‘It is,’ Rhys said, looking vaguely uncomfortable, especially when he realised I’d come to a halt.
‘Were you just about to walk past your own home without saying you lived here?’ I questioned.
His discomfort appeared to be growing.
‘Yes, I was.’
‘Why?’
He dug his hands into his pockets and all at once lost about twenty-five years. He looked like a sheepish little boy in the headmaster’s office.
‘Because I didn’t want you to think I’d engineered it so that we’d end up at my place and you’d feel coerced into coming inside, if you hadn’t wanted to.’
There was a lot to unpack in his explanation, and I took my time doing it.
‘Is it possible that maybe you’re a bit of an overthinker?’ I said carefully.
‘It has been said.’
I looked around at the deserted area. I suppose if he was an entirely different kind of man, maybe this situation might have made me nervous or twitchy. But I felt as relaxed with Rhys as I always did.
‘I’m not easily coercible,’ I said at last. His face still looked serious. ‘Is that even a word?’ That, at last, released a smile. ‘Nothing about this,’ I said, wafting my hand in the air to encompass where we were, ‘or our friendship makes me feel anything except completely comfortable.’
Rhys nodded and the lingering traces of concern left his face.
‘To be honest, I can’t remember the last time a man was this worried that I’d misinterpret his actions. Probably because it’s never happened to me before.’
‘Then you’ve been mixing with all the wrong men,’ he said, finally extracting one hand from his pocket, along with his door key.
‘You might be right there,’ I murmured low enough that he couldn’t hear. He had already turned towards the entrance to his building.
‘So now that we’ve sorted that out, can I interest you in coming up for a beer or some wine?’
My nod came with a smile that seemed to live permanently on my lips in his company.
I followed him into the deliciously cool air-conditioned hallway and towards a bank of lifts. A tiny thrill of anticipation thrummed through me as we waited for the carriage to arrive. My desire to see inside his home was more than just estate agent nosiness. Seeing how a person lived was one of the most illuminating ways to understand them better. And Rhys was a puzzle I was still trying to figure out.
His flat was on the middle floor of the five-storey building. It was everything he’d said: modern, airy, functional, and impersonal. It escaped being bland only by scattered splashes of colour from a handful of brightly patterned cushions and a huge Aztec-style rug on the floor.
The layout was open plan, and I followed him into the kitchen area, where he went straight to the fridge. I pulled up a stool at the breakfast bar. It was the kind that resembles a chip basket and was just about as comfortable. To protect my bare legs, I tugged on the skirt of my dress, making the neckline dip lower and display more cleavage than I would have liked. I knew Rhys had already seen more than that, but that had been a medical emergency – or at least that was how I liked to categorise it.
‘White or pink?’ he asked, straightening from the fridge with a bottle in each hand.
‘Pink, please.’
He pulled two glasses from a cupboard and filled them generously. The wine was deliciously cold and refreshing and Rhys took a generous swig before wrinkling his nose.
I took a subtle sniff of the wine in my own glass, which had tasted just fine to me.
‘At the risk of putting you on sleaze alert again, would you mind if I left you for five minutes so I can jump in the shower? I promise you it’s not my usual routine with visitors, but one of us doesn’t smell that great, and it’s definitely not you.’
‘That’s okay. I mean, you’re perfectly fine as you are, but I’m happy to entertain myself for a bit.’
Rhys took another sip then set his wine glass back down on the counter beside mine.
‘I won’t be long. Make yourself at home.’
For someone who is very used to being alone in other people’s homes, I felt strangely wrong-footed to be on my own in Rhys’s. I waited until he left the room before gingerly extracting myself from the stool. With my wine glass still in hand, I wandered back into the living area, taking my time to focus on the room’s layout and the furniture he’d chosen. It told me very little about the man himself... but the walls yielded far more information. The plain white expanses were decorated with an eclectic accumulation of artwork.