I freed up one hand to give his arm a reassuring squeeze. ‘They’ll probably end up saying I’m not good enough for you,’ I said, only half joking.
It was a conversation I would really have liked to explore further, but I could already hear the heavy tread of footsteps approaching the door. It was flung open with such force it practically bounced on its hinges.
‘Ellie,’ declared Steve, who was looking decidedly harried and uptight for someone who was meant to be in party mode.
‘Hey, Steve,’ I said leaning in and giving his cheek a kiss. He smiled vaguely and I saw then that his attention was focused primarily on Rhys.
‘You must be Ellie’s new bloke,’ he said artlessly.
I was too busy feeling mortified to leap in with a correction, and I probably wouldn’t have had a chance, because our stressed-out host reached for my date and practically hauled him over the threshold. ‘What do you know about gas barbecues, mate? And please don’t say “nothing” because I’ve got thirty hungry neighbours who are about to turn feral if I can’t get ours going again.’
More than anything, I loved how Rhys never seemed fazed by the unexpected.
‘I know a bit,’ he said, allowing himself to be dragged farther into the hallway. ‘My friend has one that I’ve helped him fix a couple of times.’
‘Thank God,’ said Steve, raising his eyes to the Artex ceiling as though that was where he was most likely to be found. ‘I knew Ellie would have a boyfriend with home maintenance skills.’
‘He’s not my boyfriend,’ I said, but I was already talking to their retreating backs.
‘I’m stealing him anyway,’ Steve sang out as he instructed Rhys to dump the beer and the flowers and follow him.
Before he allowed himself to be press-ganged into action, Rhys turned around and gave me a look that managed to say, Don’t worry, I’ve got this. I don’t mind helping. I won’t be too long. And I really want to kiss you right now. Okay, maybe the last one was a bit of a stretch, but it didn’t hurt to dream, did it?
‘You’re here!’ declared Mel dramatically, as though she’d been about to send out a search party for me. She looked at the empty space beside me and her face fell.
‘Didn’t Rhys come with you?’
I couldn’t help but smile. The people I’d known for years were far more interested in my plus-one than me. Rhys had clearly been worrying about nothing.
‘Your husband already kidnapped him at the doorstep,’ I said, picking up the flowers that Rhys had left in the hallway. ‘These are for you, from him.’
Mel reached for the bouquet with one hand while rummaging in a cupboard for a vase. ‘I knew I was going to like him. And if he manages to fix the bloody barbecue, Steve will probably adopt him.’
‘What happened to it?’ I asked, peering through the open kitchen doors where a group of men were all standing around the broken barbecue, scratching their heads, some literally.
‘Halfway through cooking the first load of chicken, it curled up and died. So if Rhys can’t figure out what’s wrong, I’m about to give half the street salmonella.’
She looked flushed and kind of glowing, with what I assumed was the heat in the kitchen, where Plan B, ‘we’ll have to cook it in the oven’, was about to go into operation.
I glanced once more in the direction of the men in the garden and felt my heart skitter in my chest as I saw Rhys in their midst. He was taller, broader, and altogether more gorgeous than any other male in the group. It was, of course, not an exactly objective opinion, but I was sticking with it.
As if sensing my eyes on him, Rhys suddenly looked my way as he began rolling up the sleeves of his shirt. I gave a totally ridiculous wave and he returned it with a huge grin.
Mel was clearly distracted and doing a piss-poor job of arranging the flowers, so I took them from her. ‘Why don’t you take a breather? I’ll do these for you and then you can put me to work. You look kind of hot and bothered.’
Mel took hold of the neckline of her floaty boho dress and flapped it in an attempt to fan her cleavage, which was looking particularly impressive and in danger of spilling out of the low scooped neck. ‘It is rather warm in here.’
With the degree of comfort that you only really know in the homes of your very good friends, I went to her fridge and extracted a can of ice-cold lemonade.
‘Sit,’ I commanded, proffering the drink, then quickly popping the remaining flowers into what looked like the right gaps. I stepped back to admire my handiwork. It wasn’t exactly up to Beth’s standard, but it was a pretty good effort for an amateur.
‘So why are you and Steve so convinced that Rhys will be able to fix the barbecue?’
Mel looked at me as though out of all the ridiculous questions I had ever asked, that one might pip all the others to be top of the list.
‘Because he’s an engineer.’
‘No, he’s not.’