‘No, thank you.’
We spoke simultaneously and she laughed. ‘You two, I see how it is. Just like the song, you know it?’
We looked at each other and Noelle cocked her head. ‘How does it go?’
‘You know? The potato, potartoe one? Lala-la-lala.’ She danced with her index fingers and turned around to grab two cannoli from the white box on the counter. ‘Here, one each, because the woman is always right.’
Noelle laughed gleefully, dipping a finger into the cream stuffed into the pastry and licking it off her finger. ‘You know what this means, Stephen?’
‘That I’m going to go back to England a stone heavier?’
‘No. We might need to make a trip to Coney Island. You’ll love it.’
Chapter Seven
Even if I hadn’t promised to bake cookies for Alfie and Teddy, I would have bought chocolate from the store on the way home and started cooking. It wasn’t really the season to have the oven on but there were some frames of mind that were only helped by mixing copious amounts of butter and sugar and then licking the spoon.
My head was swimming now with the faint picture of who the mysterious Trevor Moorcroft was and how we were going to track him down. And, okay, I had to admit, it was swimming a bit from spending that much time with Stephen. Drinking wine and trading smart remarks and looking at his handsome face. It was a dangerous recipe in the heat. Being around him made me feel like a cat who was constantly being petted, but half the time it was long, luxurious strokes and the other half it was having my fur pushed up my back towards my head and my tail tugged.
Isabella was right. We were chalk and cheese. Him, all uptight and controlled and smooth, and me, basically a ball of messy ideas and over-the-top enthusiasm, but somehow, it had worked. Wewerea good team today. He had the money, I had the brains, he had the charm, I had the…balls? Or something. When my methods weren’t working – like with the lady at the market last week, he could take over, and vice versa.
Maybe I should give up writing and convince him to start up a detective agency with me? Kingston and Cartwright. Hmm…sounded more like a law firm.
There it was. Flash. A little flicker of an idea. I dumped the mixing bowl and spoon on my kitchen counter and made a grab for the nearest notebook. I flicked quickly to a fresh page, past the note I’d made about ‘the city of stories’ and wrote down quickly:
A more personal investigation, not Charmaine –Kitneeds Charmaine’s help and they get to see a new side to each other.My pen hovered for a moment.She realises that he has depths he has kept hidden from her, and it makes her reconsider the attraction she’s always fought.
It was just for the story. That’s all I needed. A nugget of an idea from real life and then I could mould it into something more, to fit my characters. It wasn’t howIfelt. I might be seeing another side to Stephen, but I still knew better than to imagine anything happening with him. He wasn’t interested in long-term relationships; he’d admitted as much. And even if he was, I seriously doubted he’d ever believe my work was as important as his, Mr Big Shot in the city. I was very close to giving up on the idea that I’d find anyone I was attracted to, who fit my life and respected my job. It was just too good to be true.
We met for our next detective mission on Wednesday evening, straight after Stephen finished work. I’d been busy putting in some solid hours re-plotting the first act of my novel but I was still excited to get back on the case with Stephen. That was why I was hovering around on the subway platform getting in people’s way and staring at the stairway like a pooch waiting for its owner to come home, ears pricking up every time I saw a dark-haired man. No other reason at all.
There he was. He spotted me straight away and glided through the crowd, reaching me before I’d had a chance to check whether I had sweat marks on my dress. He was still wearing his suit trousers and a lilac shirt, straight from the office.
We shuffled onto the carriage and tried to find somewhere to stand where we weren’t pressed together. We failed. I came up to his armpit which, luckily, was a very fragrant armpit despite it being the end of another long, hot day. I couldn’t help but notice how he shielded me from other people trying to squeeze in on top of me.
‘Tough day?’ I asked as we started moving.
‘Not especially. Why?’
‘You look very grim. We’re going to Coney Island Boardwalk not Alcatraz – even if we don’t find Trevor, it’s going to be fun.’
‘I don’t like fairgrounds,’ he said simply and turned his head to look out of the window.
O-kay,I mouthed, and he looked back at me as though he’d caught it out of the corner of his eye. I was so close I could see the little dots of stubble peeking through just beneath his bottom lip. It was a very firm-looking bottom lip, the line straight across like it had been drawn with a pencil and ruler or chiselled. His cheekbones were like that too: angular, sharp, uncompromising in their attractiveness.
‘What about you?’ he asked.
‘Me?’ We swayed as the train moved on the tracks, our bodies aligned but not touching, forwards and backwards. ‘I love them. I’m not allergic to fun.’
He didn’t bite back at my little dig. ‘I meant your day. How is your work going? You said you were struggling with your book and helping me was supposed to alleviate your writer’s block.’
‘Oh.’ I tightened my grip around the grab rail, a little flummoxed by the sheer fact he’d remembered and asked. ‘I am making a little ground. I’m still majorly panicking, and my deadline is a better work of fiction than anything I’ve ever written but…’ I shrugged ‘…that’s kinda normal.’
‘Panic is normal?’ He raised an eyebrow.
‘Absolutely. This is our first stop, c’mon.’
I was not allergic to fun. I was simply not a fan of places like Coney Island, packed full of people barely secured into towering rides and screaming as they plummeted towards the ground. Noelle wasn’t to know that though, so I was doing my best not to sulk about her comment on the train.
