One Night in Edinburgh by Nina Kaye

Author:Nina Kaye
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Canelo
Published: 2022-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

‘I was so mortified.’ My face flushes in illustration of my point.

‘I bet you were.’ Connor chews thoughtfully on the piece of toast he’s eating.

It’s the next morning and I’m still reeling from bringing Jamie back to a room that looked like a rubbish tip.

‘Thank you for saving the day.’ I glance over at him gratefully. ‘If you hadn’t realised what was going on and kindly offered us the living room to hang out in, I’m not sure what I would have done. Were you really going out to meet someone or did you just make that up and sneak back into your room?’

‘I went for a walk… but I might have been socialising as I did that.’ He looks shifty all of a sudden.

‘What does that mean?’ I scrutinise Connor’s face. ‘Oh… were you chatting to your online matches?’

‘I was.’ Now it’s Connor’s turn to get all embarrassed. ‘Just the one bloke: Lukas. On Anna’s recommendation, after she vetted him to a level that would impress GCHQ. I walked along to the end of the breakwater, where the grassy bit is, and sat on a bench messaging him for about an hour. He seems cool, and he’s also just come out, so we’re in similar places.’

‘Connor, that’s wonderful. I’m so pleased for you. Are you going to meet up with him then?’

‘I think so. Can we change the subject?’ His face is growing redder by the moment.

‘Of course.’ I reach across and ruffle his hair affectionately. ‘I’m pleased for you. Just you take your time with this, and I’ll be ready to hear more if things progress. Anyway, I’d better go get ready. I’m heading out for Dad’s birthday lunch.’

Having started off well, my morning is hijacked by Anna calling to get the gossip on my date with Jamie yesterday. I chat to her on speakerphone as I’m getting ready and soon regret this when the conversation descends into another analysis of Jamie’s character and motivations towards me – all because I still don’t know his surname or what he does for a living.

Anna even has me starting to wonder why I don’t know these things about him, until I realise, the only reason he didn’t answer my question about his surname on our date was because I got all distracted over Kayleigh’s behaviour. And anyway, Jamie’s and my conversations haven’t really been like that. They’re almost as though we’ve skipped a stage because we get on so well. Yesterday we were connecting at a deeper level – properly getting to know each other. That’s so much more important than knowing what someone does for a living.

What’s worse is when I challenged Anna on her proclamations that Jamie is ‘either married with kids, living a double life or on the sex offender’s register’, Connor, who was part of the conversation on speakerphone, joined in and backed her up. Not to the extent that he entertained her ridiculous conspiracy theories, but he did say it sounded like Jamie was withholding information about his current circumstances.

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