“You made these,” she said.

He smiled. Not his cocksure grin but a softer smile.

“I did,” he said. “The benches and the bar. They’re all me.”

“They’re beautiful,” said Annie. “You’re an artist.”

Paul’s smile widened and he looked down at his plate.

“I’d best get you drunk before you start to find flaws in my work,” he said.

Annie laughed. “I didn’t have you down for modesty.”

“First impressions can be deceiving,” said Paul.

Annie felt a warm feeling that was more than weed and wine. The evening passed in a pleasant haze. The folk band played the right amount of wistfulness and hope to fill the atmosphere with positively charged pheromones. The flames danced in the hearths, and the regulars, merry with hooch and warm of feeling, danced on the flagstone floor. Annie danced with Paul, her bashfulness soon unwoven as the music plucked at the stitches that bound her. His arms felt nice wrapped around her, the heat from his palms splayed out across her back.

—

“Thank you for a lovely tour,” said Annie, as they meandered back through the quiet, dark streets.

“You’re welcome,” said Paul.

The cold night nipped at Annie’s fingers, but her body felt warm and the air between them was thick with expectation. They had reached the end of the path by which they must decide whether to continue the date or end it on a delicious good night. Annie’s heart was racing. She wasn’t sure which outcome she was hoping for, but she felt giddy with the excitement.

“Would you like to come back for a coffee?” Paul asked.

“Yes,” said Annie, and the decision was made.

Chapter 29

Annie lay very still. She hoped Paul was still asleep. She had woken after a fitful snooze and lain awake thereafter, pondering as the black slash of night between the curtains was slowly diluted by the encroaching dawn. She had a crick in her neck from sleeping on the small sofa in Paul’s bedroom. Things had not gone as she’d hoped.

She had expected a night of passion but instead ended up playing multiple games of pool downstairs in Paul’s games room until the early hours of the morning. Whereupon rather the worse for wear, she had collapsed onto the sofa among Paul’s discarded clothes and fallen asleep. What had begun as a night full of anticipation and sexual sparks had ended as a snogging shipwreck.