His face told me he didn’t believe me. ‘It doesn’t. I’m lucky to have inherited a pretty fast metabolism so that helps and I’m not a fan of junk food anyway, which, again, helps. I just like to keep track of things, that’s all.’

‘Of everything, it seems.’

I gave a small shrug. ‘As I said, I like my life organised.’

‘Fair enough,’ Lorcan said, stretching his back, raising his arms above his head.. I looked away, as casually as I could and gave Bod, currently curled on my lap, a fuss. Lorcan’s indisputably attractive body was the one thing I definitely didn’t need to make a note of. ‘Just seems like planning every single aspect of your life like you do might suck the joy out of it. Don’t you crave spontaneity? Surprise? Living for the moment?’

‘No. I don’t. I don’t like surprises.’

Lorcan had now crouched down in front of me and looked up from where he was giving Bod a treat for having been such a good boy through lunch. ‘What do you mean you don’t like surprises? Everyone likes surprises.’

‘Clearly not.’

‘What sort of person doesn’t?’

I let out a sigh and reached down into my bag to pull out my laptop that I’d plugged in last night so that it would be fully charged for today.

‘How long do you think you’ll be?’ I asked, checking my watch and signalling the previous conversation was well and truly closed. I certainly wasn’t about to tell Lorcan that once upon a time I’d been far more free-spirited and had loved surprises. Our whole family had been the type to wake up on a Sunday, randomly pick a place on the map, grab a picnic and go. One time we’d even just driven to the airport and asked what flights they had. Mum had packed some cold-weather clothes and some warmer-weather ones, hedging her bets, and we’d ended up with ten days in Montana, somewhere we probably would never have gone if we’d sat down and thought about it. But that was then. Things happen. Things change. Now planning was not only my career – it was my coping mechanism for life.

23

‘You going to jot that down in one of your notebooks too?’ Lorcan asked.

‘No. Just in my phone so I know when to be ready to leave.’

He shrugged his shoulders. ‘A couple of hours. I don’t know exactly.’

‘Oh. I see. Well, that gives me some idea.’

‘It doesn’t matter. The café stays open late and I’ve set up a tab so you can get as many drinks or anything else as you’d like.’