The Piano Man Project Page 0,64

a more practised eye than the last time she’d been in there. ‘Possibly.’

They trailed amongst the lingerie, pale lace to hot pink nylon, something for every taste. Honey paused by a pale peach wisp of a bra with matching silk knickers, beautiful and sexy without being too much. Would Hal like her in that? It was all too easy to imagine his pleasure as his fingers discovered the slender velvet bra straps, the silk-encased bones, the cobwebbed soft lace. Her fingers had found her size even as she ran through the scenario in her head, and she carried the set in her hands as she followed Nell behind the curtain into the strictly adult zone.

‘Any idea what you’re looking for?’ Honey said, and Nell shook her head, perplexed.

‘None.’

Honey’s eyes slid over the packed shelves. ‘You should probably have asked Tash to meet you rather than me. She’d have known what to suggest in a heartbeat.’

Nell laughed. ‘I guess. But then she’d also have made me buy something that probably isn’t even legal.’

Honey browsed the shelves and picked up a black silk blindfold thoughtfully, her mind already miles away from Nell’s bedroom conundrum. Running the silk through her fingers, she could almost feel Hal’s fingers tying the strip of silk behind her head, putting them temporarily closer to a level playing field. She looked down as Nell plucked it from her fingers with a grin.

‘You’re a lifesaver, Honey. Perfect.’

Honey watched Nell walk towards the tills, and after a moment’s hesitation she hurriedly grabbed a second blindfold and followed her friend.

Hal hadn’t answered his door when Honey tapped it after work that evening, but as she was heading to bed just after eleven there was movement in the hallway and then a knock on her door.

‘Don’t open it,’ Hal said. ‘Just listen.’

Honey stood perfectly still behind her closed door, her hand flat against it.

‘I’ve thought about what you asked me,’ he said, the rumble of his voice low and rich and sure.

‘And …’ Honey said, biting her top lip and crossing the fingers of her other hand behind her back without realising. ‘What did you decide?’

He paused. ‘Did you mean it when you said you’ll go out and find someone else to do it if I won’t?’

‘It wasn’t intended as a bribe, Hal,’ Honey sighed, laying her forehead on the wood.

‘No dates. No relationship. One night, and then we never mention this again.’

Honey’s hand covered her mouth in shock as she reached for the catch on the door.

‘I told you not to open the fucking door,’ Hal warned, stilling her fingers. She wanted to see him very much at that moment, but she sensed that it was more important to him that she didn’t.

‘Okay,’ she said, dropping her hand away from the catch. ‘Hal … when?’

He was quiet again. And then, ‘I’ll come over again on Friday.’

She swallowed hard. Friday was three nights away. ‘Friday it is then,’ she said, so quiet that almost no sound came out.

‘It’s not a date,’ he reminded her.

‘Roger that,’ Honey said, rendered stupid by nerves.

An amused silence, then: ‘Try not to throw yourself at passing strangers between now and Friday.’

Honey could hear traces of dry humour in his voice. ‘’Kay.’

He went to move away, and she called out: ‘Hal … shall I buy nibbles?’

He was silent for far longer than she knew what to do with.

‘No nibbles, Honeysuckle. No funny stuff. Buy whisky if you feel the need to shop. This is how this thing will go down. I come over here. We do it. I go home again. Are you crystal clear on how this is going to go?’

‘Crystal,’ she said, wondering what the hell had possessed her to suggest nibbles. She’d never used the word nibbles in her life.

‘I’m going now,’ he said. ‘Do me a favour. Don’t say another word.’

Honey screwed her eyes shut and nodded.

He really needed to go home, and she really needed to shut up.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

‘This is it, I think?’ Honey looked up at the large, well-kept terraced house with steps leading up to the shiny green door. The kind of house that estate agents might describe as a gentleman’s residence, with neat tubs of flowers in the vestibule.

‘It looks nice, doesn’t it?’ Lucille said, holding on to Honey’s arm as she looked up at the gleaming windows of the house. ‘Should we go and knock?’

Honey squeezed Lucille’s hand and smiled. ‘Well we didn’t come all this way just to admire Ernie’s hanging baskets, did we?’

‘They are very nice though,’