me enough and he just wants to get it over with. I don’t know what to do.’
‘Of course he fancies you! Why wouldn’t he? Maybe you’ve just got into a rut. Maybe you need to spice things up a bit.’
Surely two months isn’t long enough to be in a rut, I thought. ‘Spice things up how?’
‘Like, buy some saucy new underwear. Light candles. Stuff like that. Nothing major. Just – you know – let him know you’re up for it.’
‘I guess,’ I said, thinking without much enthusiasm about scratchy lacy knickers that would be a case of thrush waiting to happen.
‘And talk to him,’ Dani went on. ‘Tell him what you’re into. Guys love that. They’re dead eager to please, really.’
‘You need to be honest with Fabian, too,’ I advised. ‘Maybe have a proper talk about it, when you’ve both got your clothes on, and tell him what your boundaries are. Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work, with safe words and stuff? And if he suggests anything you’re not into, just say no.’
‘That’s all very well.’ Dani sighed. ‘But with Fabian, it’s just not as easy as that.’
Twenty-Two
When opportunity knocks, will you open the door or stay under the covers? Take control of your destiny and you might notice your luck beginning to change.
It was almost a week before I saw Adam again. I still checked up on the birds every morning, and Robbie made a point of leaving bacon rind out for them instead of putting it in the kitchen food-waste bin. The blackbirds and the robin seemed to have made peace, and most mornings I saw them together, feasting at the bird table, joined by a couple of nondescript little brown birds I couldn’t identify.
Then, on the morning of our next Dungeons & Dragons game, I spotted Adam walking down the street on his way to the station, and almost without thinking I found myself opening the door of the Ginger Cat and stepping out to intercept him.
‘Morning,’ I said.
Adam’s eyes flicked beyond me for a second, like he was considering blanking me and hurrying on past. But, to my relief, he didn’t.
‘Hi, Zoë.’
‘Fancy a coffee?’
‘I should really… oh, go on, then.’
‘Come in.’
We walked into the empty pub and I switched on the coffee machine, its roar sounding even louder than usual in the early-morning silence. The heady smell of fresh coffee filled the pub as I opened the canister of organic, fair-trade Rwandan beans.
‘Double espresso?’ I asked.
‘How did you guess?’
I laughed. ‘Come on. You’re clearly an espresso drinker. I’ve been a cook for long enough to have a kind of sixth sense of what people are going to order. I guess it helps that I’m Aquarius, and we’re highly intuitive.’
The Stargazer app, I realised, had been upping the ante lately. Its push notifications, which had often been acerbic, were now sometimes downright vicious – so it was just as well, I told myself, that I didn’t take any of this stuff too seriously. But mentioning it was a good way to needle Adam, and it worked.
‘You do know that’s—’ he began.
‘A load of rubbish? So you said before. But I knew how you like your coffee, without having to ask, didn’t I?’
Adam grinned and shook his head, but he accepted a perfect espresso from me gratefully, and I pushed open the door to the garden.
‘Let’s see how those fledglings are getting on, then,’ he said.
We stood in the doorway and looked out at the garden. It wasn’t up to much, really – just a little square of paving stones with weeds growing up between some of them, a couple of wooden picnic tables, the giant barbecue under its canvas cover, and a few hanging baskets that Alice had planted with geraniums and pansies, a bit bedraggled-looking now that summer was coming to an end, and of course the bird table. But in the cool morning, with a bright bar of golden sunlight falling across it and birdsong filling the air, it felt almost magical.
I could feel the warmth of Adam’s arm next to my shoulder, hear him breathing and smell the fragrant steam from his coffee and whatever shower gel he’d used – the scent was as fresh as a gin and tonic on a hot evening.
As we watched, the male and female blackbirds fluttered down and started helping themselves to mealworms. The robin joined in, too, and a couple of fat pigeons pecked around below, snapping up any bits that got dropped.