sorry to kill the mood but would you mind pouring us the drinks while I nip to the loo? All that running around! I’ll be back in two mins.’
Alice dashes upstairs and I find myself standing in the kitchen at a loss, the envelope I quickly stuffed into my pocket now making its presence known. I pull it out, the last envelope in her scavenger hunt and the one she’ll never get to see.
Inside is my handwritten note and a butterscotch yellow keychain which I had embossed withA-Z.
Alice, will you make my house a home and move in with me?
It’s too late to explain what the scavenger hunt was really about now. Alice thinks having a key to my house is a big step so there’s no way I can ask her to move in with me. I tear at the casing on the champagne bottle, gutted that my plans for tonight have gone wrong. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe we’re on completely different pages, after all. Once again I find myself moving at a million miles an hour while Alice is still idling happily in her own time zone.
‘Are you okay?’ She asks, walking back into the kitchen to find me grumpily wrangling with the wine bottle. ‘Here, let me.’
She takes it from my hand and pops the cork, laughing with delight as sparkling wine fizzes out and over her fingers.
