Page 13 of The Love Hack

‘He is.’ Confident now that Astro wouldn’t run off, I gently put him down, and he twined around our legs, rubbing his cheeks against us and purring. ‘He’s just the best.’

I gave him a quick run-down of Astro’s history, keeping it brief because I knew that once I started talking about him, it took me ages to stop.

‘Maybe you could ring them and tell them not to serve him again if he turns up,’ Ross suggested.

‘Like being banned from your local Wetherspoons?’

‘I guess. I’d be gutted if Spoons banned me, though.’

I laughed, pleased and surprised – I’d taken Ross to be more a fancy-cocktail-bar kind of guy.

‘Maybe I should keep him indoors for a week or so, at least while I’m out,’ I mused. ‘Maybe he’ll forget about it then.’

‘Especially if you got takeaway from there and shared it with him,’ Ross suggested. ‘Then he’d get the gain without the potential pain.’

I felt an involuntary shiver of dread. ‘Don’t even say that.’

‘Sorry.’ Ross squatted down and fussed Astro some more. ‘We don’t want anything bad to happen to you, do we? You must be a sensible cat and do what your mum says.’

Astro made a beeline for the brown paper bag and began sniffing it eagerly.

‘Come on now, you leave Ross’s dinner alone,’ I scolded. ‘Sorry. It’ll be getting cold – we’ve kept you ages.’

‘Doesn’t matter.’ He grinned up at me, then stood easily, lifting the bag out of Astro’s reach. I wasn’t sure why he’d been so weird that morning, when I'd showed him my answer to Jonno’s letter, but the weirdness seemed to have well and truly passed. ‘It’s been worth it.’

‘Thanks so much,’ I said. ‘Honestly, I’m so grateful to you for rescuing him. Anything could have happened.’

He shook his head. ‘Don’t mention it.’

‘Well… I guess I’ll see you in the office tomorrow. Enjoy your scampi.’

‘I will.’ He turned to go, slowly, as if he wasn’t quite ready. ‘They’re on Deliveroo, you know. You could order in for you and Astro.’

‘They are? Technology for the win, right?’

‘Technology for the win,’ he agreed.

Then he looked at me for a second and reached up as if he was going to – something. Shake my hand? Hug me? But at the last moment, it turned into a fist bump.

My knuckles only touched his for the briefest moment, but it felt as intimate as a kiss.

SIX

It was a week later, the following Saturday, and my flat was no longer quiet, no longer empty, and no longer tidy. In fact I don’t think there had ever been as many people in it as there were that night. As many girls.

Normally, I’d call myself out for using that word – these were all adult women, after all. But there was something about my sister and her hens, that night, that was pure, one hundred per cent girl. My kitchen counter was strewn with make-up compacts, stacks of brushes, bottles of nail varnish, magnifying mirrors and even a ring light. The air was thick with the smell of hairspray and perfume. Half-drunk bottles of fizz and cans of hard seltzer were leaving sticky rings on every surface. Music blared from my speakers, almost drowned out by gales of giggles.

It was Amelie’s hen night, and my flat had been chosen for the rendezvous and getting-ready point, owing to it being closest to the bar in Shoreditch where we were heading. And maybe owing to me being chief bridesmaid, I guess, although I’d had very little to do with the arrangements for tonight’s festivities.

Originally, Zack had offered to pay for us all to spend a week partying in Ibiza. But, to my surprise, Amelie had put her foot down – it was too much time to ask all her friends to take off work, and besides what she really wanted was a good old-fashioned Saturday night out. Zack, apparently, had told her that whatever she wanted was what he wanted too, and so it had been settled.

The moment my sister had set up the WhatsApp group, posted, ‘I’ll leave you girls’ See? Girls, ‘to it then, see you all on the 24th!’ followed by a slew of emojis – pink fingernails, chinking champagne flutes, cocktails, hearts and of course the dancing lady – Amelie’s friends had begun building up to a fever pitch of excitement.

Most of them were just names I’d seen on the WhatsApp group. I had no idea whether the tall redhead or the curvaceous Asian woman was Miranda. There were two dark-haired twins who’d introduced themselves as Caitlin and Bryony, but I couldn’t for the life of me identify which was which. A group of four stunning blondes, almost as indistinguishable from each other as the twins, had arrived together and dashed, shrieking, into the flat to greet their friends, barely glancing at me when I opened the door.

I knew Amelie, of course. And I knew Nush, her best friend since primary school. Rosa and Eve were university friends of my sister’s who I’d met at various parties and dinners over the years.

But that didn’t make much of a difference – the whole vibe was so unlike anything I normally experienced, they might as well all have been fragrant, blow-dried aliens flown in from another planet for the occasion.

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