‘Hi!’ I managed, eventually, after a painfully big swallow. Thank goodness this place served such tender meat or it would have dragged on forever.
‘Um, is it okay if I…’ Sam nodded at the chair opposite me. ‘I don’t want to cause even more of a scene.’
‘No, of course.’ I patted my mouth with a napkin, tempted for a second to just drape it over my head and stay there until everyone had gone home.
‘I’m so embarrassed, and annoyed,’ he said, as soon as he’d shuffled the chair as close to the table as possible so he could speak more quietly.
‘Oh. Um, sorry…’
‘No, not at you!’ He shook his head. ‘At Megan. Interfering old bat. She messaged and said to come over as soon as possible, and when I called to ask why she turned her phone off. I thought Tom must have choked on a chicken bone or something.’
‘So what?’ I ate a forkful of fondant potato. I wasn’t missing out on this meal, no matter what drama accompanied it. ‘I was the emergency?’
‘Megan assumed you’d been stood up.’
‘And needed rescuing?’
‘Precisely. And before you ask, this is more about me than it is you. She’s been desperate to set me up ever since… well. Since I’ve been single. Despite me telling her repeatedly that the last thing I want is a serious relationship.’
The last thing he wants…
Good to know.
Well, actually it was rubbish to know, but at least I knew before I’d completed the Dream List and asked him out or something even more embarrassing.
‘So she calls you any time she sees a random woman out alone?’
He sighed. ‘Mum told her that you had dinner with me the other week. They were practically planning wedding outfits. I did say that if anything you’re even less interested in a relationship than I am. We’re friends, and there’s no point hoping we’ll become anything else.’
Again, good/rubbish to know. I swallowed back the lump of humiliation now blocking my throat and tried not to think about how Steph and I had been discussing my wedding dress only a few days earlier. I could pretend that had nothing to do with Sam, except that we’d considered adding gold beading to match his eyes.
‘So we’re friends?’ I offered a smile, to show how nice and friendly and chilled I was.
‘Don’t smile!’ he muttered urgently. ‘It’ll only encourage her.’
At that point, the ma?tre d’ appeared like a ghost out of nowhere. ‘Sir, will you be joining madam?’
Sam shifted in his seat, a faint blush rising up his cheeks that completely contradicted everything he’d just said. My foolish heart pounded a little harder against my ribs. ‘Is that okay?’ he asked, glancing first at the ma?tre d’， then at me.
‘You might as well stay now you’re here,’ I said, trying hard to keep my smile under control. ‘Seeing as we’re friends.’
‘Very good.’ The ma?tre d’ nodded. ‘Can I get you anything, then, sir? A drink, perhaps, or the menu?’
Sam ordered a coffee, we both ordered the same dessert, and then we were alone again.
He looked at me before dropping his gaze to the table and then back up, the question bubbling under his skin.
‘Go on, ask me,’ I said, my stomach deliciously full.
‘It’s none of my business.’
‘And? If we only ever asked questions that were our business it’d be a pretty rubbish conversation.’
‘Were you stood up?’ he asked, after hesitating for another moment.
‘No.’
‘So this was part of the Dream List?’
My stupid, starving hormones couldn’t help pinging to attention at how his face shone with relief.
‘Well, duh!’ I grinned, admiring the beautiful room. ‘What kind of a Dream Man wouldn’t have brought me here.’
‘This place only opened a few months ago. I thought you made the list when you were at school.’
Reminder to self: Sam never forgets anything I say.
‘It’s an evolving document. Not sure Pizza Hut is quite my idea of a dream date these days.’
‘Fair enough.’ He paused while the waitress delivered our coffee and chocolate crémeux. ‘So, the other night…？’
‘A romantic dinner for one.’
He automatically glanced down at my jumpsuit.
‘I think Megan and Tom are trying to say goodbye,’ I said after a few seconds, breaking the loaded silence.