Page 76 of Love in Tune

He sighed pointedly. ‘Do I try to tell you how to sell dead people’s clothes and cast-offs?’

Honey huffed. ‘Pre-loved and upcycled, actually.’

‘Take the steaks out. Now.’

He waited enough time for Honey to obey his instructions. ‘We can’t eat them straight away, they need to stand for five.’

Honey stared at them. ‘But they’re ready. You just said so yourself. They’ll go cold.’

Hal rubbed a hand over his mouth as if holding in a string of swear words. ‘You can do everything else while you wait. Warm the plates. Pour some actual wine. Put some music on. Sing “Happy Birthday”. Do anything you like, just don’t touch those goddamn steaks.’

Honey stuck her tongue out at him, and immediately regretted it because it seemed mean.

‘It’s rude to stick your tongue out at a blind person,’ he said.

She didn’t even ask him how he knew.

‘So how old are you today?’ she asked, turning the oven down and sliding a couple of plates in with the potatoes and roasted vegetables. She loosened the plastic lid on a tub of ready-made chilled red wine sauce and stuck it in the microwave, waiting for him to reply.

‘Thirty-four,’ he said. ‘Thirty-four years old and going nowhere fast.’

Honey opened the bottle of cabernet sauvignon that the supermarket advice tab had reliably informed was great with steak.

‘Don’t say that,’ she said, pouring the wine into the glasses she’d set on the table and reaching across to flick the radio on in the background. ‘Come and sit down. It’s almost ready.’

Hal listened to Honey moving around the kitchen. The clank of plates, the rush of heat from the oven when she opened it, the scent of food. It was intoxicating, all of it, even more so than the decent glass of red she’d finally given him.

He could practically feel the pride radiating off her in waves when she placed his meal in front of him.

‘Voilà,’ she said. ‘Fillet steak, little potato things, roasted vegetables, and a red wine juice.’

‘Jus?’ he said.

‘Don’t question the chef,’ she warned, sliding into the chair opposite him.

‘Are there any lit candles on this table?’ he asked.

‘Yes, because I’m stupid and want to set your head on fire,’ she said. ‘Of course there aren’t any candles.’

He didn’t reply, mostly because he’d actually been thinking that her first homemade steak dinner deserved the romance of a candle.

‘Oh my bloody God,’ Honey suddenly said. ‘This steak. Hal, it’s perfect,’ she sighed, with something that sounded like rapture. ‘I didn’t think it was going to be anywhere close to cooked, but you were totally right.’

‘Don’t question the chef,’ he quipped lightly, and found that he could only agree when he tasted his own steak. It wasn’t a masterpiece, but given his diet over recent months it was pretty damn close to perfect. They ate with the sound of the radio in the kitchen, low music to accompany the chink of cutlery against china and their idle chat about the well-oiled plans for the covert event she’d planned at the home the next day.

‘Will you come?’ she asked. ‘They say an army marches on its stomach, and Skinny Steve is no born leader.’

‘I like him,’ Hal said, jumping to Steve’s defence. His young apprentice for the week might not be a culinary genius, but he was a hard worker and good at following instructions. ‘He’ll make a decent chef one day.’

‘Yeah, but not by tomorrow,’ she wheedled. ‘Say you’ll come?’

‘Fine,’ he relented. ‘I’ll come. But I’m staying in the kitchen, okay?’

‘Deal,’ she said, and he knew he’d pleased her from the smile behind her voice. Considering the volatile nature of their relationship, Honey was actually a pretty easy person to please. He’d been accustomed to a life surrounded by high-maintenance people before the accident; demanding customers, his party hard friends, and of course, Imogen. Had he himself been high maintenance too? Probably. If a penchant for expensive clothes, good food and fast cars made someone high maintenance, then maybe so.

Honey stood and cleared the plates.

‘I didn’t buy dessert,’ she said. ‘I don’t know why, but you don’t strike me as a dessert man.’

---