A couple of minutes later we’d made it to the bar. It was about half full and dotted with the usual muted Sunday-night drinkers. It was nicer than I’d imagined, with shining parquet floors, polished brass bar-top and arched windows.
‘Jess is outside,’ said Simon, pointing to where a few tables were gathered on a thin strip between the pub and the pavement. A row of potted plants was doing its best to hide the busy road beyond it.
She was sitting in the smoking section, puffing on a cigarette. A Zippo lighter lay on the table next to a bottle in a cooler. I wasn’t crazy about sitting among the swirls of stinky white smoke, but it seemed churlish to complain.
‘Hiya,’ said Jess as we approached her. Simon leant down to kiss her on the cheek and I awkwardly followed suit. She was wearing a low-cut black top and her wrist was weighed down with jangling bracelets.
‘Nick didn’t come with you?’ asked Jess, peering over my shoulder as I sat down opposite her.
‘He’s on his way.’ He’d bloody wellbetterbe on his way.
The cooler was housing a bottle of champagne. Simon reached for it and poured us both a glass. Jess’s flute was still full; she must have only just arrived.
I was surreptitiously checking my watch when Nick arrived a couple of minutes later. Well, cleared past the first hurdle of getting the four of us into the same room, even if that ‘room’ was an outside table in the middle of the city. Nick didn’t bother to go round the front, and instead edged past a potted buxus to reach us. He was wearing a dark blue suit with a white shirt and red tie. It was the same outfit he’d worn the night we’d first met at Patrick’s party. I wanted to tell Simon as much – to let him know Mr Savile Row didn’t have a limitless supply of suits.
Simon stood up to shake Nick’s hand and then Jess struggled upright with a lot of chair-scraping and swearing.
‘I don’t do handshakes,’ she announced, leaning forward to smack a kiss on both of Nick’s cheeks.
We now had a small problem. If he was happy to greet a virtual stranger the continental way, how would boyfriend Nick say hello to me?
For a horrified second I thought he would kiss me on the lips, but without skipping a beat he kissed the top of my head and then sat down. He moved his chair closer to me and leant to murmur in my ear.
‘This is me greeting you with something unspeakably filthy.’
I noticeably – embarrassingly – shivered and he grinned like a Cheshire cat.
It wasn’t his words that had goaded my goosebumps; his breath had been a feather down my neck. Anyone’s breath would have triggered the same reaction. I had sensitive skin.
Unfortunately, the person whom this show was for – Jess – wasn’t even looking; she was busy peering at her phone. Nick’s move hadn’t escaped Simon’s notice, however. He was staring at Nick with laser beam focus, his lips pressed into a hard line. It was sort of gratifying that Simon was struggling with this, but it had been his idea and we were in for a long evening if everyone was going to act so unnaturally.
I reached out to pat Simon’s arm. Unfortunately, Jess chose that moment to put her phone down.
She looked from me to Nick then back to Simon. It had been a harmless touch; she couldn’t really suspect anything –could she?
Without thinking, I placed my hand on top of Nick’s where it was resting on the table. His skin was cool where his knuckles jutted into my palm.Oh God, this was weird.But I couldn’t just snatch my hand away – that would look even weirder.
Nick didn’t seem to notice. He looked perfectly at ease, sprawled in his chair. ‘So, what are we drinking?’
‘Champagne,’ said Jess.
‘Sounds great.’
Well, at least Nick wasn’t going to profess to prefer mineral water tonight.
I withdrew my hand to pour him a glass.
‘Cheers,’ he said, and proceeded to drink half of it in one go like it was a bottle of Lucozade.
I stared at him. How thirstywashe?
‘Rough day?’ said Jess.
‘Something like that,’ he replied.
I felt irrationally slighted. Great, I was the sort of girlfriend who drove her man to drink.
No one was saying anything and an awkward hush was descending. I glanced around, desperate to spot something to comment on. A cute dog would have been ideal, but the only animal nearby was a pigeon with a misshapen foot pecking at a crisp packet – hardly a red-hot conversation-starter.
