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‘So which seasons would you like?’ I ask him, the pizza cutter in my hand.
‘Lady’s choice,’ he says. It’s bizarre how he looks so different to me at the moment. The blue eyes, the scruffy hair, but I find myself looking at the curve of his collarbone through his green knitted jumper, the lines of his neck.
‘Nope, you’re the one driving tomorrow. You came down to meet me.’ He points at the olives and the mushrooms and I smile.
‘He’s a man of excellent taste,’ I say.
‘The best,’ he mocks, looking over at me. Oh, he’s talking about me. I blush.
‘So I need to apologise…’ Leo tells me, turning his plate and looking down at his pizza.
I furrow my brow to work out why. ‘How come?’
‘After the other night…’ My body tenses to hear him talk about it in open conversation. So far we’d avoided it with banter and knowing looks. ‘We fell asleep and you messaged me to say hello and I…I wasn’t ignoring you,’ he continues.
‘I didn’t think you were,’ I tell him. ‘But you did leave a…hefty pause.’
‘I guess I was worried we’d overstepped. I didn’t want you to lose respect for me. I didn’t want to jeopardise our friendship,’ he says sincerely.
I have a feeling I know what he means. This could end up one of two ways and, if this wasn’t going to work out, we’d still be colleagues and stuck in that basement for an eternity. Never mind my own lingering dilemma over whether I’d possibly haveto make him redundant. I’m not sure any early stages of a relationship could handle that.
‘I appreciate that, I really do. It was a moment we got caught up in and I am sorry but not sorry. It was good moment.’
‘A good moment?’ he repeats, laughing.
I bite into a mouthful of molten cheese to try and avoid answering and make him laugh as I puff out my cheeks trying to control the temperature. He hands me a glass of water and I take a prolonged sip.
‘So the pause was you panicking then?’ I ask.
‘I wasn’t alone. I panicked with Frank. In fact, we both panicked together.’
‘Because of me?’
‘Oh no. I panicked because of you. Frank panicked because he also saw parts of you that he shouldn’t, but he was also in a tizzy because Norah?—’
I clap my hands together to hear my matchmaking may have gone well. ‘Did they kiss?’ I ask.
‘Have you not met Frank? Of course not. But they had fun and agreed to meet up for dim sum. He was beside himself with worry about what to do next so we sat there together in my bed, and we ate wedding cake and strategised.’
‘You strategised? I enquire.
‘Yes, Frank and I went online and bought him some new trousers, a hoodie and some very cool trainers,’ he tells me. ‘You’ll not recognise him next time you see him.’
I nod.
‘And what about you? What’s your strategy when it comes to me? I have to say I am not a computer game, just putting that out there,’ I tell him, taking a ring of calamari. ‘I’m pretty easy.’
Leo chokes on a piece of pizza and a mushroom flies out to my side of the table.
‘I meant if I were a game, I would be easy to work out. No hidden levels, no tricks. I’m…’
‘The same Maggie I’ve been falling for over these last four years,’ he says, and there’s a pause. Four years. He smiles and looks down at his pizza, realising he’s said too much.
‘Four years would assume you knew when we met?’ I ask him, laughing.
He shrugs. ‘Well, I’d only been in London three weeks. I was like some wide-eyed lad from the sticks, walked into this swanky office then there was you. I’d never met a girl like you.’
‘A girl who knew how to write code?’ I joke.
