I shoved the thoughts away. Of course it wouldn’t be Ben waiting there for me. We’d only just ventured over the line into friendship, a miracle in itself. Sometimes I genuinely had to remind myself that I wasn’t actually living in a rom-com.
EVIE: it’s not Ben. We’re just friends. Besides, I wouldn’t even want it to be him
MARIA: so you’re friends now. Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it even a little bit
I headed into the third-floor bar. There were a couple of staff members huddled together at the curtain, giggling and peeking through into the restaurant. You never knew when there might be a celebrity at the Ash. Normally, however, the staff tended to remain pretty cool about it. As I approached, I saw one of them was the blond waiter who’d witnessed Monty sliding out of a women’s bathroom stall headfirst like a seal. Oh, no.
His eyes widened as he spotted me and nudged the girl he’d been chatting with. She wasn’t quite as quick to hide her interest. Oh, God, does everyone know about what happened in the toilets?
The waiter stepped forward, hands behind his back. “Miss Summers,” he said. “What a delight to see you again. We’ve put you in the Director’s Booth.”
The Director’s Booth? It was only one of the most exclusive locations in the club, after the VIP area. Was all this because of my date? I felt a surge of excitement.
Who on earth would warrant this reaction? What if Peter was some big shot, and that’s why they’d let him up here? I tried to think of famous Peters as I followed the blond waiter through the crowded restaurant. I doubted Peter Capaldi would message a stranger and lie about his age.
Peter Andre? He might.
Booths lined each side of the restaurant; the waiter led me to the only one that had a privacy curtain. It didn’t bear thinking about what that privacy might be used for, considering this was a club that kept body oil in the loos.
At first, all I saw was the broadsheet-sized menu held up in front of the man’s face.
“Miss Summers has arrived, sir,” said the waiter.
For a wild, bewildering second, I thought: What if it actually is Ben?
My heart convulsed as the menu was lowered.
What. The actual . . .
“You,” I said to him.
“Red.” NOB grinned.
He folded the menu with tanned hands. He’d been the cause of everyone’s excitement? He might be the Ezra Chester, but he wasn’t that exciting. Not once you got to know him, at least. My heart was still hammering. It’s the shock, I told myself. Nothing to do with what I’d been thinking just a moment before.
“Oh, hang on.” NOB tapped his phone to light up the screen and then balanced it against a striped popcorn box in the center of his table. “That’s better.”
The screen had a title page on it.
It read:
PETER PAN
“I’m John,” the waiter said to NOB, and received zero response. “Right, then, I’ll just . . .” He started to tug at the curtain, realized I was standing in the way, and pulled it around me. “I’ll leave you to it, then.” With a last, lingering look for NOB, he did the professional melt-away.
I rounded on NOB. “Where have you been? You’ve ignored every message I’ve sent you. You tell me to work harder, then make me believe you aren’t bothering to write. When you finally do deliver, you don’t even let me know!”
“Not every message,” NOB said, ridiculously blue eyes sparkling. Have his teeth been whitened? He was wearing a gray suit so well cut that it folded around his chiseled edges like it was an envelope and he was the card it was made for. “You look stunning, by the way.”
“I . . .” He had a way of disarming me that was just downright annoying.
“Sit down, Red.”
My knees wobbled and I caught the table, pulling myself into the booth opposite him.
“Is this a joke?”
“I got your text,” he said calmly. “‘I’m done’?”
Had he done this to punish me for my message? He’d catfished me?
“Did you bring me here just to humiliate me?”
“I wasn’t sure you’d even come.”
“Well, I didn’t know it was you, so . . .” I gestured to my dress. It was the nicest one I owned. Forest green, with a black lace overlay. And I’d wasted it on an arsehole.
“You said you were done with our deal, Red. Though, given you’re here, I’m assuming that wasn’t strictly true.”
“You didn’t give me much choice,” I said, refusing to feel guilty for my fib. “I can see your tan, Ezra. You’ve been on holiday, leaving me to deal with Monty and the producers on my own. I did the only thing I could think of.”
“It was a writer’s retreat,” NOB insisted. “After Monica and the breakup, I had to get away. I actually wanted to get those pages done for you. The longer I was away, the more I realized why that was. I knew I had to tell you. This seemed a fitting way to do it. Peter. Peter Pan. The book you took from the bookstall, remember?”
So the name did have significance.
“Tell me what, Ezra?” I asked. A writer’s retreat? Could I believe that? He had delivered the pages.
He fiddled with his glass. “You . . .” he began, and trailed off.
“What?” I asked irritably. NOB shifted in his seat, his smooth forehead glistening ever so slightly. Wait . . . was NOB nervous?
He took a steadying breath. “You’re not wrong about rom-coms, Red. Because, if you were, then I wouldn’t have fallen for you.”
It took me a moment to remember to breathe. “Don’t be cruel, Ezra.”
“You don’t believe me,” he stated, as if unable to believe it himself. “Okay, let’s start small. ‘I’m just a boy, standing in front of . . .’”
“Stop it.”
“Red, I’m serious. Evie,” he said as I stood, yanking the curtain back. I was a few feet away when he called out, “Please.”
There was something so plaintive, so un-NOB-like about the word, that it stopped me. Other diners were staring. I turned around to find that NOB had followed me out of the booth.
“I really do like you. Do you need me to shout about it? Because I will.” He threw his arms wide and raised his voice. “I like you, Evie Summers. I’ve fallen for you. In fact”—he lowered his voice—“I’ve been falling for a while.”
I saw John the waiter eyeing us from across the restaurant, a look of Here we go again resignation on his face. The same waitress who’d passed us earlier was beside him. She had her hands over her mouth, eyes round and doelike, like she’d never seen anything as romantic.