Page 70 of Love in Tune

‘That’s quite some fall, from Nicolas Cage to the king of silent treatments,’ he said, trying to coax her back into civility again.

‘I’m going inside,’ she said, tonelessly. ‘Thanks for your help today.’

She sounded like a teacher thanking a PTA parent. Polite, and professionally distant. It grated on him. He slotted his key into the latch as he heard her door close, and then took it out again.

‘What did I do?’ he shouted, walking back to her door. ‘One minute I’m a hero, the next you’re in a temper. What is this?’

She opened her door. ‘You never mentioned your fiancée.’

Her voice was calm and heavy with the questions she didn’t ask.

‘So?’

‘So you should have.’

‘Am I missing something here? I used to have a fiancée. Now I don’t. And that’s a problem for you, because?’

‘Why did you split up?’

‘Fuck, Honey, what is this, the Spanish Inquisition?’

‘It’s a simple question.’

He ran his hands over his hair. ‘Fine.’ Squaring his shoulders and closing his arms over his chest, he spoke again. ‘Fine. We were getting married. Next summer, if you must have all the details.’

‘And now you’re not?’

‘She didn’t want to marry a blind man.’

Hal heard Honey’s swift intake of breath and felt guilty for painting Imogen on a par with Cruella De Vil. The truth had been far more gradual and not at all one-sided. The accident had been the catalyst, the inciting incident, definitely, but the aftermath had been the reason they’d separated. Hal had been a man left without many choices, and Imogen had become a woman who’d had to make the toughest one.

He didn’t blame her. Oh, he had. He’d railed against her, just as he’d railed against everyone else in his life. His friends, his family … all of them. They couldn’t possibly understand what he was going through, and it reached the point where their well-meant kindnesses felt patronising, Imogen’s most of all. She’d tried to accommodate the changes that forced their way through their life together, the broom that swept away the flash, materialistic lifestyle and left the brass tacks of a broken man behind. It wasn’t her fault; she’d fallen for one person, one life, and overnight she’d been presented with someone completely different. It was debatable whether she’d left him or he’d left her in the end; it had become bitterly apparent that they weren’t going to make it.

‘Hal … I’m sorry,’ Honey said. ‘I shouldn’t have pried.’

‘So why did you? What does it matter?’

She was near enough for him to hear her shallow breathing and smell the familiar scent of her shampoo.

‘Honestly? I don’t even know.’ She sighed heavily. ‘Maybe it doesn’t matter at all, Hal. It’s just that sometimes I feel as if we know each other, and then I realise that we don’t really know each other at all.’

The forlorn note in her voice resonated with him.

‘Can I come in for coffee?’

She was too close not to touch. He stroked his fingers against the smoothness of her hair.

She didn’t reply to his question, just leaned her head against his hand a little.

‘It’s getting late,’ she said finally; softly. ‘I don’t think coffee’s a good idea.’

He knew he could push the point; that she’d probably change her mind if he asked her to, and in that moment, he wanted Honey to change her mind pretty badly. He didn’t want to think about driving fast cars anymore or how he should have been marrying Imogen next summer. He wanted to block it all out by pushing Honey down onto her mattress and losing himself in her curves. Her breathing wasn’t steady, and he could feel the warmth of her body a footstep away from him. Swallowing hard, he dipped his head, and he felt her slide her face sideways into his hand, moving away from his kiss just a fraction too slowly, letting his lips touch hers for the briefest hint before they settled on her cheek.

‘Goodnight Hal,’ she murmured close to his ear, letting him linger for a second before easing back. Accepting her decision with a sigh, he brushed his thumb longingly along the softness of her mouth and then turned away.

Honey cradled a mug of coffee in her hands, the heat from the steam warming her face in the dark lounge. Curled into the end of the sofa, she sat in the quiet room and tried to make some sense of the jumbled day.

She’d woken troubled, and Hal had turned her troubles into triumphs. Then the campaign to save the home had almost been derailed by Mimi and Lucille’s public disagreement. She’d taken steps to repair the damage over the course of the afternoon; she could only hope it was going to be enough.

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