‘Fine,’ she sighs. ‘Though may I just add that I think Zach sounds like a keeper.’
‘You might be right. You know he knows the words to pretty much all songs from the noughties? Let me show you.’
I pull out my phone and send Zach a Justin Timberlake lyric.
He taps back instantly with the next line of the song.
Nat roars. ‘He looks like he spent his teenage years listening to David Bowie and wanting to be Serge Gainsbourg and yet there’s a little bit of mainstream hiding under his arty exterior.’
I grin. ‘I love that about him.’
Natalie raises her eyebrows and I’m left thinking how easily that last sentence came out.
‘Did you just say the L word?’ She asks.
I roll my pencil backwards and forwards on the table, deep in thought. ‘I’ve felt this almost physical pull towards him, even from the first day we met. So, maybe, yeah. Whatever life throws at us we seem to end up orbiting round each other.’
‘So what you’re saying is he makes you feel out of this world?’ Natalie jokes.
That’s when the perfect idea for our next date pops into my head.
My heart flutters when the doorbell rings on Saturday night and I open it to find Zach leaning against the doorway. I’m so excited for tonight and also a little bit nervous. It feels like the right time to tell Zach how I feel, mostly because the thoughts have been taking up most of my headspace for days now, and I think I have the ideal date to say what I need to say.
‘Hello, you.’
‘Hello YOU!’ I press my body up against his and inhale that familiar citrus scent. He leans back to look at me and I feel a bit giddy.
‘I brought a coat and hat as instructed.’
‘Excellent,’ I nod, pulling him inside. You’d be forgiven for thinking that autumn has started early this year, what with August being pretty grey and rainy so far.
‘Are you going to tell me then?’ He asks, that wry smile curling at his lips.
I clap. I’m quite excited about this one. As I run into the kitchen to grab my stuff I call out: ‘Supermoon.’
‘Superman?’ Zach shouts after me excitedly. I walk back in to find him delightedly saying the words ‘comic convention’ to himself and my heart melts.
‘Sorry, no. Super MOON. If there had been a Superman thing in town then obviously we’d be going to it.’
Zach coughs. ‘Yeah, no, that’sfine. I definitely wouldn’t be fussed about going to a comic convention anyway,’ he says, talking in his deepest voice and pretending to deny his cute thing for superheroes.
‘No, for sure, what with you being so utterly cool and all that.’
‘Exactly,’ he laughs. ‘So, what does a supermoon date involve?’
‘Prepare to be amazed, Zach.’ My stomach fizzes as I grab his hand and we head outside.
We straighten up the picnic blanket before folding down onto it and I hand Zach a tin of gin and tonic from the stash in my bag.
‘It might be a bit fizzy from the walk …’ but my warning comes too late. Gin and tonic explodes out of the can and into Zach’s face, spritzing his wild dark hair with supermarket booze.
‘Argh!’ He laughs, fumbling for a tissue. ‘My glasses are covered.’
I ease his specs off and give them a clean while he deals with the rest. Zach looks so sweet without his glasses on. They’re a permanent part of his style but when we wake up together in the mornings, I love to see him without them on. All short-sighted and ever so slightly vulnerable, which is probably a weird thing to like about my boyfriend? He’s just ever so slightly less polished at times like this, and ever so slightly less intimidatingly handsome.
‘You’ll be needing these. Spectacles for tonight’s spectacle,’ I hand them back and try not to laugh too hard at my own joke.
‘Sex spectacle?’ he suggests.
