Page 40 of Love in Tune

‘No! No. Tash, keep your voice down will you?’ Honey hissed, trying not to look at the suddenly silent couple at the next table. ‘Of course I haven’t shagged him. He’s … he’s complicated.’

‘The last time we talked about him you said he was vile,’ Nell said, looking unconvinced. ‘What changed?’

‘I got to know him,’ Honey said simply. ‘A bit, anyway.’

‘Have you been on a date?’ Nell said. Honey half laughed at the idea of a date with Hal. ‘God no. Not unless you count endless hours spent sitting outside his closed door being ignored or swore at.’

She didn’t miss the concerned look that passed between her friends, and she couldn’t blame them for their reticence. She wasn’t painting the best of pictures. She tried again.

‘The thing is, Hal’s not like most men. He’s going through a hard time, and he’s angry, and he’s blind, and he kisses me like there’s no air, and he doesn’t leave the house, and he drinks too much whisky.’

It was a toss up which of her friends looked more shocked.

‘He’s blind?’ Nell said softly.

‘You kissed him?’ Tash said, leaning forward.

‘Yes, and yes. I don’t know what happened to him, but I get the impression that his blindness is quite recent. He doesn’t like to talk about it. To be honest, most of the time he doesn’t like to talk about much at all.’

‘You’re not selling him, Honey,’ Nell said.

‘I know. It’s hard to explain,’ Honey said. ‘There’s just something about him that gets me. He’s a mass of contradictions. He’s a terrible grouch, but then he’s funny and endearing. He dresses like a rock star and acts like a recluse. He ignores me for days on end and then every now and then he is so, so incredible that he knocks the breath out of me.’

Tash ordered a bottle of wine. ‘Aside from the fact that he’s a hot kisser, he sounds like bloody hard work to me.’

Honey nodded. ‘I can see that. And he is, but I don’t think he means to be. But here’s the thing.’

Tash and Nell both sat statue-still as they waited to hear what ‘the thing’ was.

And so Honey let the thought out, the one that had lingered around in her subconscious like a squatter, refusing to leave until she gave it the attention it deserved.

‘I think he’s The One.’ Honey’s words came out barely above a whisper.

‘The One … as in the one who can make you orgasm?’ Tash said.

‘Or the one … as in The One?’ Nell said, her big brown eyes round and watchful.

Honey dropped her head in her hands, trying to make sense of her feelings along with her friends.

‘I don’t know,’ she said, and Nell and Tash moved around the table to squish on the sofa either side of her. She slumped back between them and took the glass of wine Tash offered. ‘I honestly don’t know, and it scares me stupid. Both, maybe?’

When she let herself into the house later that afternoon, Honey took the hall at a run in case Hal opened his door. She couldn’t face him yet, not after spending the last few hours dissecting her burgeoning feelings for him with Nell and Tash. They’d both wanted to come back and meet him, which she knew he’d hate and had vetoed straight away. Nell wanted to vet him for suitability, and Tash wanted to get a look at the man Honey had billed as the sexiest kisser alive. Another time, she’d said, meaningnever, if Hal had anything to do with it.

After much deliberation, they’d arrived at the shaky conclusion that Honey had a stonking great schoolgirl crush on her neighbour. Nell had ruled out the possibility of love, based on the fact that Honey had only kissed him once and eighty per cent of the relationship seemed to be one sided.

They’d also decided that Honey should explore the possibility of further physical contact with Hal in order to reassess her reaction to him. He’d kissed her when she’d just been rejected by Deano; she’d been at her most vulnerable, which would have rendered her susceptible. ‘In other words,’ Tash had said, ‘you need to snog his face off again and see if he gets your juices flowing a second time.’

So there it was. Piano man mission aborted, and operation snog-Hal’s-face-off underway. She’d just go to bed for a few hours, and then she’d think about it again.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Sleep, sobriety and coffee threw fresh light on things. It was a hideous plan.

She could hardly march over there and demand to be kissed, and Honey wasn’t prepared to try to inveigle him into it. If Hal ever kissed her again she wanted it to be because he wanted to, not because she’d artificially seduced him in order to conduct a very unscientific experiment.

Honey thought of him as she went through the motions of eating leftover bolognese for dinner – he’d been right about it being better the day after, thankfully. She could of course try taking some over to him again, but he’d probably ignore her or insult her. She swung between being spitting mad at him for being so pig-headed and feeling compassion towards him because if she didn’t call on him no one else would, which ultimately led her back to being pissed off at him because he was such a royal pain in the ass that he’d most likely driven away anyone who cared about him. Hal hadn’t just landed here from the moon. He was a man; a man who must have friends, family, a past, yet none of it seemed to have followed him here. How could that be? Did they even know where he was? Christ, he could have a wife and children for all she knew.

Honey thought about him some more, decided sobriety was overrated, and poured herself a glass of red. The man lived here under the same roof with her, for God’s sake. Surely she was entitled to know more about him than just his first name.

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