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“Come in,” I said. “Quick. Before Mrs Okafor, seventy-two, across the hall sees and tells the entire building.”
Tess stepped inside and I shut the door, and then we both just stood in my hallway like two people who’d walked into the same toilet cubicle.
“So,” she said.
“So.”
She burst out laughing. Properly, bent over, hand on the wall. After a second I did too. It was that or die.
“I can’t believe it,” she wheezed. “Of all the flats in Manchester. Gemma’s big brother. The one who cried at Toy Story 3 at her twenty-first.”
“I had something in my eye.”
“For ninety minutes?” She wiped her eyes and straightened up, and I got my first proper look at her. She’d taken her coat off. Underneath was a fitted black dress that stopped well above the knee, and she looked nothing like the girl in denim shorts at the barbecue and also exactly like her, only grown-up and dangerous.
“You look,” I said, and stopped.
“Go on.”
“Really good, Tess.”
Her smile shifted a little. “Thanks.” She glanced at the envelope on the counter, then back at me. “So here’s the awkward bit. I’m here. You booked. I’m not going to pretend that’s not what this is. But we could also just sit down and talk like normal people first.”
She bit her lip.
“Your call, Ben H.”
→ I suggest we sit down and talk first
→ I hand her the envelope and say we should do what I booked