I Owe You One: A Novel(85)

“What do you want to know?” I laugh, mentally putting together my brief, official “Fixie Farr’s life so far” paragraph.

“Everything,” says Seb emphatically. “Everything. Clearly you’re an Olympic skating champion, for a start. Your family must be really proud of you.”

And I know he didn’t mean to, but he’s already skewered me. He’s hit my sore spot. Skating isn’t in my official paragraph—usually I edit it right out.

“Kind of,” I say, and I shoot him a bright smile, but I know it’s not convincing.

“Kind of,” echoes Seb slowly.

“Let’s talk about you,” I parry, and I see him digest the fact that I’m batting him away. He takes a few gulps of wine, his eyes flickering with thought.

“I have an idea,” he says at last. “Shall we be honest with each other? Shall we tell each other the Stuff?”

“The Stuff?” I echo blankly.

“You know what I mean.” He looks directly at me. “The Stuff. The stuff inside your heart that’s made you who you are, that you think about at night. Good and bad. Between ourselves.”

“Oh, that stuff,” I say with a light laugh, because I’m suddenly afraid of baring my soul. What if he doesn’t like my soul? What if he thinks, Sheesh! Never expected her soul to be like that!

“Yes, that stuff.” He plants his elbows on the table, his face lit up with that eager, interested expression I’ve come to know. “Who is Fixie Farr? Tell me.”

So I take a deep breath—and I tell him. In between mouthfuls of linguine, I tell him about Dad. And Farrs. And Mum. I tell him about my catering company collapsing; how I’ve never paid Mum back; what a failure I’ve felt ever since. I tell him a little bit about how Jake makes me feel. (Not everything. Not about my skating fall, because I don’t want to cast a shadow over this evening. And definitely not about the ravens. There’s “honest” and then there’s “too much information.”)

Then I tell him all about Ryan, and he listens nicely and doesn’t say a single scathing thing about him, even though I can see the antagonism mounting in his eyes.

“I was in love with a girl called Astrid at school,” he says, when I’ve finished. “If she’d come breezing back into my life, I think I would have lost all sense. So I get it.”

I even tell him how I got the nickname “Fixie”: that when I was three, I used to walk around determinedly, saying, “Got to fix it. Got to fix it.” (Although I could never explain exactly what I had to fix.)

“So what’s your real name?” Seb asks, and I hesitate, then lower my voice and practically whisper, “Fawn.” I know it’s my name, but Fawn doesn’t sound like me. It sounds like an animal.

“Fawn?” Seb regards me critically. “No. I prefer Fixie.”

“Pretend I never told you,” I beg him.

“It’s forgotten.”

The lights in the restaurant have been dimmed by now, and candlelight is flickering on our faces. The waiter clears our plates and we read the dessert menus, like you do, but only order coffee. And then I lean forward.

“Now. Your turn.”

He starts with his work. He tells me about how he set up his company and what a struggle it was but fun too—and how it’s all about finding the right people. As he describes his colleagues, his enthusiasm pours out, and his eyes shine with what I can only call love. He tells me how he can’t stand injustice and arrogance and that’s what drove him into ethical investment. He gives me a small lecture on which are the worst executive practices, in his opinion, and how companies should be run, before breaking off and saying, “Sorry. Boring. Boring.” (It wasn’t.)

Then, when our coffee cups are both drained, he tells me about his family’s deaths, in more measured tones. He tells me how they all survived his dad’s death pretty well and thought, We’ve had our bad luck, and got on with life, but then his mum died while he was at uni and then his brother was killed.… Then he notices my eyes swimming with tears and breaks off.

“Fixie, it happened,” he says, grabbing my hand and squeezing it. “It happened. That’s all you can say about it.”

“I suppose,” I say after a pause. “But, oh, Seb …”

“I’m fine. I’m fine. I’ve moved on, I’m at peace with it, I appreciate what I have.… Sorry,” he adds, as though noticing for the first time where his hand is.

“No, that’s OK,” I say, my voice a little husky. I blink away my tears, determined to get a grip. If Seb can be so positive about it, then I should be too.

I squeeze his hand back, and he looks at me with a kind of cryptic, quizzical expression, and with a sudden lurch I realize where we are in the evening. We’ve talked. We’ve shared a bottle of wine. We’re holding hands.

“So, I was thinking,” I say, my gaze fixed on a distant point. “Shall I … uh … see you back home? You know, with your ankle and everything. You might need a hand up the … uh … steps. If you have steps. Do you have steps?”

My nervous gabble comes to an end and I wait breathlessly for his reply.

“I do have steps,” says Seb. “And that would be very kind of you.” His eyes meet mine, and something about his expression starts a pulse inside me.