Instead, Neve deliberately sent her next two balls into the gutter because tamping down the competitive side of her nature was another compromise she was willing to make. She still won their two games easily, even though Max grabbed one of the bumpers to line up his last few balls, much to the screaming delight of the teenagers at the next lane. He just couldn’t resist playing to a captive audience.
‘Well, I truly sucked at that,’ he announced, when they were back in their own unrented footwear and walking up Stroud Green Road. ‘But you … you have some serious moves.’
‘If it makes you feel any better, I broke three nails,’ Neve said, holding up a gloved hand.
‘I could kiss them better if you like,’ Max drawled, and it was a salient reminder that tonight it was just the two of them and she didn’t really know how to handle his flirting when they didn’t have at least ten of his sycophantic friends chaperoning them.
‘Maybe later. If you’re good,’ she added, in what was meant to be an equally flirtatious manner, but sounded a little too schoolmarm for her liking. ‘Very, very good.’
‘And what if I’ve been very bad?’ Max wanted to know and when Neve shot him a sideways glance, she could tell he was definitely teasing her.
‘No pudding for you then,’ she rapped back, tugging Max’s sleeve because it was time to cross the road. ‘Which is a pity, because the place I’m taking you to does a great tiramisu.’
‘We’re not going to the gastro pub, then?’
‘The common people don’t go to gastro pubs,’ Neve said. ‘They go to places like this.’
She stopped outside the huge Italian restaurant that had always provided post-bowling refreshment on all Slater family outings. Max peered inside with some trepidation as a waiter walked past holding a birthday cake ablaze with candles.
‘Looks cool,’ he said gamely. ‘Wouldn’t be so packed if the food was terrible, would it?’
Neve didn’t have a chance to extol the virtues of the wood-fired oven, before the door was wrenched open and the owner, a wizened little man, his wrinkled face grinning from ear to ear, gathered her in his arms.
‘Miss Neevy,’ he said, pushing Neve back, so he could get a good look at her. ‘You’re wasting away. We fill you up with some pasta, huh?’
‘Only a tiny bit of pasta,’ Neve demurred. She could hear Max sniggering behind her as Marco led them inside with a flourish.
‘The best table in the house for Miss Neevy,’ he shouted to no one in particular. ‘You treat her badly, I get my boys to take you out back and chop you into little pieces,’ he shot out of the side of his mouth at Max, as they were led to a table by the window.
‘I’m very nice to her,’ Max protested, then to Neve’s mortification, he and Marco had a stand-off about who was going to pull out her chair.
Max won that battle but Marco made a big show of unfolding a snowy white napkin and placing it reverently on Neve’s lap.
‘I get you a bottle of wine on the house,’ he insisted, ignoring Neve’s frantic hand gestures. ‘How’s Barry and Margaret? They well, huh?’
‘I’m sorry,’ she hissed at Max, when Marco finally left after enquiring about the health of all of the Slater clan and asking Neve how ‘the job at the library’ was going. ‘I didn’t expect Marco to warn you off.’
‘Well, you’d better smile and laugh at everything I say. I don’t want to be chopped into tiny pieces,’ Max hissed back, as he gazed around the room. ‘What does it say on the back of the waiters’ shirts?’
‘“A nice-a place to stuffa your face”.’ Neve tried hard not to laugh. Max was all about opening-night parties at the V&A, air-kissing models and eating canapés made with crème fraiche. This really wasn’t his scene. ‘You hate it, don’t you?’ she asked, between giggles.
‘I don’t spend all my time eating mahi-mahi in minimalist restaurants in Soho. I can do beer and the pizza.’ Max opened his menu. ‘You’ve got the whole of Finsbury Park eating out of your hand, haven’t you?’
‘Finsbury Park till I die,’ Neve said as solemnly as she could when it felt as if another round of giggles might unleash themselves.
‘You’ve smudged your mascara,’ Max pointed out, reaching across the table to brush his thumb against her cheek. Neve was used to the arm round her shoulders and the restrained kiss goodnight, but this was a whole new territory of touching, especially since, now that he’d brushed away any stray smuts, Max was still cupping her cheek. ‘I like the side of you I’m seeing tonight.’
‘What side is that, then?’ Neve asked. She wanted to lean into Max’s hand, and suddenly wished that it meant something real because it was so lovely to be touched as if she was something precious, but she forced herself to remain still.
‘Pink-faced and giggly – makes your eyes look very blue,’ Max said matter-of-factly, as if he wasn’t just spinning her some line for once but it was the God’s honest truth. Then he took his hand away. ‘Now what should I have to eat? Pizza or pasta?’
‘Well, the pizza’s good,’ said Neve, who could still feel the phantom touch of Max’s fingers on her skin.
‘Do you want to share some garlic bread as a starter?’
‘Max! I need to tell you something,’ Neve blurted out.
He looked up in surprise at her forceful tone. ‘What?’
Neve rearranged her cutlery and adjusted the position of the salt and pepper pots. ‘This is a really big deal for me, having dinner with you because … well, I have serious issues with food.’ She sat back and waited for … she wasn’t sure what exactly, but she had an image in her head of Max throwing his napkin down in disgust and walking out, singularly unimpressed by her confession.
‘And how does that make you different from ninety-nine per cent of all other women?’ he asked, tilting his chin so it seemed more like a challenge than a question.
‘I’m just warning you, because I take ages to order and sometimes I have to send food back if they haven’t followed my precise instructions.’ Neve bit her lip. ‘Celia says I’m an absolute pain when we go out for dinner.’
Max shrugged. ‘I go out for lunch every day with people who work in entertainment or fashion, and it’s all egg-white omelettes and no carbs. Sometimes they even bring their own specially prepared meals and ask the chef to heat them up. Honestly, I’ve seen food issues and I bet yours don’t even come close.’
This didn’t make Neve feel better. It made her feel worse, because the people that Max was talking about were probably all size zero and got paid millions of pounds to maintain their figures while she wouldn’t even be able to get her big toe into a size zero anything.
‘Well, it makes me feel like a freak,’ she admitted slowly. ‘Like I shouldn’t make so much of a fuss when I’m the size I am. People probably think I go home and stuff myself with cake.’
It was impossible to read Max’s expression; his features were completely blank. ‘I’m sure no one thinks that,’ he said finally, with a look that was verging on exasperated. ‘You just imagine that they do.’
‘I’ve ruined everything, haven’t I? I’ve been Weird Food Issues Girl and now you’re all like, “God, would she just shut up because she’s ruined my appetite and I just want to eat dinner then get the hell away from her.”’
‘My inner voice doesn’t sound anything like that,’ Max said as he picked up a packet of breadsticks. ‘Now change the subject or I’m going to stab myself in the eye with one of these.’
Neve opened and closed her mouth a few more times, like a demented goldfish. Then she narrowed her eyes because Max had that challenging tilt to his chin again, like he thought she couldn’t do it. ‘OK, OK,’ she said. ‘I took Celia here for her birthday last year, and there was a mix-up with the cake, so I asked the waiters to improvise.’
Max was pouring them both a glass of wine and Neve paused to tell him to stop because she might just as well scarf down some packets of sugar. Then she thought better of it, snatched the glass he was holding o
ut to her and took a few fortifying gulps. ‘You have to know that Marco had the night off, that’s a very important fact,’ she said, picking up her thread again. ‘So, we’ve finished the main course and I give the signal, then all the lights go off and all the waiters came to our table, singing “Happy Birthday” and holding something behind a menu.’
‘And they’d shoved a candle in a piece of tiramisu?’ Max interrupted. ‘They always do that at these types of places.’
Neve glared him into silence. ‘Not even close. They whipped away the menu and there on the plate were two profiteroles and a banana with a strawberry perched on one end in the shape of a …’ She lowered her voice. ‘It was shaped like a cock!’
Max had just taken a sip of wine, which he proceeded to spit down his shirt. ‘Did you say what I think you just said?’
‘I said cock,’ Neve repeated; the giggles were back for another round. ‘And all the waiters chanted, “Bite! Bite! Bite!” until Celia bent down and bit the strawberry off the banana.’
‘Was she embarrassed?’
‘As if! She absolutely loved it! I was embarrassed; all her friends thought it had been my idea.’ Neve smiled as she remembered the look of horrified delight on Celia’s face when her birthday dessert had been revealed, then she looked over at Max who was dabbing at the wine stain on his shirt with a napkin and started laughing all over again. ‘I hope the change of subject was satisfactory?’
‘My favourite part was when you said “cock”.’ Max grinned. ‘Never thought I’d hear that word on your lips. Say it again.’
‘I say all kinds of rude things once you get to know me,’ Neve said, because she really wasn’t that uptight. ‘But I don’t like to swear that much because I think it shows a lack of imagination. Just you wait until I drop the f-word. It will blow your mind.’
‘I’m not going to be able to sleep tonight because I’ll be so busy imagining all the various reasons why I might hear you say “fuck”,’ Max said, his voice on its most sultry setting, his leg rubbing against Neve’s under the table. ‘Yup, I see a cold shower in my immediate future.’
Neve’s immediate reaction was to get hot and flustered and deny that the possibility would ever occur. She took another sip of wine and went with her second reaction. ‘Now you come to mention it, I can think of a few reasons why I might want to say it in your hearing too,’ she said tartly, moving her leg back so she could kick Max’s shin, just hard enough that he choked on his breadstick.
‘Touché,’ he said softly, and when he smiled at Neve it was so genuine, maybe even a little bashful because of the way she’d beaten him at his own game, that she couldn’t help but smile back. And just like that, they were in a happier place where Max wasn’t trying to be challenging or seductive or catch her off-guard and Neve could relax.
They were still in that happy place even when Neve ordered three lonely pieces of spinach and ricotta ravioli for her starter, asked for the grilled swordfish without the new potatoes for her main course and sent back her green salad because it had a drizzle of olive oil on it, which she hadn’t asked for, and not a trace of balsamic vinegar, which she had.
It was the lack of carbs and the one and a half glasses of white wine that made Neve stumble when they left the restaurant. Max’s arm wrapped round her waist in an instant.
‘I’m not used to wearing heels,’ she moaned. ‘They hurt and they’re patriarchal signifiers designed to cripple women and stop them from taking big strides through life.’
‘Why are you wearing them, then?’ Max asked. He still had his arm round her waist though she was able to walk by herself now she’d got over the headrush. Walking with an unsteady gait, but able to do it unaided.
‘Well, they’re very pretty and they make my ankles look slender,’ Neve said, snuggling against Max because there was a vicious wind whipping down the street.
‘You have no head for alcohol,’ Max told her. ‘You’re a cheap date.’
They’d actually split the bill. Neve had insisted it was her treat but Max had insisted that he’d eaten and drunk twice as much as she had and was taking the leftovers home with him.
They arrived at her garden gate far too soon for Neve’s liking, because Max was letting her go and already she was shivering without his warm body against hers. ‘Do you want to come in for a coffee?’ she asked. ‘And when I say coffee, I do mean just coffee.’
This time it was Max who hesitated. ‘I should really get home for Keith,’ he said eventually. ‘He needs his last walk.’
Neve was instantly suspicious. Poor Keith seemed to manage just fine when Max was out until all hours in his quest for female companionship. ‘If I’d asked you in for “coffee”’ – she put air quotes round the word – ‘would your answer still be no?’
‘Ouch! You’re just full of surprises tonight, aren’t you, sweetheart?’ Max said, his eyes gleaming in the glow of the streetlight. He took hold of her chin, so he could drop a light kiss on her mouth.
Neve was expecting her one contractually obligated, perfunctory kiss, but Max brushed her lips with delicate, light butterfly kisses that felt like a warm-up act. Then he slowed right down, kissed her longer, kissed her a little bit deeper – and just as Neve leaned forward to capture his mouth, because how could she not, he stepped back.
‘Well, I really should be going,’ he said affably, as if that was quite enough Neve-baiting for one evening. ‘I’ll call you soon.’
He didn’t even wait for a reply but was hurrying away, while Neve stood there in dismay.
‘Un-bloody-believable,’ she muttered, as she unlatched the gate and stomped up the path. It wasn’t meant to be that kind of relationship, but Max had said quite specifically that there would be kissing. Maybe he didn’t want to kiss her properly because he didn’t find her that attractive. And what was the point of being in a fake relationship if your fake boyfriend didn’t find you that attractive? There was no …
‘Neve! Wait up!’
She turned round to see Max coming down the path, slightly red-faced and panting. ‘What do you want?’ she asked warily, because she’d just made a really convincing argument in her head for ending this. Perhaps Max was thinking the same thing.
‘I forgot to ask, did you have fun tonight?’
He was impossible and it was starting to seem quite … endearing. ‘Almost,’ Neve said truthfully.
Max nodded. ‘And are you ready to admit that I’m the most likeable, charming person you’ve ever met?’
‘Never! I’ll say the f-word before I say that,’ Neve told him, pretty sure that Max wouldn’t take offence. Well, not too much.
He came to a halt at the bottom of the four steep steps that led up to the front door but didn’t go any further. ‘I am actually going home now, which means I won’t spend most of tomorrow sleeping off my hangover, so I’ll be free in the afternoon if you want to get together?’
Neve stayed on the doorstep. ‘Is there some launch thing or opening-night gala going on?’
‘No, nothing like that. Look, why don’t you come round mine and I’ll cook you dinner?’ Max was already backing away as if there was nothing untoward or unusual about his suggestion. ‘I’ll see you at five.’
There were many good reasons why Neve was not going to turn up on Max’s doorstep like a sacrifical lamb, but all she could come up with at such short notice was, ‘But I don’t have your address.’
‘You’re going to have to do much better than that,’ Max said, with that sneery little smile Neve hated. ‘I’ll email you, even attach a Google map.’
‘I’m not sure, I’m very busy tomorrow,’ Neve prevaricated, which wasn’t a lie, although all her social engagements would be over by four at the latest.
‘Oh, right, so if you weren’t “busy”,’ Max mocked her with her own air quotes, ‘would your answer still be no? You were the one who invited me in for coffee ten minutes ago.’
‘But I did actually mean a cup of coffee!’
?
??Yeah, and I actually mean dinner.’ Max gave her a prim look, which Neve recognised instantly, because she usually saw it reflected back at her when she was looking in a mirror. ‘I do have some self-control and I’m pretty sure you can be alone in my flat for three hours or so without me committing all sorts of depraved acts on your unwilling flesh.’
When he put it like that, Neve was appalled. Max made it sound as if she thought she was so ravishing that he wouldn’t be able to resist her. She was also beginning to wonder just how unwilling her flesh really was when she was longing for something a lot more passionate when it came to their goodbye kisses. ‘I’m sorry, Max,’ she said contritely. ‘I’d love to come for dinner.’
Max didn’t look at all convinced by her apology and Neve stood on her doorstep, feeling slightly shaky and untethered now she didn’t have the moral high ground. Then she saw his shoulders relax and a wicked grin spread slowly across his face. ‘OK, I’ll see you tomorrow then. And as long as you remember your safety word, everything will be fine.’
Chapter Thirteen
It had been an unexpectedly lovely day. Neve had gone to bed at a very respectable eleven o’clock and had been woken eight hours later by the early spring sunshine worming its way through the gap in her curtains. She’d caught up on Tristram Shandy, then spent an hour on the phone with Philip to see if he understood a word of it and to get some crib notes for when she spoke to William later that evening.
Then she’d cycled over to Kenwood to meet Gustav and trail behind him as he ran around Hampstead Heath in preparation for the half-marathon he was doing in a couple of weeks’ time. Neve had been all set to go home and put in a few hours on the next chapter of her Lucy Keener biography when Chloe had phoned and invited Neve to brunch as she’d ended up staying over at a friend’s in Muswell Hill after a raucous party.
Neve always felt like it was a real treat to see Chloe outside of work, proof that they were proper friends and not just thrown together by a mutual dislike of Mr Freemont and cross-referencing. It was also a real treat to be able to talk about Max with someone who wasn’t Celia.