Page 99 of Read My Lips

I nodded to the suitcase. “What’s all this?”

Simon flicked open heavy brass catches and hinged open the lid. He unclipped the sides of the case, revealing a portable mini-bar, three bottles strapped safely in, next to a brushed-steel cocktail shaker, and, crucially, twin martini glasses.

“Who are you? An adults-only Willy Wonka?”

“Cocktails felt like the appropriate choice. Handy isn’t it?”

“For emergency Pimms O’clock?” I gestured to his little cabinet. “Why do you have this? Why does anybody have this?”

A neat, sharp clack echoed between us as he set the glasses upright. “For emergency sorrow-drowning and commiserations over shitty family members o’clock. Actually.”

“Oh.” Crap. He’d trucked across London with a bar in a bag to make me feel better, and I’d stood there being a dick about it – permanently trying to get his nice act to shatter.

“I also brought wine, if you’d rather.”

The posh bottle he set down on the laminate worktop looked like it couldn’t figure out what it had done to deserve ending up there. It’d probably cork itself on principle when it realised there were no wine glasses in the house.

His niceness wasn’t an act at all, was it? Which made me the only wanker in the room.

“No. Sorry. It’s great. Aren’t you pissed off about the photos?”

“Am I supposed to be? I’m more concerned about you having a minor breakdown on a bus.”

I cringed. “Could you forget about that, actually?”

“If I must.” Simon’s shoulder rose in an overly casual, lopsided shrug. “They’re good pictures. “

“Seriously?” No way he didn’t see me mooning over him in every single one of them. He’d told me he didn’t want loved up nonsense. “I thought⁠—”

“Let me rephrase.” He lifted his hands, signing theatrically slow, with demonstration-level precision. “They’re Good Pictures.”

His infectious smile coaxed mine into the open. Damn him.

“Do you have any ice?”

Yanking the freezer open, I rummaged for the plastic ice tray and knuckle-cracked a handful of cubes out onto the counter, holding them out to him like an apology-substitute peace offering. “Here.”

They clattered into the bottom of his shaker like dice into a pot, only I didn’t know what game we were playing.

“It’s lucky you took them,” Simon continued, more casually. “The photos. They saved Sev a lot of work yesterday. She’s very grateful.”

“Oh.” Practically, that did make sense. “Good.”

My obsession with him could remain stranded in the corner, stumbling over its oversized ears and trying to fly. We didn’t have to talk about it. Ever.

Except, we probably did have to talk about it. At some point. Simon putting on the perfect boyfriend act when he didn’t even mean it was torture.

Dead-controlled, I boosted up onto the counter, perching next to Simon’s cabinet of wonders, watching him. When had he taken his jacket off? Rolled up shirt sleeves and a waistcoat did very good things for me.

Simon splashed measures out of the bottles with all the precision of a mad scientist. His eyes were warm when he looked up, smiling. He liked me watching.

Capping the shaker, his arm flexed as he picked it up, doing a little Tom Cruise thing one-handed. And my stomach flipped.

“Show off.”

With a wink, Simon poured an arc of liquid into each of the thin stemmed glasses. Condensation frosted the sides. And an itchy buzz started in my ears.

It was a drink. I knew it was just a drink. But I wasn’t elegant and cosmopolitan – I’d look like a malcoordinated T-Rex trying to pretend I could be. It’d be just as much of a mistake as pretending casual with Simon was fine.