The Piano Man Project Page 0,32

a starry-eyed teenager meeting the man who usually lived in posters on her bedroom wall. It defied all common sense – Hal was thoroughly objectionable and rude, but she couldn’t seem to control the way she reacted to him. He had her so nervous that she worried she’d slice off her shaking fingers as she chopped the carrots and celery, and when he asked to test the food for a second time she swallowed hard and had to look away as his lips closed around the fork.

‘Hot,’ he breathed, and she could only agree. He was, and she was because of him. Why the hell had she promised that she’d never mention that kiss again? Did he know what he did to her? If he could see her she’d have nowhere to hide, but was it obvious to him anyway?

Stirring in the meat, Honey watched it brown as instructed, taking the couple of minutes to pull herself together.

‘Now we need a couple of glasses of wine.’

Jeez, if she had a drink she’d probably jump his bones. ‘Hal, I don’t think that’s a very good idea right now.’

‘In the bolognese, Honey. Pour the wine into the bolognese and bring it up to boiling.’

Honey passed a hand over her hot face. ‘I knew that,’ she muttered, ignoring the half laugh from across the breakfast bar as she upended a glass of wine into the pan, refilling it as the meat sizzled violently in the alcohol. She threw the second glass of wine in after the first and screwed the lid resolutely back on the bottle.

‘Now pour out two more glasses of wine,’ Hal said.

Honey didn’t want to get caught out twice. ‘Won’t that be overpowering?’

‘They’re not for the dinner. One’s for me because it’s killing me teaching you to cook, and the other is for you to calm you the fuck down.’

‘I don’t need to calm down,’ Honey lied.

‘The hell you don’t. You’re giving me a headache with all your nervousness, and trust me, you won’t like me when I have a headache.’

‘I don’t like you very much as it is,’ she said, clinging to the safe ground offered by throwing mild insults.

‘Just pour the damn wine, will you?’

Honey deliberated between the lure of a glass of wine or staying sober, because although she did in fact need to calm the fuck down, she feared it might loosen her tongue and her hands in a way that would send him back into hiding again for weeks on end. In the end, her nerves won out and she unscrewed the wine again and poured them both a drink.

‘There,’ she said with bad grace, shoving the glass towards him until it bumped his knuckles. He picked up the glass and tasted the wine, and his lips twisted into an almost favourable expression.

‘Not bad, Honeysuckle. Not bad at all.’

She raised her own glass, sipped, and found herself glad to have paid more than she usually would for wine. It was delicious, and dangerously smooth as it slid down her throat.

‘Better?’ Hal asked, almost as if he were watching her, which of course he couldn’t have been. It was just that he seemed to know what was going on under her skin, to hear the quickened beat of her heart, the loud dash of her blood around her veins, the bloom of heat over the skin on her throat.

‘Mmm,’ she said noncommittally, unsure if she felt better or worse for the wine. ‘So, what do I do next?’

Hal instructed her through the remaining couple of steps, his fingers lingering on the base of his wine glass as if he thought she might try to take it from him. As it was, she wasn’t thinking any such thoughts. She was more pre-occupied with not burning the bolognese because she was admiring his strong, sexy hands.

‘And now you turn it down to a simmer, and we wait.’

‘Really? How long for? What’ll we do in the meantime?’

He shrugged. ‘Well, I’m not so great at cards these days, and hide and seek might take a while.’ He drank the last of the wine from his glass. ‘So I guess you should refill my glass and we’ll do that other thing you’re so good at.’

Was he talking about their kiss? Honey couldn’t help but preen at the fact he’d said she was good at it, but they probably needed to clear the air about it.

‘Look, I’m sorry I kissed you the other night.’ In truth, it was hard to be all