Page 3 of The Key to My Heart

Tom laughs then, a surprised flick of a raised eyebrow, and pulls his phone out of his back pocket, holding it in front of me, like a sommelier presenting a bottle of wine. ‘My, uh – my phone was ringing,’ he grimaces. ‘I wasn’t … buying you a drink.’

‘Ah. Well. Right. I see.’Fuck.

‘But look, I’ll happily talk to you for a bit,’ he ruffles a hand through his dark hair, shrugs, ‘laugh a bit. I can be your … I don’t know. What would you call it? Puppet? Pawn? Stand-in?’

‘Sorry,’ I say, and I can’t figure out whether it’s shame or alcohol turning my cheeks to hot, sizzling lamb chops. ‘I’m sorry – for jumping in there like that. I’m just—’

‘Ah.’ Tom waves me away, and says, ‘Seriously, no worries, forget about it,’ and I don’t finish my sentence. I drink instead. Mostly because I don’t really know how to finish it. I’m just –what?What am I? Jaded at thirty-two? A mess? Not in the game anymore, formeeting people? New people.Old.For falling in like, or in lust, let alone, actual love again? And sad enough to be preoccupied by a piece of mystery sheet music left at a train station piano, like those people that hunt aliens when they find a bit of flattened wheat in a field off the A12? I don’t know. That’s the thing. Since Russ died, I don’t know anything. How I feel, who I am, what’s fun anymore, what Iwant.My life is nothing but a tangle of unfinished sentences.Iam a tangle of unfinished sentences.

‘Do you mind?’ I say. ‘Being my … shall we say, stand-in? Just for a minute.’

Tom smirks, gives another shrug and lifts the short whisky glass to his lips. ‘Works for me.’ He swallows. ‘Plus, Si’s pulled some weird, stare-y stranger, and Phan – he’s on the phone to his wife outside. She doesn’t trust him an iota.’

‘Should she?’

‘Fuck, no. I don’t.’ He swigs back another mouthful and grins at me. ‘So, I’m all yours. Come on. What’s my first job? As Natalie’s stand-in.’

I laugh – andthank God.Thank God Tom the Target seems normal and laid-back and very much without that look in his eyes where he thinks I’m nothing but a tough nut to crack. I’m used to that look. That ‘ha-ha, shesaysshe’s not interested, but a few drinks, a few silly little compliments, and she’ll soon change her mind and be putty, mate’ look.

‘Just stand there really,’ I answer, ‘and as I said, just laugh a bit, chat a bit …’

‘Easy enough.’

‘… nod here and there.’

‘All right. And you’ll …’

‘Oh, I’ll pretend I’m having a nice time. As payment.’

‘Make that areallynice time,’ Tom adds. ‘You never know who’s watching.’

‘Deal. And I’ll give off the air that I’m really glad we met, if you like? That every hour feels like a minute because it’s just soeasy to talk to you—’

‘Obviously.’

‘So much chemistry—’

‘Loads.’

‘And I’ll pretend I really, really,reallybeyond belief fan—’ and I freeze then, lips parted, like a haunted portrait. The fourth margarita has already done its thing – pushed me that teensy bit too far. My guard and my filter a little pile of rubble at our feet. I don’t fancy him. Because I don’t fancyanyoneanymore, apparently, but saying ‘I’ll have to pretend to fancy you’ to a cool and kind stranger at a bar is not exactly something that would be endorsed by the Good Samaritan, is it?

Tom arches a dark eyebrow. ‘That you …?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Nothing,’ he says, amused, with a smile that’s almost a burst of laughter, and this time, it’s Tom who ducks. ‘If I’m going to be nothing but a puppet – sorry, astand-in– I reckon it’s only fair you finish that sentence.’

I grimace behind my glass. ‘Ugh. Fine. I … I was going to say …fancy you,’ I admit, shamefully, then I rush out with barely a space between each word,‘but what I mean is, I don’t fancy anyone these days. Seriously, I don’t. And you could be – you could be like, Adam Driver, or Vince Vaughn, or …’ I stop myself when I find the words ‘that Lurch guy with the shoulders at Roxanne’s party’ gathering in my throat. ‘I just … It’s just something I don’t really do. Not anymore. That ship – sailed. Bombed. Shipwrecked at the bottom of the sea. Covered in …moss.’

For a moment, Tom looks at me, then a smile breaks out on his handsome face. ‘Well, that’s … that’s good.’ Then he leans in and says, ‘Because I don’t really fancy you either.’

‘Good!’

‘Bit mossy myself, actually …’

‘Perfect.’

Tom laughs, throwing a glance over his shoulder. ‘Okay, so – what’s the first subject? Your friends are looking over by the way.’

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