Page 86 of Not That Impossible

He grunted, slouched lower, and cradled the cup in his long fingers. He closed his eyes and sipped, sighing with satisfaction. When his lashes fluttered open, he caught me staring. Slowly, he licked his lips. “Am I turning you on?” he said in a deep voice.

I shuffled in my seat thoughtfully. “Nope. Everything’s nice and limp down there, thanks.”

Adam let out a crack of laughter.

“I’m immune to your sexy mojo,” I said.

“Good.” He shoved my ankle with his foot. “Why were you watching me like that?”

“I was wondering if I could pull off that sort of move.”

“What move?” He was genuinely confused.

I tenderly picked up my cup, kissed the rim and took a long, pretend sip. I sighed like I was coming down from an orgasm.

Adam glared. “I don’t do that. And no, you can’t pull it off. You look constipated. Why do you want to drink coffee sexy anyway?”

“Why do you think?”

He rolled his eyes.

“I was wondering, earlier. Before you came in. Is it that Liam still sees me as immature? Should I try to tone it all down? Try to be more sophisticated? Smoulder a bit?”

“If what you did at the end of that little performance was a smoulder—”

“It was.”

“—then hard no. And don’t you ever tone yourself down. You’re perfect. Babe, Liam is a Neanderthal. He’s not even going to notice you trying to do sexy things. Think way, way simpler. There’s no need to make it complicated. Bend over in front of him. He won’t be able to resist.”

That didn’t sound very romantic. I poked at the crumbs on my plate, picked them up on the end of my finger, then stuck it in my mouth. “Huh,” I said around my finger. “And don’t call me babe.”

Adam turned his attention to his Easter bunny, and I brooded.

After thirty seconds of brooding, I got my Moleskine notebook and a pen out of the front pocket of my gym bag.

L is a Neanderthal, I wrote. I wasn’t stupid enough to write his name unless it was safely protected by a password on my MacBook. Then I scratched it out and wrote,L is a caveman. I am the helpless time traveller captured by a rival tribe and brought to his camp to trade for a share in the spoils of the mammoth hunt. It’s a harsh world. Locked in ice. Battered by storms. Will we make it through the winter? Who knows? I am shivering in my Under Armour. One minute I was in the twenty-first century, the next I was transported here, trapped forever in the dark dawn of mankind.

I sat back and gazed ahead, lost in the Ice Age. I wondered what the coffee shop looked like ten or twenty thousand years ago? I glanced around. Or even further back, millions of years ago in the time of dinosaurs.

Oh?

I dropped down a line in my notebook.

L is a dinosa—no. I scratched that out quickly, shaking my head.

It was getting close to mid-morning and the coffee shop was filling up. There was a queue at the counter. I sat up straight when I caught sight of a familiar figure.

“Adam,” I said. “Adam.”

“What?” He was scrolling through his phone.

“Ray is here,” I said.

You’d think I’d shoved a stun gun into his balls and hit the go button, the way he jerked in his seat. He banged the table with an elbow and everything rattled.

My eyes widened. “I said Ray is here, not Ray needs saving from velociraptors, now’s your chance to shine. Oh my god. Can you pretend to be cool for a second?”

“Shut up. Yes, I can. Photographers and fashion houses have payed me thousands and thousands of pounds to be cool.”

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