Huffkins was only half full as she came into the café, scanning the tables just in case, but Roger wasn’t there. She took a seat by the window so she could watch the street, trying not to seem too anxious and eager, and, she suspected, failing at both.
Ten endless minutes passed; it was quarter past the hour. How long should she wait? She’d told the waitress she wouldn’t order until Roger came, but the woman had been giving her questioning and slightly accusing looks, no doubt for wasting so much time. Lindy checked her watch again.
She looked up—and her heart lifted like a balloon in the breeze. Roger was striding down the street, a set, almost grim look on his face, as if he were marching to his doom, or perhaps just something unpleasant. But he’d come! Lindy realised she was grinning as she waved to catch his attention, and as Roger caught sight of her, he looked, she realised, grimmer than ever.
Chapter Six
Roger had spent the last two hours and thirteen minutes in an agony of uncertainty and indecision and, frankly, plain old fear. He hadn’t understood Lindy’s behaviour at Blue Cross at all—from how pleased she’d been to see him, to the way she’d seemed to be flirting with him, to the entirely unexpected invitation to go out for a drink.
He’d had women flirt with him before, usually, Roger suspected, to amuse themselves rather than out of any genuine interest in him, or perhaps out of curiosity, to see how he responded. His girlfriends—all two of them—had tried to change him, and when they hadn’t been successful they’d given up on him, which was just as well.
He’d thought at first that Lindy was doing something similar—flirting with him out of curiosity or amusement, and he’d done his best to pretend it wasn’t happening, to play a straight bat as he always did, because he couldn’t engage in those sorts of mind games at all, and flirting of any sort was utterly beyond him so he never even tried.
But then her hair had brushed his cheek and she’d been close enough to kiss and Roger had felt as if his mind and body had both short-circuited, so for a few torturous seconds he hadn’t been able to think. At least, he hadn’t been able to think about anything but kissing her, which of course he was absolutely not been going to do. Even thinking about it had caused mortification to scorch through him, to imagine her reaction if he’d done such a wildly inappropriate and undoubtedly unexpected thing.
And then the invitation to go out for a drink, made with such a seemingly genuine enthusiasm…that had left him speechless and uncertain and yet strangely, sweetly wanting, and so he’d said yes, because even if he wasn’t sure how this was all going to go, even if he felt more than a little apprehensive, he knew some small part of him at least wanted a chance to see.
Lindy had half-risen from her seat as he came into the café, her generous mouth curved into a wide smile. Her hair was piled on top of her head in the messiest bun Roger had ever seen, so strands and tendrils tumbled over her shoulders and brushed her cheeks. She was wearing a long, flowing skirt in a wild floral pattern that hurt Roger’s eyes and a white top that revealed an inch of taut, golden belly as she waved.
“You came,” she said as she sat down again and Roger forced what he hoped was the approximation of a smile.
“Did you think I wouldn’t?”
“I wasn’t sure, to be honest.”
He sat down, his body rigid, his hands resting on his thighs, feeling the heavy, uneven beat of his heart as he tried to arrange his expression into some semblance of relaxed friendliness. “I’m a man of my word.”
“That I believe.” Her blue-green gaze swept over him teasingly, making Roger want to look away. There were so very many ways this meeting could go so very wrong. In fact, the eventual wrongness of the ensuing conversation was almost a certainty. If guesses were informed estimations as he had told her earlier, then his guess was that he was going to thoroughly humiliate himself in some way before he’d finished his Coke—or perhaps even before he’d ordered it.
“So your refreshing drink,” Lindy said, her eyes seeming to dance and sparkle. “What would you like?”
“A Coca-Cola, please.” He sounded as if he were about ten.
“Do you like Coke?” She sounded strangely pleased by this notion. “Because I love it. Everyone tells me my teeth are going to fall out or dissolve or something, but I can’t stop drinking it. I usually have one a day, for breakfast.”
She grinned, almost conspiratorially, and Roger longed to smile back as if they shared some delicious secret, but instead he heard himself say rather pompously, “You really should try to limit yourself. As an occasional refreshment, it may not do much harm, but if drunk on a daily basis…” Thankfully he lapsed into silence then. What was he, a PSA for good nutrition? A dentist? Someone please shut him up.
Lindy looked for a second as if she wanted to laugh, but then her expression turned serious and she nodded soberly. “I know. It’s a terrible habit. Does it help that I have fruit and yogurt for breakfast, as well?”
“Fruit also contains a great deal of sugar.”
She propped her chin on her hand. “What should I have for breakfast, then?”
Why were they talking about this? Roger stared at her in unhappy bewilderment. “I have no opinions on what you should have for breakfast,” he said finally, and Lindy let out a laugh—a delighted sort of gurgle that made something in Roger tingle.
“But you do. You don’t think I should have Coke.”
“I was merely observing that having soda on a daily basis is not nutritionally advisable.”
“Right.”
He shook his head, helpless now. “Why are we talking about this?”
She laughed again. “You tell me.”
“I don’t think I can. I simply told you I wanted a Coke.” He decided to dare a sort-of joke, if that was even what it was. “Maybe I should have asked for a coffee, after all.”
“And drink something you already told me you don’t like?” Lindy leaned a little forward. “Never.”
Roger stared at her—the sparkle in her eyes, the smile still curving her lips, and felt a sensation similar to falling down a set of stairs. Startling, a bit painful, but also sort of thrilling. Was she toying with him? Teasing him? He couldn’t credit any other possibility. “Coke it is, then,” he said, his tone weirdly jolly, and thankfully, the waitress came to take their orders.
They both ordered Cokes—of course—and when the waitress left Roger felt the void of silence between them, a bottomless chasm he knew he could fall into and never climb out of.
“So,” Lindy said. “You never managed to tell me if you grew up in Wychwood or not, because of the Great Dog Debacle.”
The great…? It took Roger a second to realise what she was talking about—Poppy escaping, and the fact that he’d opened the kennel in the first place, which was something he would normally never, ever do. He was not a rule breaker, not remotely, not ever. “I did not grow up in Wychwood-on-Lea,” he said.
“Where did you, then?”
“Swindon.”
“But you live here now?”
“Yes, I moved here six months ago.” When his mother had had her last diagnosis. No further treatment possible.