Page 112 of Mad About You

Instead of looking back on a brief, strange, but golden time and rejoicing, they’d both get a squirmy sense ofwhat happened there?at the thought of one another.

‘Sure, but … will we make much sense after I stop being your tenant?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’m not sure our worlds collide all that much, outside these four walls.’

Cal’s brow knitted. ‘You can choose the pub.’

‘The thing is, if I met your next girlfriend and she was another Hot Thatcher, I couldn’t stand it. I know too much.’

‘Ah. Right.’

Harriet winced at the sting of her rejection, a poor return for his warmth. She was lying to him, to look cool. It wasn’t about his taste in other women. It was about other women, full stop.

‘If she was nice, I’d probably hate that even more.’

Clunk.Oh right. She hadn’t given herself a heads-up she was going tosort of tell him.

Harriet drank her wine and Cal looked over, gazing at her steadily.

‘Yes. I’m not mad keen to shake hands with the next Travel Iron Jon. Assuming he doesn’t just knee me in the nuts.’

Harriet laughed, glad of generous rescue.

There was a beat of silence, which Harriet instinctively recognised as one of those split-second moments where everything hangs in the balance.

‘And if he’s nice. That will be even worse.’

Oh.Oh.

He was using not only her line, but those eyes on her. She was looking at his mouth. This was bad. Harriet felt as if she was starting to liquefy.

She thought amid the heavy flirting, she’d best reassert some reality: ‘You’re not still seeing the girl you’ve been seeing, then?’

Cal squinted. ‘What girl?’

‘Lorna said when you were at her restaurant, it was with a date.’

This made it a little too obvious that Cal had been discussed in a certain way, but sod it – there were fewer than twenty-four hours left around him.

‘Er …’ Cal frowned. ‘Divertimento …? Ah, that was my sister! Erin.’

‘Oh, right.’

‘I’ve not dated anyone since Kit.’

‘Right,’ Harriet said, awkwardly. ‘And you’re not … sleeping with Kristina?’

‘Oh God, you DID you see my phone that evening!’

‘Er. Yes,’ Harriet said.

‘That was her idea of a joke and an attempt to fuck me up.’

Cal pulled his phone out of his pocket and scrolled to a conversation, turned the screen to face Harriet. ‘Ignore her jealous jibes about you. I did.’

Kit

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