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‘You also said you had a fever. Do I need to WebMD this?’ he asks, grabbing a used coffee stirrer to prod it a bit. ‘Is that tender?’
I suck air through my teeth, half-laughing to see Leo’s expert doctor skills at play. ‘I mean, what’s the worst that could happen?’
‘You could lose your thumb and then you’d be redundant to us in IT.’
I fake a smile, thinking about his choice of words. ‘The hope, however, is that the little fox bit me and has now passed on his special powers to me.’
‘Special fox powers?’ he asks me, amused.
‘Yes, I’d be good at going through bins and invading people’s trampolines.’
‘Orange catsuit,’ Leo adds.
‘Exactly,’ I say po-faced.
‘Here, hold still,’ he tells me and he uses his phone to take a picture of it.
‘I hope you’re turning that into your Christmas card this year,’ I ask him, watching him text someone.
‘Nope, I’m sending it over to my sister, she’s a pharmacist. She’ll know what to do and she can get us some good drugs.’
‘Amen to that. A pharmacist?’ I enquire.
‘Claire. The other, Gabby, owns a farm shop,’ he says, stills typing. ‘She is the reason our cheeseboard will be extraordinary tomorrow.’ I nod as he finishes messaging and looks up at me. I know you but there’s still a lot to find out. Like if his sister does homemade jams and chutneys in cute jars then I would like to go there. He breaks off a bit of biscuit and hands it to me. ‘Here, make sure you eat and drink at least. Do you need any painkillers?’
I like the concern and care in his face, and quite randomly I think back to moments in the office when he was always like this yet I hadn’t seen it back then. Times when I’d be struggling with workload and he’d send me a meme about higher management to make me laugh or others when he’d sense I was a tad menstrual and leave random chocolate on my desk. I nibble on the biscuit as he looks over my shoulder.
‘See? I’m not the only one who does dates at a services,’ Leo says, urging me to turn around. Across the way, a couple sit at another table, tucking into a Burger King and both wearing crowns. Sweet. I look at the woman at the table and recogniseher as the person from the toilet queue. Eve. That must be her fiancé. ‘That’s some high romance right there.’
‘Quite randomly, I spoke to her in the toilet actually. Her name is Eve,’ I tell him.
‘Fitting.’
‘That’s what I said.’
Eve notices me from across the way and waves, whispering something to her fiancé – a handsome man with brown hair, the sort that looks like he knows what a gym is. She obviously says something funny and they both laugh. Hopefully not at us because they’re the ones wearing Burger King crowns in the middle of a crowded services. I watch as her fiancé puts a hand to hers, affectionately, over their onion rings.
‘They met at Christmas actually. That’s what she told me,’ I say turning back to Leo.
‘Did he charm her with his Whopper?’ he replies, and I laugh so hard that I snort a quite attractively.
‘Apparently, she told him how she felt on Christmas Day,’ I inform him.
‘I get that. It’s the “Frankie Goes to Hollywood” effect, isn’t it?’
‘Because you’re more relaxed at Christmas?’ I answer.
He laughs. ‘“The Power of Love”.’ He’s said the word, not me. I mean I did allude to our kids back in London but the l-word is different territory. I see his cheeks blush to realise that himself.
‘Well, they’re now engaged,’ I tell him, signalling back to Eve and her fella. Yet again, Leo doesn’t look fazed. He’s so certain about this, isn’t he? He says nothing but smiles and looks out of the window, sipping his coffee. Outside the snow has started to settle and we watch as flurries of flakes drift across the window. I always love the silence of snow, the way you can’t hear it land on the ground but it lights up the ground and shadows around us.
‘Winter is coming,’ Leo says, his blue eyes looking up at the clouds.
‘Alright then, Ned Stark…’ I joke.
He smiles broadly. We’re geeks.Game of Thronesjokes are the norm but he has no idea he’s made himself a thousand times more attractive to me.
‘Let’s get you to the North then, boss,’ he says, grinning.
