Page 57 of Crazy in Love at the Lonely Hearts Bookshop
‘I’m starving!’ Nina announced. ‘Shall I do a deli run for us? I could murder a smoked-salmon and cream-cheese bagel. Are you guys in?’
‘Never mind that,’ Posy snapped. For someone who’d had a shop full of people spending money she’d spent the last couple of hours extremely snippy. ‘I want a word with you, young lady.’
Posy sounded horrifyingly like Nina’s mother, enough that Nina gave a guilty start and racked her brains as to what awful thing she might have done. ‘Is this about me giving you constant updates on our Instagram followers?’
‘No, but now that you mention it, that is beyond annoying,’ Posy said. She rested her hip against the counter and folded her arms. ‘But it’s not about that. It’s about you and Noah.’
Nina’s previous guilty start became more of a lurch. She managed to right herself because there was no way that Posy could know about her and Noah. There was hardly anything to know. It wasn’t as if Posy frequented Soho dirty burger joints or East End gin dens and as for in the shop? She and Noah had been the very definition of stealthy. ‘What about me and Noah?’ she punctuated the question with a little scoffing noise. ‘Aren’t you pleased that I’m being nice to him now?’
‘Nice? I don’t callthatnice!’ Posy cried, which was puzzling. ‘You and Noah …’
‘Yeah. Whatisgoing on with you and Noah? Honestly, I didn’t know where to put myself,’ added Verity, who was still lingering at the counter even though she usually had to be prised out of the office to help in the shop.
‘I don’t know what you two are banging on about,’ Nina said, picking up a pile of books that had been dumped on one of the sofas. ‘He was helping me with the Instagram stuff. He did use to work for Google, you know.’
‘Yes, I do know that but how doyouknow that?’ Posy demanded. ‘What is going on between you? I mean, what’s with all the flirting? Am I right, Very?’
Verity nodded eagerly. ‘You were practically eating each other up with your eyes.’
‘Yes!’ Posy clasped her hands together in agreement. ‘Doing things with your eyes that made me go red.’
‘Everything makes you go red,’ Nina said crisply.
‘Nina!’ Posy came out from behind the counter so she could stalk towards Nina who quickly moved to the other side of the shop. ‘And how did he know that you have special gunk to put on your tattoo?’
‘I might have mentioned it in passing,’ Nina mumbled.
‘And yesterday the office door was open and I could have sworn I saw Noah putting a hand on your back,’ Verity said.
‘Oh, don’t be so Victorian,’ Nina said scathingly. ‘There could be a hundred reasons for Noah to put his hand on my back …’
‘OK, then, name three of them …’
‘The problem with you two is that because you’ve hooked up and settled down, you expect everyone else to do the same,’ Nina said, warming to her theme now. ‘But I’ve told you a million times, I don’t want to settle down. Yuck! No offence.’
‘None taken, I’m sure,’ Posy said a little huffily. ‘Anyway, Noah doesn’t want to settle down either. He’s always off travelling and ziplining through jungles and stuff. Sebastian says it’s a wonder that Noah hasn’t broken his neck yet or been kidnapped by a Bolivian drug cartel and held for ransom. Not really your type, Nina.’
‘I have adventures,’ Nina bit out.
‘Yeah, but your adventures seem to involve drinking too much vodka and copping off with thoseawfulmen you meet online,’ said Posy crushingly. Nina wouldn’t be asking her for a character reference any time soon.
‘It’s weird though because Merry swore blind that she saw you the other night in this burger place in Soho with a bloke who she said wasn’t your usual sort,’ Verity mused. She pulled her phone out of the back pocket of her jeans. ‘She took a photo. I said I didn’t want to see it because it was an invasion of your privacy but I’ve changed my mind. I’m texting her right now.’
Nina pretended to put a book back in its rightful place but really she was clutching on to the shelf for support. ‘Your sister took a photo ofme? Well, that’s an infringement of my civil liberties!’
‘Says the woman who took a photo of Johnny the night she and Posy stalked me to the restaurant where we both were and then showed it to that same sister,’ Verity said, which was neither here nor there as far as Nina was concerned. She was actually far more concerned about the ping on Verity’s phone signalling that a text message had just arrived. ‘Oh my goodness! Yes! That absolutely is you!’
‘I bet it absolutely isn’t!’ Nina hurried closer so she could see the damning evidence for herself. ‘It doesn’t even look like me!’ she insisted, though the pink-haired woman in the photo …
‘Looks exactly like you!’ Posy cried. She snatched the phone from Verity’s hand. ‘And that looks exactly like Noah! You and Noah! Eating burgers! Drinking alcohol! You were on a date with him! How? How did this happen? When did it happen? Why did it happen? How long has this been going on? Why didn’t you tell me?’
Posy was pacing around in little circles as she spat out her endless questions. There was a very real possibility that something in Posy’s brain would short circuit. Hopefully. Because try as hard as she could (and she really was trying hard), Nina couldn’t think of any innocent reason why she and Noah would be eating dirty burgers and drinking whisky cocktails.
‘All right, all right … Posy, please stop that, you’re making me dizzy,’ Nina pleaded and when Posy came to a halt, it was time for the truth. ‘Noah and I … Yes, OK, we were on a date. But it was a non-date! And then we went on another non-date, except he didn’t know it was a non-date but then it turned into a date.’
‘WHAT?’ Posy was back to walking in circles on the spot again. ‘This is big. It’shuge.’
‘Really not that huge,’ Nina said a little desperately.
