Page 7 of The Gin Lover's Guide to Dating

‘Your neighbour let me in. What’s with the party? You sounded like a demented crow.’ He throws me a cheeky grin.

‘What? I… How long were you standing outside?’ I feel myself begin to redden.

‘Long enough.’

Dylan heads straight for my fridge, helps himself to a Corona and starts to make a sandwich. ‘Why’d you buy this crap? Get some real beer in.’

‘It’s not crap. And I don’t normally buy beer at all. It’s left over from having the work lot round the other week.’

‘Huh. That makes sense.’ Dylan huffs. ‘Poncey lager for the ponce brigade.’

‘It’s not… arghh… never mind. How was your day? To what do I owe this pleasure?’

Dylan plonks himself on one of my bar stools, takes a huge bite from the sandwich and looks at me.

‘My day was fine. It’s just admin work but seems a good company and better than my last job. Learning about all sorts of cool tech stuff. Why do you think I’m here?’

‘Because it’s the end of the month and you’ve run out of money again, so you’ve come to raid my fridge?’

‘Half right. Guess again.’ His piercing blue eyes are fixed on mine.

‘Because there’s a match on and you want to watch it on Sky?’

‘Nope.’

‘Well, what then?’ I’m starting to get impatient.

‘Tell you what.’ He grins at me. ‘How about you tell me all about your meeting today, and once we’ve toasted your promotion, I’ll tell you why I’m here.’

‘Err… OK. There’s not much to tell.’ Despite the booze, I start to sweat a little, which irritates me slightly. ‘I had my meeting and got the right outcome.’

‘What outcome was that?’

‘You know. I’m moving on up in the dizzy world of communications and PR.’ I hate lying to Dylan, but there’s no way I’m revealing the truth.

‘Really? That’s the balls, Squirt. Let’s defo toast that. Get your glass.’

I tentatively pick up my gin and tonic and walk over to him.

‘To your big promotion.’ Dylan inelegantly smacks his beer bottle against my glass, which I instinctively inspect to see if it’s still in one piece.

‘Yup.’ I smile widely. ‘To my big—’

‘Cut the bullshit, Liv.’ Dylan puts his beer down on the breakfast bar and looks me straight in the eye knowingly.

‘What?’ Shocked, I pull back a little. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘I’m talking about the fact that, as of this morning, you’re unemployed.’

I freeze momentarily, then I go the fridge to refill my glass and get him another beer; anything to avoid the inevitable.

‘That’s not technically true.’ I hand him the open bottle. ‘I’m actually on garden leave. How do you know?’

‘Because, I went to the gym after work, and on my way home I bumped into your poncey mate, Angina, or whatever her name is – the one you were trying to hide me from a few months back. She told me whatactuallyhappened this morning.’

‘I wasn’t trying tohideyou.’ Irritation starts to rise within me. ‘I needed to speak to Anya – her name’sAnya– about something confidential at work, so I had to go out of earshot.’

‘Don’tbullshitme, Liv.’ Dylan looks mildly hurt. ‘I may – like you – not be from the upper ends of society, but I’m not thick.’

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