The Piano Man Project (27 page)

Thursday ran into Friday, and finally the weekend arrived with a burst of pale sunshine. Honey woke just after dawn on Saturday morning full of nervous energy, and then forced herself back to sleep and slept in late. Most of the week before had been spent laying down surreptitious plans for Sunday. Every customer in the shop had left with a few hastily prepared flyers in with their purchases asking for their support, and Old Don’s son had called in a favour from a buddy at the local radio station to ensure that the word would be spread quickly come Sunday morning. They’d been careful to keep things as covert as possible to shield the plan from Christopher’s ears, and so far their luck had held.

Honey lay back on her pillows. Should she see if Hal fancied breakfast? The last few days had surely taught them how to be around each other like normal human beings, right? They ought to be able to manage bacon and eggs unsupervised without fighting or throwing themselves at each other. She could prove once and for all that she could cook bacon, or maybe he could teach her to make the American pancakes that the residents at the home had become addicted to over the last few days.

‘Like little clouds,’ Lucille had sighed.

‘Or pillows,’ Mimi had nodded.

Pillowy pancakes sounded good. Honey pulled herself up, and then reached for her phone when it buzzed and flopped back to check her messages.

Brunch?
from Nell.

Café at eleven?
from Tash.

Honey considered her options. A slow, chatty wake up with Nell and Tash over buckets of cappuccino and food she didn’t have to cook herself, or risk being knocked back by Dr Jekyll over the way? Only one of those options offered anything close to certainty or safety, or even a guarantee of food.

She sent a text to both girls.
See you there in an hour
.

An hour somehow became an hour and fifteen, and Honey pushed the café door open expecting to find Tash and Nell already halfway down their first cups of coffee and berating her for her lateness. Weird then, that neither of them were in evidence at all. Tash wasn’t especially known for her punctuality, but Nell hated running late for anything. She was the only person Honey knew who set her phone alarm to wake her up ten minutes before her alarm clock, just in case. She also knew what Simon had started to use those extra ten minutes for these days, thanks to a tipsy conversation when Nell had revealed far too much about their suddenly sexed-up love life. Ordering her usual coffee as she passed the counter, Honey dropped down onto a well-squished sofa and threw her bag on the floor beside her.

After leafing through the paper for five minutes with one eye on the door, Honey reached down and rummaged in the bottom of her bag for her phone.

‘Ma’am, are you Honeysuckle?’

Keeping her eyes cast downwards for a couple of seconds, Honey stopped rummaging and realised she’d been had. She knew without looking up that Elvis had just entered the building.

Turning her face up and her smile on, she slid her phone onto the low coffee table and pulled herself to her feet.

‘I am,’ she said, half holding out her hand awkwardly and trying to remember his name, because she was pretty sure it wasn’t actually Elvis.

He grinned infectiously as he took her hand in his big warm one and dipped his head to kiss her cheek. Honey smelled fresh cologne and washing powder, and found herself impressed by his cleanliness and his big easy confident kid smile.

‘Christian,’ he murmured. ‘Shall we?’ He nodded towards a table for two by the window. ‘I’m starving.’

He pulled out her chair and transferred her coffee to the new table, and while he talked eggs with the waitress, Honey fired off a quick text to Tash and Nell.

You’re both dead to me.

The waitress looked enquiringly towards Honey with her pad in her hand.

‘I’ll have the same,’ she said with a bright smile, even though she’d tuned out and had no idea what Christian had ordered.

He raised his eyebrows. ‘I like a girl with a healthy appetite.’

Honey shrugged, unconcerned. She’d eaten at the café dozens of times, there wasn’t anything on the menu she didn’t like.

‘So Tash tells me you play the piano,’ Honey opened the conversation with an invitation to talk about himself, as advised by all the best guides to a successful first date.

He nodded, and pushed his fingers through his chestnut brown hair when it fell in his eyes. Cute, in a Clark Kent kind of way.

‘My whole family’s musical. My mother is a brilliant cellist, she went all around the world when she was younger. That’s how she met my dad,’ he said, as Honey listened to his deep, rich voice and wondered if he sang.

‘Is he a musician too?’

Christian laughed. ‘Actually no, he isn’t. He’s a surgeon. He fixed Mom’s arm when she broke it and feared she’d never play again. She likes to say she was so grateful that she married him.’

Honey relaxed as she listened to him tell her about the rest of his family. They sounded a scarily bright bunch; his brother, the violinist, his elder sister, the talented flautist.

‘You’ve got your own band right there,’ she smiled, impressed.

‘I know. Move over the Von Trapps, right?’

They paused as the waitress appeared with a pot of tea and placed it down on the table with a couple of fresh cups.

‘English breakfast tea,’ she said. ‘I’ll be right back with the food.’

‘Tea?’ Honey said, raising her eyebrows. ‘Not a cup of Joe?’

Christian grinned boyishly at her hammy attempt at an Americanism.

‘I thought you might like tea better,’ he said, almost bashful.

Honey looked at him for a beat before she spoke, feeling an undeniable tingle of pleasure at the thoughtful gesture.

‘Thank you,’ she said, simply. ‘I do.’

His blue eyes held hers for a second, and then the moment was gone as the waitress reappeared and placed two huge platters down in front of them.

‘Corned beef hash, and eggs over easy,’ she paused and smiled at Christian, who winked right back at her attempt to Americanise the perfectly standard-looking fried eggs. ‘With a side of pancakes, crispy bacon,’ she paused to clear away their empty coffee cups and touched the small jug on the side of Christian’s plate. ‘And maple syrup. Not golden.’

Wow. The man sure ate like an American. The waitress shot Honey a look that blatantly said,
I’ll have him if you don’t want him,
and then left them to contemplate the huge amount of food she’d somehow squeezed onto the tiny table.

‘This looks good,’ he said, tucking in with gusto.

Unless he was expecting his huge and super-talented family to join them for brunch, it also looked like far too much.

‘Tash tells me you’re something of a media star at the moment,’ he said, pouring her tea before his own. Another gold star for his impeccable manners, his cellist mama had taught him well.

‘I wouldn’t exactly put it like that,’ she laughed, and found herself telling him about how the campaign had spiralled over the last few weeks. He laughed in all the right places, and concern darkened his expression at the idea of the residents being forced out of the home they loved.

‘You make light of it, but in my book what you’re doing is pretty amazing,’ he said, pushing the jug of maple syrup towards her. ‘Have it with your bacon and pancakes. Trust me.’

There was something about Christian that told Honey she
could
do that. She could trust him. There was an innate goodness to him, a wholesomeness. Maybe it was just that he’d been lucky enough to live a gilded life that hadn’t given him the rough edges of some men she could mention.

Honey turned her attention back to the pancakes with a small smile. She’d watched enough episodes of
Friends
to know they were going to be good and happily took his advice on the syrup. It was sound advice, even if the pancakes cooked especially for Christian weren’t exactly as fluffy in the centre as they might have been. Not as pillowy or cloud-like as a certain bad-tempered chef’s.

‘I think they just needed a little more baking powder,’ he said, adding, ‘I’m a pretty keen cook,’ to clarify his credentials.

‘Me too,’ she lied, although in her defence her first attempt at bolognese had been a thing of wonder.

‘Cool,’ he grinned, making her feel bad for embroidering the truth so heavily.

He picked up his tea and sipped it, watching her over the brim. ‘I could cook something for you one of these evenings, if you’d like?’

He made it sound so easy. Everything about Christian, in fact, seemed easy. Easy eggs. Easy company. Easy on the eye. Easy to date.

‘I’d really like that,’ she said, and he touched his cup against hers and grinned.

Honey stayed on for another cup of coffee after Christian left, knowing she should text Tash and Nell and let them off the hook for setting her up for American pancakes with the wrong man. She tapped her fingers on the wooden table top to the beat of the song playing on the radio in the background, its lyrics absurdly appropriate.
‘If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with.’ Or in Hal’s case, if you can’t be with the crazy bad-tempered one who swears at you and drives you to the edge of sanity, be with the self-assured one who makes things easy and managed an entire conversation without swearing once.

She picked up her phone and tapped out a message to Tash and Nell.

Elvis has left the building.

Hal called out to her when she let herself into the house a while later. She’d meandered her way through the shops on the high street after she’d left the café, picking up bits and pieces for the big event tomorrow. A couple of flasks. Poster paint. Family bags of boiled sweets for a sugar boost. Picking up the post, she put the heavy brown envelope addressed to Hal down on top of the one that had arrived a while back.

‘Hey, you. Want to get rat-arsed with me?’

Alarmingly, he sounded as if he’d already had a couple of large ones. Honey looked at her watch. It was almost three in the afternoon, much too early for him to be getting plastered.

‘You okay?’ she asked, standing uncertainly outside his door.

‘Top of the world,’ he said. ‘It’s my fucking birthday.’

Honey winced at his bleak tone and harsh words. The contrast between Hal and Christian was stark.

‘You should have said about your birthday,’ she said.

‘Why? Would you have baked me a cake?’

‘I think we both know that’d be a bad idea,’ she said, feeling bad for having been out on a fun day without realising Hal had been drinking whisky alone on his birthday.

‘You’re a truly shit cook,’ he said.

Honey hated the slur in his voice. ‘Open the door?’

She listened to him fumble with his keys, cursing under his breath. When he opened his door, he looked as crap as he sounded. Crumpled clothes. Messy hair. A glass of scotch in his hand.

‘Happy birthday,’ she said, even though the words rang hollow around the hallway.

He raised his glass and then downed the contents. ‘To another shitty year.’

‘Hal,’ she said. ‘Go to bed. Sleep it off.’

He shook his head and half laughed. ‘I’m only just getting started. Come to my party?’

‘Don’t do this,’ she said. ‘Please.’

‘I didn’t have you down as a lightweight, Honeysuckle,’ he said, shrugging. ‘I might even have nibbles. We both know how fond you are of nibbles.’

The idea of Hal laying out nibbles to lure her into sharing his birthday with him brought a lump to her throat.

‘Look,’ she said, taking the glass from his hand. ‘Go and get your head down. Sober up, then come over to mine later. I’ll cook you a birthday dinner.’

Taking advantage of the fact that she’d surprised him into silence, she stretched up and planted the quickest of kisses on his cheek, wrinkling her nose at the smell of him.

‘And take a shower. You stink like someone on a park bench.’

He leaned against the wall, suddenly melancholy. ‘You have no idea how close I am to that.’

‘Stop feeling sorry for yourself, birthday boy,’ she said.

‘You’ve slipped back into girl guide mode again,’ he grumbled. ‘I don’t want dinner with a girl guide on my birthday. Can you bust out the sexually demanding one with Friday knickers on?’

‘It’s Saturday.’

Hal nodded and pointed an unsteady finger. ‘I knew that.’

Honey looked at him for a long time. ‘Go inside. I’ll see you later.’

Honey went straight back out to the shops when Hal closed his door, and by the time he knocked hers a little after eight, she was ready. Dinner made? Check. Flat tidied and scented with a candle left over from Christmas? Check. Her best dress on and her hair fresh and swingy? Check. Envelope from that morning’s mail, hopefully a birthday card she could read to Hal?

She’d never have guessed when she got up that morning that it was going to be a two dates kind of day. Not that this
was
a date, exactly, but birthdays were special, a kind of magical hinterland where the usual rules went out of the window and endless goodwill reigned. Sort of like Narnia appearing in the back of your wardrobe, as long as you obeyed the rules and only ever visited once a year.

She faltered as she reached for the catch on the door, almost not wanting to open it in case he’d ignored her suggestions and carried on with his party for one. He might be reeling out there, drunk as a skunk and still smelling like one.

‘I know you’re in there, I can smell burning,’ he called out, thankfully not slurring anymore.

She smiled and opened the door. ‘Liar. I’ve got everything totally under control in here.’

A different man stood in front of her from earlier in the day. A scrubbed-up, freshly scented one in a shirt and tie, and most significantly, a man who’d chosen to come over without the shield of his dark glasses.

He followed her down the hallway into the kitchen, sniffing as he went.

‘Garlic with a hint of pine disinfectant. Unusual, even by your standards,’ he said, and she hurriedly blew out the Christmas candle and steered him towards the dining table.