‘No apology necessary. This is a decent bottle,’ Sam said, picking it up to read the label, before holding it up to me. ‘Shall we?’
‘Um… were you looking for me, or…？’ I asked, sitting down next to him.
‘Oh, yes, I was out walking the girls, and realised that I was right by your back hedge, and I heard Joan, meaning you were probably up, so thought I’d call in and see how it went today.’
‘Oh, I see.’
Or rather, I saw that Sam had just made up a convoluted excuse to visit me on a Friday night. When I started pouring, I felt so jittery that I slopped wine all over the table.
‘I must have arrived just as you went inside. But like I said, your neighbour offered me a drink.’ He took a paper napkin from the pile I’d brought out at dinner and started mopping up the mess. ‘I hope I’m not disturbing your plans?’
‘My plan was to sit here and have a drink with a friend until the stars come out. Seeing as that friend has bailed on me, I can cope with that being you instead.’
‘Excellent.’
We sat there pretending to admire the lovely surroundings while in reality the peace of the evening had been engulfed by strange tension and unspoken subtext that I had no idea how to interpret. If Ebenezer had wanted to kindle some romance, he’d instead managed to snuff out any trace of embers.
After a while, Sam suddenly spoke. ‘So, um, how did it go at the hospital?’
‘Better than any of us hoped. Any of us apart from Joan, that is.’
The tension gradually dissipated as we spoke about everything that had happened. Sam asked what the plan was for when Leanne left hospital, and when my throat seized up before I could finish explaining that they might all go back to Chester, him reaching across the shadows and taking my hand seemed completely natural.
A few seconds later, the music started.
‘Is that a coincidence, or is he some sort of peeping Tom?’ Sam asked, dropping my hand as he glanced over his shoulder at Ebenezer’s now open kitchen window.
‘Maybe he had one quick peep, concluded that his plan must be working and moved to stage two.’
‘His plan?’ Sam looked back at me, teeth glinting in amusement.
‘He thinks that you might be interested in being more than friends,’ I mumbled. ‘I’ve told him that’s not the case.’
‘Ah. Okay.’ Sam’s voice was low. I huddled back in my chair, not sure whether to be hideously embarrassed, to shrug it off as a hilarious joke between friends or to hope that somehow, Ebenezer might end up being right.
Sam raised his eyebrows at me in invitation, holding out his hand as the music twined around us. I had to smile and shake my head when I realised that Ebenezer had put on ‘Perfect’ by Ed Sheeran. When it got to the line about dancing in the dark, barefoot in the grass, the wine mingling with the attraction in my veins decided it would be rude not to.
How many opportunities did a woman have to dance under the stars with a stunningly handsome man? In my case, only one so far, and history would strongly imply that there wouldn’t be a second. I would be a fool to pass this up.
Sam placed one hand on the small of my back, his other hand clasping mine and pressed between our chests as we swayed, and, resting my head on his shoulder, feeling the smooth skin of his neck and the pulse that hammered beneath it, the evening was about as close to perfect as it gets.
When the song finished, Sam whispered, ‘Is he going to give us a round of applause, or hold up a mark out of ten?’ and we both started laughing, so that when he pulled back and fixed his gaze on mine, it caught me off guard.
Sam looked deadly serious as his eyes locked onto mine. This did not feel fun or light-hearted. My heart had never felt so full and heavy with emotions that were nothing to do with friendship.
His mouth twitched slightly as he dropped his gaze to my lips.
‘I would really like to kiss you,’ he whispered, voice hoarse.
I had to close my eyes to push beyond the building passion and find one last smithereen of reason.
This was Sam, my friend, and I really, really wanted him to kiss me.
But this was Sam. My friend. And I didn’t want to do something stupid in a moment of summer madness that would ruin our friendship forever.
If for one second I could think beyond this kiss, I could see what would follow. And every possible scenario ended with him having to tell me that he’d been honest from the start about what he wanted, and me walking away from our friendship with my emotions in tatters.
‘That’s… I can’t…’ I stammered back. ‘The No-Man Mandate…’