Page 53 of Love in Tune

Nell laughed. ‘I guess. But then she’d also have made me buy something that probably isn’t even legal.’

Honey browsed the shelves and picked up a black silk blindfold thoughtfully, her mind already miles away from Nell’s bedroom conundrum. Running the silk through her fingers, she could almost feel Hal’s fingers tying the strip of silk behind her head, putting them temporarily closer to a level playing field. She looked down as Nell plucked it from her fingers with a grin.

‘You’re a lifesaver, Honey. Perfect.’

Honey watched Nell walk towards the tills, and after a moment’s hesitation she hurriedly grabbed a second blindfold and followed her friend.

Hal hadn’t answered his door when Honey tapped it after work that evening, but as she was heading to bed just after eleven there was movement in the hallway and then a knock on her door.

‘Don’t open it,’ Hal said. ‘Just listen.’

Honey stood perfectly still behind her closed door, her hand flat against it.

‘I’ve thought about what you asked me,’ he said, the rumble of his voice low and rich and sure.

‘And …’ Honey said, biting her top lip and crossing the fingers of her other hand behind her back without realising. ‘What did you decide?’

He paused. ‘Did you mean it when you said you’ll go out and find someone else to do it if I won’t?’

‘It wasn’t intended as a bribe, Hal,’ Honey sighed, laying her forehead on the wood.

‘No dates. No relationship. One night, and then we never mention this again.’

Honey’s hand covered her mouth in shock as she reached for the catch on the door.

‘I told you not to open the fucking door,’ Hal warned, stilling her fingers. She wanted to see him very much at that moment, but she sensed that it was more important to him that she didn’t.

‘Okay,’ she said, dropping her hand away from the catch. ‘Hal … when?’

He was quiet again. And then, ‘I’ll come over again on Friday.’

She swallowed hard. Friday was three nights away. ‘Friday it is then,’ she said, so quiet that almost no sound came out.

‘It’s not a date,’ he reminded her.

‘Roger that,’ Honey said, rendered stupid by nerves.

An amused silence, then: ‘Try not to throw yourself at passing strangers between now and Friday.’

Honey could hear traces of dry humour in his voice. ‘’Kay.’

He went to move away, and she called out: ‘Hal … shall I buy nibbles?’

He was silent for far longer than she knew what to do with.

‘No nibbles, Honeysuckle. No funny stuff. Buy whisky if you feel the need to shop. This is how this thing will go down. I come over here. We do it. I go home again. Are you crystal clear on how this is going to go?’

‘Crystal,’ she said, wondering what the hell had possessed her to suggest nibbles. She’d never used the word nibbles in her life.

‘I’m going now,’ he said. ‘Do me a favour. Don’t say another word.’

Honey screwed her eyes shut and nodded.

He really needed to go home, and she really needed to shut up.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

‘This is it, I think?’ Honey looked up at the large, well-kept terraced house with steps leading up to the shiny green door. The kind of house that estate agents might describe as agentleman’s residence, with neat tubs of flowers in the vestibule.

---