Crazy in Love at the Lonely Hearts Bookshop. Annie Darling

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      ‘Tell that to Big Trevor,’ Nina muttered because Big Trevor had just arrived with his posse of computer-repair colleagues, all of them wearing orange T-shirts with the name of their team, The Battering RAMs, emblazoned across their chests. ‘They look like a gigantic bunch of Wotsits in those T-shirts.’

      ‘Now, now, young lady, let’s have a friendly quiz,’ Clive said, as he handed over the envelope with the quiz sheets in it. Opening them before Clive gave permission, at exactly seven thirty sharp when the quiz officially began, meant instant disqualification. ‘Now give me your mobile phones.’

      When Clive said it was a nice, friendly quiz what he actually meant was that The Midnight Bell Thursday Night Pub Quiz was an event with so many rules and regulations that, by comparison, it made the Brexit negotiations look like a sweet little cake sale.

      Tom and Noah returned with the drinks, Sam arrived with a put-upon expression on his face, which disappeared as soon as Posy said he could have a very weak shandy as long as he had a bowlful of cheesy chips to soak up the negligible amounts of alcohol.

      Nina sat happily on the banquette, Sam next to her, cheesy chips in front of her, humungous glass of red wine in her hand and, for a moment, she felt that all was right in her world.

      ‘Is there room for me?’ Noah asked and before Nina could force herself to purr, ‘There’s always room for a little one,’ he squeezed in on her other side so Nina no longer had room to spread out.

      She wriggled until Sam shifted down a little bit but she was still aware of Noah’s leg brushing against hers as he reached forward for his pint of lager. ‘Hi Sam,’ he said easily. ‘How’s the Hackintosh project coming along?’

      ‘You two know each other?’ Nina asked a little stiffly, because there had been a time a few months ago, before Posy got married and she and Sam moved out, when she knew everything that went on in Sam’s life. She had seen him every day when he got home from school, usually accompanied by his friend Pants, who had an out-of-control crush on her. Now, she hadn’t seen Pants in weeks and Sam, like everyone else, it seemed, was moving on, and Nina was stuck in exactly the same place.

      ‘Well, Noah’s mates with Sebastian,’ Sam said diffidently, though he adored his new brother-in-law. He shook his fringe out of his eyes. ‘So, we hang sometimes.’

      ‘And what’s a Hackintosh?’ Nina persevered.

      ‘Sebastian and I are building an Apple Mac on a regular PC,’ Sam replied, though Sebastian was rich enough that he could go to the Apple store and buy a hundred MacBooks without breaking a sweat. ‘You get the parts online, depending on the modifications you want, and then you put it together …’

      Nina smiled and nodded but she was sure that her eyes were glazing over. Across the table, Posy and Verity were now arguing about what their team name would be, while Tom sipped his wine and looked as if he’d much rather be at home, wherever that was, wrestling with his bibliography.

      ‘… then we were going to turbo-boost the processor,’ Sam was explaining to Noah, who seemed riveted by this blow-by-blow account of extreme nerdiness. Go figure.

      ‘Oh really? I reckon you could get up to two point nine gigahertz,’ he said. ‘Providing that you’re modifying a standard Intel Core M processor.’

      ‘Sounds fascinating, boys,’ Nina said, even though it sounded the exact opposite. ‘Talking of computers, Sam, have you managed to remember the shop Instagram and Twitter login details yet?’

      Immediately Sam shook his head so his face was obscured by his fringe once more. ‘I haven’t had time. This is a very important year for me academically,’ he said sanctimoniously even though he was in a pub drinking shandy on a school night talking about his Hackintosh project, which seemed to be taking up an awful lot of his waking hours.

      ‘Sam, what is the point of you being in charge of the shop’s social media if you never update any of our accounts?’ Nina demanded.

      ‘Sophie’s meant to update the Twitter account,’ Sam said in a small voice. ‘But …’ his voice got even quieter, ‘she can’t log in because I used this random program to generate passwords for all our accounts, and it turned out it was infected with a virus and I managed to sort that out – don’t tell Posy, she’ll freak – but now we’re locked out of Twitter and Instagram.’

      ‘Oh Sam, you muppet!’ moaned Nina. ‘Isn’t there a way to reset it?’

      ‘Shut up,’ Sam hissed. ‘Posy’ll hear you.’

      ‘Aren’t the accounts linked to a mobile phone number for verification?’ Noah asked. ‘Or an email address?’

      ‘Probably.’ Sam frowned. ‘Maybe. Perhaps.’

      ‘Why don’t we sit down tomorrow and figure it out?’ Noah suggested. ‘I bet we can find a way in and then Nina can take over the accounts for you.’

      ‘So I can post pictures of new stock and quote from books and stuff,’ Nina said.

      ‘Boring! Who wants to look at that?’ Sam sneered.

      Nina poked him in the ribs until he squealed. ‘You do realise that I work in a bookshop owned and run by your sister? And that people who visit the shop’s Instagram account might want to look at pictures of pretty books?’

      ‘And you could post a picture of your Valentine’s window display?’ Noah said as Sam made a big deal of rubbing his side though Nina had barely touched him.

      ‘I could,’ Nina agreed. ‘That reminds me, I think there are some heart-shaped fairy lights in a box in the coal hole.’

      Noah smiled at her and she smiled back and oh God, she hoped they weren’t going to get into that whole smiling thing again: she really didn’t want Noah to get the wrong idea.

      In the soft, very flattering light of The Midnight Bell, Noah’s hair made Nina think of marmalade and autumn leaves. And his green eyes were very twinkly, though that could just be the reflected glint of the candles that landlady Carol dotted about the place.

      But mood lighting or not, Noah’s smile was the same as it always was: friendly, warm, inviting. A bit like a hug.

      Nina shook her head. She wasn’t a hugger. She’d just have to tell Tom that Operation Pimp Nina Out was aborted.

      She stopped smiling and Noah’s smile fell off his face too, and not smiling at each other was even more awkward than smiling. So awkward that even Sam, who was a teenage boy and oblivious to emotions and feelings and similar things, felt moved to say, ‘Why are you two being weird?’

      ‘Nobody’s being weird,’ Nina said crisply and she’d never been so relieved to see Mattie who’d also been summoned for quiz duties but had had to finish doing her prep for the next morning first. ‘Mattie! There you are!’

      ‘Yes, Nina, here I am,’ Mattie agreed with a slightly perturbed expression at Nina’s enthusiastic greeting. ‘Everyone all right for drinks?’

      ‘I’ll help you,’ Nina offered, anything to get away from Noah and smiling or not smiling at him.

      ‘No, you’re all right.’ Mattie flapped СКАЧАТЬ