Page 7 of Second Chances at the Board Game Café

Kate smiled. ‘Or here, Obviously.’

‘I work from home two days a week,’ said Harry. ‘I could come here for my elevenses.’

He liked that idea, though doubted it would lead to anything.

‘The more you get out and about, the more likely you are to meet someone,’ said Kate. ‘What’s your type?’

‘I’m not sure I have a type,’ Harry said, but his mind flicked back to the woman with the wailing child. He’d felt drawn to her, not just to her looks, but to her whole demeanour; the gentle way she’d soothed her boy.

Kate was right; he ought to get out more. He resolved that on his next working-from-home day, he would pop into the board game café for a latte and a Bakewell.

4

Taylor finished off the curtain she’d been stitching and snipped the thread. She needed to leave or she’d be late. She had ignored Max’s protests and made an appointment to view the modern flat.

She stood up, stretched her aching back and twisted from side to side, trying to loosen up a little. The throbbing continued. If she got this flat, she’d be able to ease her aches and pains with a soak in the tub. Or maybe she wouldn’t have an aching back if she was sleeping in a proper bed at night. Two bedrooms! She had to get this. She had to.

She went to check her appearance in the bathroom mirror. Her wavy, dark blonde hair hung above her shoulders, in a choppy cut. You couldn’t tell – at least Taylor hoped you couldn’t – that she had trimmed it herself using her sewing scissors to save a bit of cash. She never wore much make-up: just tinted moisturiser with factor 15 to protect her fair skin – probably overkill here in the Pennines where it seemed to be cloudy much of the time – and a touch of mascara.

She had dressed more conservatively than usual this morning in a crisp white shirt from the Oxfam shop that she’d bought especially, and a pair of dark tailored trousers that she’d made years ago for some job interview or other. She looked boring, but that was the whole idea; she wanted to look like a responsible adult, the sort of person who was never late with the rent and who’d keep the flat immaculately clean. She wasn’t sure her usual quirky outfits would give that impression.

She made a vague attempt at disguising the bags under her eyes with a little concealer; they never used to be there, but the pressures of being a single mum were clearly taking their toll. Then she grabbed her handbag and hurried out of the flat, pulling the door closed behind her before stopping to check – as she always did – that the keys were actually in her bag. Thankfully they were.

That was another thing about being a lone parent. If you locked yourself out, there was no partner with a second key.

When she arrived at the flats, she expected to see an estate agent figure loitering outside, suited and booted – they all dressed the same, those guys – but there wasn’t anyone, so she pressed the bell.

There was a long pause. She was wondering if she’d got the wrong time, when there was a buzzing sound, and the door unlocked. Taylor opened it and stepped inside.

The hallway was soulless. Magnolia walls with a staircase carpeted in the dullest shade of brown imaginable. Such a shame that on a street full of character, with its lovely Yorkshire stone terraces, someone had elected to construct a characterless building like this. Taylor’s tastes in architecture matched her tastes in fashion; she liked one-offs, the quirky, the crazy, the unique. Buildings that gave you a little insight into their creators, homes that told you something about the person or people who lived there.

‘It’s got two bedrooms and a bath,’ she said to herself. ‘So what if it hasn’t got character?’

There were two doors on either side of her now, both painted an identical shade of beige, one bearing the number 1 and one the number 2. Taylor surmised that Flat 3 must be on the first floor and headed upstairs.

She could hear voices, quite a lot of voices, as she reached the top of the stairs. The door to Flat 3 was ajar so Taylor called, ‘Hello,’ and went in. Her heart sank when she saw that there was quite a crowd crammed into the lounge of the flat.

A tall man with a clipboard looked up as she arrived.

‘Good morning,’ he said. ‘And you must be…?’

He had dark brown hair, a chiselled jaw and amazing cheekbones, but it wasn’t these rather attractive features that made her stand there gawping at him. It was his clothes. He was wearing an electric blue checked suit – with matching waistcoat – and a white shirt with a mustard yellow tie. A finely tailored suit too, she thought, running her professional eye over his outfit.

Not the conventional estate agent look, she thought approvingly. Here was a man who knew how to dress.

‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Your name?’

‘Taylor Sweet.’

‘Sweet by name, sweet by nature?’ He smiled.

Cheesy, Taylor thought. He wasn’t the first to make that comment, but usually when she said her name, people broke into a rendition of ‘Anti-Hero’ or ‘I Don’t Wanna Live Forever’. Taylor quite liked her namesake’s songs, although she wouldn’t have called herself a Swiftie, but when she introduced herself, she’d always wanted someone to say, ‘Taylor? And you sew for a living? What an appropriate name!’

So far, no-one ever had.

‘Now have we got everybody?’ said the estate agent.

He scanned down his list with his pen, checking off names, and Taylor couldn’t help herself checking him out.