Page 85 of Falling for You
‘She loves romance,’ he says. ‘She wanted to hear how my dating life was going in London, so I told her.’
‘What did she say?’
He smiles, looking down at his hands. ‘She wanted me to try and find you.’
‘And did you tell her?’ I sit down next to him.
‘Tell her what?’
‘That we found each other!’ I say, feeling myself redden.
‘Ah.’ A shadow passes over his face. ‘No. Not yet.’
I push my lips together. God, read the room, Annie. He didn’t message you, he hasn’t told his mum any more about you.He isn’t into you. I just need to find him somewhere to stay for the night, do my Good Samaritan deed and thenforget all about him. Weird lovely feelings or no weird lovely feelings. That is what I have to do.
‘Right,’ I say, pulling my parents’ laptop out from under the sofa and tapping in their password. ‘So, here you go. If you google B&Bs in the Cotswolds, there are loads around here. You can use our landline to call any.’ I hand him the phone. ‘Let me know which one you decide to book and I’ll walk you over to it. There are quite a few that aren’t that far away.’
He nods. ‘Right. Of course. Thank you, Annie.’
I slap my thighs and get to my feet. ‘No problem,’ I say, walking out of the sitting room and forcing myself not to look back at him.
‘Right!’ I say loudly as I walk into the kitchen, forcing Mum and Dad to stop their incessant whispering in the corner. ‘What’s the plan for this weekend?’
They blink at me, totally still for a second, when Dad launches into action. ‘Ah, of course. Well, we thought we may do a nice walk tomorrow and then—’
‘Annie!’ Mum hisses in her I’m-being-really-quiet-but-I’m-actually-being-insanely-loud whisper. ‘What’s going on? Is he your boyfriend?’
‘No!’ I snap, exasperated. ‘Mum, we’ve just been over this – we’re just friends.’
‘But why?’ she cries. ‘He seems so nice!’
‘You’ve spent thirty seconds with him.’
‘Mother’s intuition! A motheralways knows.’ Mum taps the side of her nose and I roll my eyes.
‘I think that’s about whether your baby needs feeding or burping, not whether your daughter should go out with a guy you like the look of,’ I say flatly.
‘Excuse me?’
My head whips round to see Nate standing in the doorway. My face immediately burns. Oh God, how long has he been standing there for?
He’s holding the phone and looking at us apologetically. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he says. ‘How do you work this? I think I’ve found somewhere.’
‘Found somewhere?’ Mum repeats. ‘What do you mean? You’re not leaving, are you?’
And then everything goes into slow motion, I can feel it about to happen, right in front of my eyes … but I just … can’t … quite …
‘You must stay for dinner!’
… stop it.
‘Sorry,’ I gabble to Nate about forty minutes later, the first moment I’ve got just the two of us after Mum and Dad barrelled him into the kitchen and refused to let him go. Where did you grow up? What do you do for a job? How are you finding London? What shoe size are you?
Okay, so they didn’t ask the last one, but I wouldn’t put it past them at this rate.
‘Sorry?’ He turns to me. ‘What for?’
We’re both sat up on the stools in the kitchen, looking over to where Mum has been chopping, simmering and adding the final touches to dinner. Dad has poured us both largeglasses of red wine and the fairy lights that Mum hangs every autumn are twinkling around us.
