By the end of the tour, I’d gone from thinking that each of the paintings we looked at on our tour was just some stuffy old picture to wondering when I could come back.
As Janet wrapped up the tour, I pulled out my phone to bring up a picture of Joshua. She may think I was a little weird when I tried to set her up on a date, but hopefully she’d have a change of heart when she saw him. I scrolled through my pictures. The last one I had was of him with my triumphant cake. He looked so goofy as he gave me his best shocked face. I grinned as I found a picture of him driving back from the flat in Borehamwood. We’d stopped at some lights and I’d captured him just as I was teasing him about being such a snob, not wanting to live above a chip shop. I hadn’t examined the picture in any detail before today—it had just been one of those snaps you take and don’t think too much about. I wasn’t sure if it was just because I was trying to find the most flattering picture of Joshua or whether focusing on the paintings today had encouraged me to look closer, but I swear I hadn’t noticed the look he was giving me before. It wasn’t irritation I saw in his expression. And it wasn’t the exasperation I was so used to either. It was . . . affection maybe. Or something else I couldn’t quite figure out.
“Did you have a question?” Janet asked. I looked around to find the rest of our tour group had disappeared. Janet would make a great date for him—she was pretty, interesting, clever, and funny.
I paused, taking in the picture of Joshua one more time.
I shook my head. “Just wanted to thank you for a great tour,” I said. “I really learned a lot.”
Before I found Joshua his next date, I really wanted to figure out what it was that I’d captured in that photograph.
Seventeen
Hartford
After a whirlwind week at work, I wanted to crawl into bed and sleep. But Joshua had arranged my second date and I wasn’t going to cancel. Especially as I felt bad that I’d not even organized his second date yet. Was I procrastinating on purpose? No. But I wasn’t not procrastinating, either. Tonight, I wanted to remain open to meeting someone who looked at me like Bacchus looked at Ariadne. From where I was sitting at the bar, I glanced over to the entrance to see if anyone new had arrived. Tonight was a drinks-only date with a client of Joshua’s. And he was a little late.
I picked up my phone and scrolled through the pictures I’d taken in the National Gallery the previous week. I needed to channel Venus’ power tonight.
“Hartford?” a man said behind me.
I turned to come face-to-face with someone who looked like Michael Fassbender’s twin brother.
I grinned. “Hi, yes, I’m Hartford.”
He gave me a weird, almost forced smile and nodded as he took the seat next to me. “I’m David.” He didn’t shake my hand or even kiss me on the cheek, but greeting someone sitting at a bar was awkward, I supposed.
David picked up the drinks menu and seemed to examine it like it was evidence in a murder. “You live around here?” he asked, without looking up.
“Yes, next door to Joshua.” I smiled but David didn’t see because he wasn’t looking at me. “This is the Piña Clara.” I held up my drink before I took a sip. “My first ever. It’s delicious if you need a recommendation.”
The barman appeared in front of us.
“I’ll have a Hudson Manhattan Rye,” David said.
I was poised to tell him that I didn’t need another, even though my glass was almost empty. Despite the fact I wasn’t seeing patients tomorrow, I wanted to be sharp.
But David still hadn’t even looked at me since that first moment, let alone assessed the level in my glass.
Maybe he was nervous.
Or he’d just forgotten.
“So,” he said, turning to face me at last. “How do you know Joshua?”
“Old family friend,” I replied. “What about you?” Even though I knew the answer, I was desperate to break the ice that seemed a meter thick at the moment.
David’s drink arrived and I breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe he just needed a bit of alcohol to loosen his lips and help him relax. I was sure the next two hours couldn’t be this . . . awkward.
“I’m a client of his.”
I nodded, willing him on. But nothing. My date began to check out what was behind the bar and then what was behind me. “What sort of work do you do?” I asked. He didn’t seem to want to be here at all.
“I’m in marketing. For Mulberry.” His words were clipped and cold.