It Had To Be You by Keris Stainton

Author:Keris Stainton
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781786812896
Publisher: Bookouture

Chapter Twenty-One

It only takes me a couple of minutes to walk up to Seven Dials from Leicester Square Tube – it’s a lovely evening, the sun is low in the sky and it’s warm enough that I’ve had to take my leather jacket off but I’m already limping when I get there. I walk around the monument to make sure Dan’s not sitting on the other side (it’s small enough that I’m sure we’d be able to see each other, but I don’t want to take any chances) and sit down between a man wearing a backpack and staring down at his phone and a woman in black leather trousers and stilettos, also staring down at her phone.

I want to take my shoes off, even just for a second, but I’m scared I won’t be able to get them back on. Instead I circle my ankles and try to breathe through the pain.

I’m considering hobbling off to find somewhere to buy flip-flops when I see Dan getting out of a black cab in front of the Cambridge Theatre. He’s wearing a black and white stripy top, black jeans and black shoes with a brown sole.

‘Hey,’ he says, as soon as he reaches me. ‘Cool shoes.’ He lifts his foot to show me his.

‘I’m in agony,’ I say without standing up. ‘Can you get a takeaway and we’ll have it here?’

He laughs. His face is really nice, especially when he smiles. ‘We could do. But I’ve booked a table… I could give you a piggy back?’

I shake my head, reaching one hand out so he can pull me up. ‘I’ll be OK. I’ll just have to stop and cry every now and then.’

Once I’m upright, he slides his arm around my waist. ‘Lean on me, yeah?’

The first few steps are blinding agony, but as we head up Monmouth Street it dulls to more like blistering pain.

‘I could give you a fireman’s lift, maybe?’ Dan says. ‘I always wanted to be a fireman.’

‘Yeah? Why didn’t you?’

He shrugs. ‘I don’t know really. I never actually thought of it as a real job. It was like when I was a kid, you know? Like kids want to be a fireman or a train driver or… what is it for girls? A ballerina?’

I laugh. ‘I never wanted to be a ballerina.’

‘What did you want to be?’ he asks as we pass Brasserie Max, which is where I’d assumed we were going when he suggested meeting at Seven Dials.

‘Did you ever watch Pop Idol?’

‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘It was like X Factor before X Factor. There was Popstars where they made a band and then another where they made rival bands and then Pop Idol. Will Young won it.’

‘Oh yeah,’ Dan says. ‘I know him.’

‘I can’t sing so I never thought about being a pop star or anything, but they had judges – like X Factor – and one of them was this woman, Nicki Chapman? And I wanted to be her. I wanted to encourage

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