Page 7 of Love in Tune

‘If you were looking for Oprah you knocked the wrong door, sweetheart.’

The term of endearment landed soft and hard at the same time. Hal had managed to deliver it with a heavy side order of sarcasm that stripped out any potential kindness. But something made Honey wonder how it would feel to hear him say it under different circumstances, in a different tone of voice.

‘Is it too soon to ask for that whisky?’ he asked into the lengthening silence following his last remark.

Honey glanced at her watch. Three minutes. Seven to go. ‘Yup. Want to tell me about your day instead?’

‘Fuck off, Honeysuckle,’ he shot back, just as she’d expected that he would. Had she needled him on purpose? Potentially, and if she had it had backfired, because the way he’d said her name made it sound like … She let the pause extend this time.

‘Come on then, Mother Teresa. Tell me some more about this job you’re about to lose.’

‘It’s not so much my job I’m worried about. Well I am, obviously, but it’s Lucille and Mimi mostly, and all of the other residents.’ She paused and bit the inside of her lip. ‘They want me to spearhead a big campaign to fight the closure.’

She thought she heard him half laugh. ‘I hope you’re photogenic for the newspapers. Will you wear your girl guide uniform?’

‘Do you have to be such a cock all the time? This is the most serious thing that’s ever happened to me.’

She heard him sigh, deep and melancholy, and then the soft thud of something against the door, most probably his forehead as he leaned against it.

‘You don’t know how fucking lucky you are if this is the worst that life’s thrown at you, Honeysuckle.’

His voice was close to her ear, and she let the side of her head tip against the door. Against his voice. If the door were to magically disappear, they’d have found themselves sitting shoulder to shoulder, his mouth against her hair.

‘Sorry. Didn’t mean to be insensitive,’ she whispered, feeling a fool and checking her watch and finding that they still had five minutes to fill.

‘You weren’t insensitive. I was being a cock. It’s kind of been my way since the accident.’

It was the most genuine thing he’d said to her since she’d met him. ‘Want this whisky now?’

‘Does that mean our therapy session’s up?’

The ghost of a smile tipped her lips. ‘I’ll let you have this one on the house, rock star.’

‘Does that mean you’ve written me off as a hopeless case, Honeysuckle?’

Unexpected prickles of awareness stroked over the back of Honey’s neck.

He’d practically whispered in her ear, sexy and velvet soft words softened with the hint of a smile.

If the guy was ever inclined he could have a killer career on the radio, his voice had the capacity to stop a woman in her tracks.

Even a woman who didn’t especially like him.

She found herself smiling too. ‘The jury’s out, Hal. Maybe I’ll come by again tomorrow to fill you in some more on my soap opera life.’

‘It’ll beat the shit out of Coronation Street . Do people really watch that bollocks?’

Honey laughed lightly. ‘You mean you don’t?’ As soon as the words left her lips, she wanted to suck them straight back in again. ‘Shit Hal, I’m sorry,’ she mumbled. ‘Twice in five minutes is pretty rubbish, isn’t it?’

‘Just give me the whisky and I’ll forgive you.’

Honey could still hear the trace of humour and breathed out in relief.

He was a hard man to read; angry when it seemed unreasonable to be so, yet cool about things that might well have flared the temper of someone else in his position.

She could hear him moving behind the door and drew herself up onto her feet, the whisky in her hand.

She wouldn’t make the mistake of leaving obstacles in his path a second time.

As he opened his door and leaned against the frame, she found herself reassessing his appearance.

He was as dishevelled as yesterday, maybe more so.

A washed-out, rumpled grey t-shirt hung over his chest, in places not quite meeting the waist of his slouchy dark jeans.

His dark stubble told her that today was another day when he hadn’t had a hot date with his shaver, and his slightly too-long hair looked as if he’d pushed his hands through it all day, or else spent the day in bed with that horny blonde he’d alluded to.

‘Hey, rock star.’

Hal didn’t speak for a second, silent and inscrutable until she started to feel disconcerted, as if he were staring at her behind those glasses, which of course she knew he wasn’t. What was going through his head? Did she need to do something?

‘You smell of strawberries again.’

Of all of the things she’d expected him to say, that wasn’t it.

‘It must be my shampoo,’ she murmured, bewildered, touching her hair by reflex with her empty hand. ‘It’s strawberry scented.’

He nodded slightly, as if he’d sussed that much already.

‘What colour is it?’

‘My shampoo?’ she said, thrown. ‘It’s kind of pink, I think …?’

He sighed, and if he could have rolled his eyes, she felt sure he would’ve.

‘Your hair, Honey,’ he said. ‘What colour is it?’

‘Oh … blonde. It’s blonde.’ For information that would be readily available to a sighted person, it felt absurdly intimate.

He nodded again with a half smirk. ‘Figures.’

‘Cheap shot, rock star.’

He shrugged. ‘You made it too easy.’

‘I’m considering taking my whisky home with me.’

‘I know where you live.’

The idea of him leaving his flat and coming into hers made her itch with panic, and she held the whisky out uncertainly until the glass touched his hand.

‘Here.’

His fingers curled around the bottle, brushing hers, silencing them both.

‘Thanks,’ he muttered ungraciously, drawing it into his body as if she might take it away from him.

‘I’ll … I’ll go then,’ she said, waving towards her flat even though he couldn’t see the gesture.

He nodded, in that silent, brooding way that was fast becoming his trademark.

Stepping backwards, wavering in the no-man’s-land between their two front doors, Honey watched his stillness and wondered again what he was thinking of.

As she reached her doorway, she lifted her hand, an automatic gesture of goodbye even though he wouldn’t be aware of it.

‘See you tomorrow,’ she said softly, and for the third time that evening she wished she’d been more considerate with her words. Being around this guy was turning out to be a minefield.

He raised the bottle and inclined his head in quiet acknowledgment of her words, and Honey clicked her door closed.

Hal stood for a few moments longer in the hallway, glad of the fresh supply of whisky.

The scent of her lingered in the hallway, and he inhaled until his lungs were as full as they could be.

She was chaotic, and she was blonde, and she was the first person to not walk on eggshells around him since the accident eight months ago.

He pushed his door to and unscrewed the cap on the whisky.