leant forward and adjusted something and warm air began blowing into the car, adding to the warmth now seeping up from the seats. His answer to my question was a shrug. ‘Never really thought about it like that.’
‘It’s a nice trait. I’m not criticising. Just being nosy, basically.’
The interior light had clicked off, but I could see the wide, slightly crooked smile against the darkness of the surroundings.
‘I’d go for interested,’ he smiled at me.
‘I’ll remember that.’
A little over half an hour later, I peered out of the window, rubbing a patch of windscreen clear of hot breath with the elbow of my coat. ‘Do you think that’s them? He said he wasn’t too far away when I called.’
‘Could be,’ Seb said, pulling the lever on the door.
I followed suit and we began walking over towards my car as Seb caught the recovery lorry driver’s attention with a wave and pointed him in the right direction.
Twenty minutes later and the breakdown man was as puzzled as the garages I’d taken it to as to the problem. He rubbed his chin and shrugged.
‘It’s a strange one. Normally things like this are pretty cut and dried, but I think we’ll have to leave it to the garage this time.’
In my head, I let out a long, painful groan.
‘Ah, don’t worry. I’m sure it won’t be anything too serious.’
Guess that wasn’t in my head then.
I nodded instead and tried to smile.
‘So, your policy allows me to take it to a local garage or your destination. Where are we off to?’ the breakdown chap asked.
Seb looked at me. ‘It’s up to you. You know the offer’s open.’
I chewed my lip for a moment. God knew I’d already thrown enough money at several garages, so I had nothing to lose by letting Seb’s friend take a look. But that did, of course, involve spending a night at Seb’s. And, innocent as his offer was, I couldn’t help the tumble of emotions that shivered through me at the thought of that. Although I’d been ruing taking part in Jess’ ‘Year of Saying Yes’ within days of it beginning, it had at least taken some of the indecisiveness out of my life. In theory, that same logic could be applied to this year. Only this year’s plan of saying no was only to things I didn’t want to do. And, as I stole a glance at Seb, saying no to him wasn’t the immediate word that sprang to mind. In fact, however much I tried to deny it and write off any attraction towards him to Jess, having seen Seb in the flesh and spent some proper time with him, I was pretty sure my original suspicions that I had a full-blown crush on him had been realised, and the more likely response, given the opportunity would be ‘Yes, yes, oh god! Yes!’
‘Lottie?’ Seb’s gentle question nudged me, thankfully, off the path my mind had begun to race down.
I slammed the brakes on that particular thought and swerved back to reality, and rational thought. I needed this damn car fixed and Seb seemed to have utter confidence in his mate, so, firmly closing the door on my renegade libido, I turned towards Seb.
‘You sure you don’t mind?’
He smiled, soft and warm, and I could feel my libido charging against that door trying to shove it back open. I mentally threw another bolt across. ‘Not at all. It’d be a pleasure.’
‘OK then. Let’s go with that plan. I’m just going to ring my parents and let them know what’s going on and double check they’re OK with keeping Humphrey a bit longer.’
He gave a quick nod, turned and headed over to the breakdown guy and began giving him the postcode of his house, spelling it out phonetically while I pressed the contact button for my parents.
‘Hi, Mum.’
‘Hello, darling. How was the play?’
‘Really good, thanks. You OK?’
‘Yes, thanks. We’re just having a nice evening in front of the telly and Humphrey seems to be very comfortable indeed. He’s currently sprawled across your father’s lap like a small rug.’ She laughed and I could hear the same love in it that I had when I spoke about my dog.
‘Sounds good. Humphrey’s actually why I was ringing. Would you be OK to have him a bit longer? I didn’t know if you had anything planned for tomorrow or anything?’
‘No, not at all. Is everything OK?’ she lowered her voice. ‘Or is it more than OK?’
Even in the dim light, I felt