‘That’s amazing,’ I interrupted as Drew shook my puny hand in his meaty paw. I held his gaze as long as I could without turning to stone, such a brazen hussy. ‘Mum, could you get me some punch? I’m running low.’
She pointed at the full cup on the table. ‘What’s that then?’
I picked it up, drained it in one gulp and put it back down.
‘I’ll go and get you some punch,’ Mum said, something like grudging respect on her face. ‘You two have a lovely chat.’
‘Nice to finally meet you,’ Drew said, clutching a thimbleful of punch in his giant man-hand. ‘Your mum talks about you all the time.’
‘Please tell me she hasn’t been trying to get you into her aqua-aerobics classes?’ I replied, batting my absurd eyelashes.
‘Aye, but that’s not just your mum,’ he laughed. His eyes crinkled, his accent warm and smoky, and I wondered how his arrival had impacted cholesterol levels in the village. ‘They’re a friendly bunch here.’
‘Very friendly,’ I purred. ‘Do you like making friends, Drew?’
He spluttered into his punch and cleared his throat.
‘Your mum said you’re a lawyer?’ he said, yankingslightly on the collar of his Fair Isle jumper. ‘That must be interesting.’
‘Not as interesting as being a butcher,’ I replied. Seduction tip number one according to the eighteen trillion YouTube videos Manny and I had watched while doing my hair, ask them questions about themselves. ‘How did you get into that?’
‘My dad was a butcher, and his dad and his dad.’ He relaxed into his chair and I silently thanked Gen Z for the assist. ‘Bit like you and your dad, isn’t it? He’s a lawyer as well, your mum said.’
‘Mmm.’ I licked my lips and tried not to gag on the mouthful of cinnamon-flavoured plumping gloss that came back stuck to my tongue. ‘And what brought you to Baslow?’
‘My dad’s side of the family are from here. Moving this far wasn’t part of my original plan but I saw the listing and you’ll have to forgive me for sounding like an Instagram post, it felt like fate. The perfect shop showing up in the village where my dad grew up? As soon as I came to visit I knew I had to take a chance. We’ve got to take chances in life, haven’t we?’
‘We have,’ I agreed, reaching across the table and clasping his hand in mine. ‘Taking chances is so important.’
‘Aye, OK.’ He wriggled his hand free and picked up his punch. Discomfort written all over his gorgeous face.
‘Do you enjoy it?’ I asked, casually unfastening the buttons of my coat. ‘Butchering?’
As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them. There had to be another term for it, surely?
‘I do, there’s an art to it,’ he said, recovering his blinding smile. ‘It can get in the way of my love life though.’
My fingers fumbled with the last button and I looked up sharply to make sure I wasn’t imagining things. He’d mentioned his love life! This was it, I was in! With an incredibly sexy mountain of a man who could keep me in free sausages for life!
‘I can’t imagine a man like you has any problems in that department,’ I demurred, running the belt of my trench through my fingers. Seduction tip number two, flattery will get you everywhere.
‘Ahh, you’d be surprised.’
He looked off out into the garden for a moment before pulling his phone out of his pocket and swiping it into life. I was losing him, shit, I was losing him. What was tip number three? Let him know you’re interested? Physical contact? Give him a blowjob in the back seat of his parents’ car while they’re driving it? No, I’d been watching too muchEuphoria. I just needed to get him talking again. But it was so much more difficult to keep the conversation going with Drew. He wasn’t nearly as easy to talk to as Dev.
Right on cue, over Drew’s slab of a shoulder, I saw Dev walk through the conservatory door with his parents, all three Joneses still wearing their coats and presumably not because they were nearly naked underneath. Like me.
I caught Dev’s eye and smiled, my whole heart filling with joy at the very sight of him. Recognition flickered in his eyes and he lifted the corners of his mouth politely before he turned away to speak to his mother. My heart deflated on the next beat. If only he could remember.
‘Do you think you’d be a butcher if you hadn’t got the idea from your dad?’ I blurted out as Drew tapped away at his phone.
‘Good question.’ He put his phone on the table and pulled a thinking face as I watched Dev disappear from the room, fighting off the feeling of sadness that came as he went. ‘I became a butcher because of my dad but that’s not why Iama butcher today. If I hadn’t enjoyed it, I wouldn’t have carried on with it. Must be the same for you, with the law? Would you have gone into it if it weren’t for your dad?’
I wound the belt of my trench coat around my hand until it was so tight, I couldn’t feel my fingers. ‘I don’t know,’ I admitted. ‘If I could make the choice again, I don’t know what I’d do.’
‘We make that choice every single day,’ Drew said with a kind smile. ‘Each morning when you get up and go to work, you’re choosing it, aren’t you?’
The thought had never occurred to me. He was right. I might have got into law for other people but I stayed because I loved it, didn’t I? The long days, the late nights, the working weekends and cancelled holidays. The competition, the judgement, the constant panic that came with not feeling quite good enough and the overwhelming pressure that manifested in me chucking a stapler at my client’s head. Who wouldn’t love that?