Page 50 of Love and Loathing

“Domnall on board yet?”

“Not quite.”

A pause.

“I had a nose around your flat,” she said.

“Of course you did.”

“Not in the cupboards. Or not many of them. You only have two books on your bookshelf, and they’re bothCatch-22by Joseph Heller.”

“I use an ereader. And I don’t get much time to read.”

“My point was…you really likeCatch-22, huh? Figures. Because it’s probably the most cynical book in the world.”

“Not quite. And my favourite book used to be Kafka’sMetamorphosis. So you can see how much I’ve improved.”

She laughed. “But why have two copies?”

“One is the ancient paperback I first took to university with me and have had ever since. The other is a first edition.”

“So I shouldn’t have used it as a coaster?”

He narrowed his eyes. She grinned, then paused again while he started making a salad to go with the pizzas while the oven preheated.

“What I don’t understand…is that you’re clearly quite intelligent, and you could do any job you wanted, so why do you do this one?”

He slowly sliced a tomato very thinly.

“I’m good at it, Evie. And it pays very well.”

“And that’s all you care about?”

“When it comes to work, yes.”

Her frowning disapproval was obvious across the kitchen, but he ignored it, prepping some more salad, getting the pizzas from the freezer—her vegan one, and his own embodiment of sin with its cheese, and, gasp, pepperoni.

“But do you enjoy it?” Evie asked.

He gave her a look. “I don’t really enjoy many things. A job is a job. I can like something and get satisfaction from it without needing to break into rhapsodies.”

Her brow wrinkled. He could tell she was trying to work out how much of that was his humour and how much the truth. He wasn’t sure himself.

“You act like you don’t care,” she said slowly, pondering it aloud. “But that’s not true. The way you feel about Liv—”

“I’m over Liv.”

Her look was highly sceptical. “Just like that?”

“If that’s what you call the wake-up call after ten years of painful realisation, then, yes, just like that.”

“At Conyers, at that awards party—”

“I’ve had some gum since then,” he said, smiling dryly. “Someone slapped me with a big old patch. Come here.”

She came, a little hesitantly, still sceptical, but stood before him, head at its usual haughty angle. He didn’t fight the urge this time, but kissed her, taking her defiant chin in his fingers and tilting her face. A closed-mouth press of lips, his eyes on hers.

“This I enjoy,” he said.

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