Straight to You Page 0,23

hope you don't mind eating in here,' she said. 'It's far too hot to go outside.'

She disappeared for a moment to fetch two wine glasses from the kitchen

'You really shouldn't have gone to all this trouble just for me,' I said, shouting after her.

'It's no trouble,' she replied as she came back into the room. 'Besides, it gives me a chance to show you some of the types of things that I'll be doing here.'

She sat down in the chair next to me which she had angled so that whilst we were not far apart, we were able to look straight into each other's faces. My next words were spoken involuntarily - before I had even stopped to think, they were already floating through the air in Sam's direction and I was unable to stop them.

'The food's a bonus,' I said. 'It's enough for me just to see you.'

I was immediately embarrassed and looked away from Samantha and down to the floor. I slowly turned my head back to look in her direction to gauge her reaction and I felt incredible relief when I saw that she was smiling broadly. She reached out her hand, grabbed mine and squeezed it softly. I chanced upon the unopened bottle of wine sitting on the table and picked it up quickly - I needed a drink.

'Have you got a corkscrew?' I asked. Sam shook her head.

'No,' she laughed, 'that's one of the fittings that I still need to get.'

'Never mind,' I said and I jumped up from my seat. I went out into the main area of the shop and, seeing that all of the workmen were busy at the far end of the room, I took the liberty of borrowing a screwdriver which had been left lying on a nearby stool. Returning to Samantha, I forced the cork down the neck of the bottle with the tool and poured the wine out into our glasses.

'I hope you don't mind the taste of a little cork in your wine,' I joked. 'I find that it often adds to the flavour and brings out the body of a good white!'

'Now you're just talking crap!' Sam said and she laughed as she took a sip from the glass that I passed to her.

'I am,' I replied. 'You seem to have that effect on me.'

'You have quite an effect on me,' she whispered quietly and I almost choked on the sandwich that I had just bitten into. I had dared to think that Samantha found me attractive and that she enjoyed my company, but to have it confirmed in such a blunt, definite and undeniable manner was beyond my wildest dreams.

We ate for a few quiet minutes. Neither of us seemed to have very much of an appetite for our food but I made a concerted effort to avoid hurting Sam's feelings. I cleared my plate and put it down on the table.

'That was really good,' I said, wiping my mouth with a serviette. 'If that's the kind of thing that you're going to be selling here then I don't think you're going to have any problems.'

'Thanks, Steve. I'm glad you liked it.'

'What have you got left to do in here then?' I asked, gesticulating at the rest of the building around us. She shrugged her shoulders.

'Not that much,' she said, quietly and simply.

'Are you looking forward to opening up?'

'I suppose,'

'Do you want to talk about something else?' I asked. Sam nodded and smiled. I had guessed from the brevity of her answers to my questions that she was not interested in talking business and I changed the subject. 'What did you think of Mark?' I asked, reminding her of our time together the previous evening.

'He's great,' she said, suddenly springing back into life. 'He's got a brilliant sense of humour.'

'It's not that good,' I replied defensively.

Before speaking again, I remembered the energy pulse that we had experienced last night. It had been the only negative aspect of an otherwise totally enjoyable evening and so I made a deliberate attempt to steer away from the topic of the weather and the relentless heat.

'Why didn't you go to university?' I enquired, remembering our friends' constant conversations last night. 'You had the qualifications, you could have done anything.'

She thought for a moment before replying.

'I know. I suppose I'd just had enough of learning by the time that it came to make the decision. I needed to start earning some money.'

Sam's reasoning sounded vaguely familiar as it had been