I winced.
‘It’s Jenny. Jenny Thompson.’
There was a pause.
‘Hello Jenny. Jenny Thompson.’
My grip tightened around the phone, every second of silence that ticked by more painful than the last. Why was this so awkward? It’s not like anything happened the other night. We’d walked. We’d talked. Nothing more. Maybe the fact nothing had happenedwasthe issue?
‘Did you just phone to say hello, or—?’
‘Yes. I mean, no. I was .?.?. I was just phoning to .?.?. Apologise. For. The. Other. Night.’ My voice was almost robotic as I followed along with the words Alice was mouthing at me across the bar.
‘No apology necessary,’ Luca said simply, and my heart slowed a fraction in my chest.
‘Well, sorry for being all weird and disappearing on you like that.’
‘Hey, I would have done the same. If you see a taxi on a Saturday night at peak time, you’ve just got to take it. Those things are about as rare as unicorns.’ I heard my breath echo down the phone, a sigh of appreciation at all the things Luca had chosen not to say. All the things he knew I wasn’t ready to talkabout.
‘Was that it?’ His voice was warm with humour as it crackled down the phone.
‘Um .?.?.’
Alice mouthed something at me that I couldn’t make out.
‘I, err .?.?.’
Jacob performed some sort of weird hand-to-mouth action, miming cutting something in front of him and chewing it. What was this, fucking charades? I’d always been terrible at charades. No one wanted me on their team at Christmas.
‘Food!’ I blurted out before I could stop myself. The silence on the other end of the line was so deafening I had to remove the phone from my ear and check Luca hadn’t ended the call. I wouldn’t have blamed him if he had.
‘Sorry?’
‘I said, do you eat food?’ I shook my head at the words coming out of my mouth. How was that any better? Judging by the way Jacob covered his face with his hands, he shared my pain.
‘Yes, Thompson, I eat food.’ Luca’s tone was light, tinged with humour, and I could just picture that teasing hint of a smile playing with the corner of his mouth.
I pushed my bottom lip forward with my tongue.
‘Of course you do. You are human,’ I groaned, spinning in a circle and yanking at the end of my ponytail with more force than a woman who already lost a considerable ball of hair in the shower every day should. Alice had produced a medical pad from her bag, pen lid clamped between her teeth as she hastily scribbled something down before turning the page to face me.
Ask him if he wants to grab dinner!!
I shook my head at her, trying to ignore her aggressive stabbing of the page with her pen to get my attention. Oh, fuck it.
‘How about you come to the pub for dinner on Friday? My treat, for disappearing on you the other night.’ I only realised I was holding my breath when Luca’s answer came, short and blunt.
‘I can’t.’
‘Oh. Sure. No problem. Forget I even asked,’ I said, forcing a casual indifference despite the sting of rejection.
I was about to hang up when Luca added, ‘I’d like to, it’s just .?.?.’
‘It’s fine,’ I said abruptly, cutting him off before I could hear whatever lame excuse he’d come up with in those five seconds of awkward silence.
‘If you’d let me get a word in, I was going to say I’ve already got plans on Friday night.’
Of course he did. This was the guy who had women throwing phone numbers at him left, right and centre. He probably had a date lined up every night this week.
