AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘I wouldn’t be.’
‘You always wear black,’ I said, before I could stop myself. But I’d always wondered why and now seemed like as good a time as any to ask.
He laughed. ‘Hangover from drama school. It’s a sort of actor’s uniform. Neutral. You can become anything you want to become.’
I nodded, suppressing a smile.
‘Sounds a bit pretentious, doesn’t it?’ he said.
‘Just a tad.’
‘It’s just that I haven’t really been able to afford to buy a whole new wardrobe.’ He glanced down at his jeans and shirt combo. ‘I’ve had all this for about ten years.’
I’d always thought he was just playing me with his I have to work all hours in a pub to make ends meet routine, because it was clear from his accent that he came from money and hadn’t gone to the kind of school I had. But who was I to judge? I knew very little about his family situation, except that he didn’t get on with his dad and he rarely mentioned his mum, and just because he spoke like Benedict Cumberbatch (OK, he didn’t, that was a massive exaggeration), it didn’t mean he had Benedict’s bank balance, did it?
‘Right,’ I said, scooching to the side to get past a couple who had parked themselves right in the middle of the only available thoroughfare. ‘See you around at the flats.’
He looked like he was about to say something else, but then instead he raised his glass to me and made his way back to a scowling Nathalie.
I sat back down, desperate to look over at him, not quite sure why, and forcing myself to look at Val instead.
‘Who was that?’ she hissed excitedly. ‘He’s very hot. And he was looking at you really intensely like you were the most interesting woman on earth. He fancies you, I can tell.’
‘Don’t be daft,’ I said, burying my nose in my drink. ‘He’s just my neighbour.’
‘The one you went to the theatre with?’ she shrieked.
I nodded. ‘Did I mention we kissed the other day?’ I said, throwing it casually in there.
Val slapped her hand on the table. ‘You did what?’
‘Yeah. It was no big deal. We were walking home from the station and went via the pub because it started tipping it down. One minute we were just sitting there and the next … I don’t know, we just sort of kissed.’
Val clutched her chest, all overexcited.
‘He’s the actor, right?’
‘Hmmm. I was helping him run lines.’
‘Sounds like it.’
‘Stop it, Val. It doesn’t matter, anyway, because now he’s on a date with his gorgeous ex, Nathalie. So that’s that, really, isn’t it?’
For some reason the thought of Jack and Nathalie being back together annoyed me. They looked liked the world’s most aesthetically pleasing couple, obviously, but now I’d got to know him better…I just wasn’t sure they were right for each other.
‘Is it a date, though?’ She had a quick look over her shoulder. ‘There’s zero chemistry between them,’ she announced confidently. ‘And when I saw the two of you talking at the bar, well … that was a whole different story. We’re talking chemistry central,’ she added dramatically.
I finally managed to veer Val off the topic of hot neighbours and onto the only thing I could come up with in the heat of the moment: ovulation cycles.
