The Piano Man Project Page 0,87

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.’

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

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