Our Stop(25)

Gaby visibly softened.

‘Right,’ she said. ‘Sorry. Yes. God, Michael warned me you were charismatic.’ She smiled, but barely. It was coy and controlled. Daniel briefly wondered if she was flirting with him.

‘I just think,’ he said, ‘let’s move it to The Flying Pig and keep it under twenty-five quid a head, and make the focus the actual networking: not how flashy it is.’ He saw a dark cloud pass over Gaby’s face. ‘With all due respect, of course,’ he added. Now he understood why he’d sensed danger before: this was a woman used to telling people what to do – not being told.

‘The Flying Pig?’

‘Yeah, by the Barbican? Nice and central, still has white tablecloths … I used to go to school with the bar manager there. If it’s on a Monday, he can do us a deal.’

‘A deal,’ Gaby repeated, somewhat amused.

Daniel smiled again, sensing she was coming around. ‘I’m a man who knows a man,’ he said, shrugging. ‘And that man can make this actually affordable to those of us saving for a flat deposit.’

Gaby laughed. She said she got his point.

They sat in the meeting room for twenty-five minutes, hammering out the logistics of the event and dividing up the tasks. Gaby was good at delegating, and fired off emails from her phone as they talked, ticking things off her list as quickly as she added them, and together they switched their plan, making it more cost-effective, but keeping the roving magician. Tickets would be thirty-five pounds, with an in-built donation to a charity they would decide on later.

‘Well,’ Daniel said, looking at his watch. ‘We’ve made fast work of this. It’s 9 a.m., so I’ve got to get across the road to my office, but I’ll cc. you in on an email to Gary once I’ve got the numbers from the caterer, and then leave the rest to you.’

‘Great. Thank you,’ said Gaby, adding, ‘and Michael was right: you put the right perspective on this. I don’t know what I was thinking with the ticket price. I suppose I just wanted my first shot on the team to make a mark, is all.’

‘No worries,’ said Daniel. ‘I just, you know, I like a bargain, is all.’

Gaby smiled. ‘Sure thing.’

‘How do you know Michael, anyway?’ Daniel couldn’t help but ask her, mostly because the twitch in her eyebrow earlier told him they must have dated. With all The Lust Villa he’d been watching he fancied himself as an amateur romance psychologist.

‘We’re very different people,’ said Gaby, not quite answering the question. Daniel didn’t say anything. He’d learned, again from The Lust Villa, that if you wanted somebody to tell you their secrets the trick was to stay silent so that they’d go on to fill that silence. It worked. Gaby added, ‘By which I mean, we’re exactly the same. Both pig-headed and stubborn and always right, so, together it was always asking for trouble.’ Gaby shrugged. ‘We went out for a bit, and then we stopped going out.’

Daniel laughed.

‘But he’s a clever bastard, I’ll give him that. I really do think what he’s set up here could be beneficial to a lot of people. And at the very least, a bit of fun four times a year.’

‘Yes, absolutely. Nice excuse for a piss-up,’ Daniel replied, kindly. And then, ‘And I understand that. About you and Michael. My ex and I were too similar too. Both indecisive. Couldn’t even go to the cinema without a four-hour discussion beforehand. Makes sense to date an opposite, in a way.’

Gaby smiled. ‘I’ve never had that problem. Every woman I know has cultivated decisiveness as part of her personal brand.’

Daniel laughed again – he enjoyed this woman with the ballsy attitude and straight-talking. ‘God bless the fourth wave.’

‘Ahhh,’ said Gaby, standing to end the meeting and usher him out of the door. ‘A man who knows his feminism!’ They walked back the way they’d come, towards the lift.

‘Well, I don’t know about that. When I was growing up my dad told us it was just called respect.’

‘Music to my ears. Not a strong mother raising a strong boy, but a strong father setting the example.’

‘Yeah, my dad was a hell of a guy.’

‘Was?’

Daniel nodded. ‘A few months ago. Brain aneurysm.’

‘Oh, I’m so sorry. He sounds like he was a wonderful, feminist man.’

They reached the twenty-first floor reception area, slowing to an eventual stand.

‘Thank you. He was. I mean, I’m not sure he’d self-identify as feminist, but he was definitely the guy you’d want in your corner.’

Gaby narrowed her eyes. She liked this man in front of her, doing his friend a favour and being so open and considerate about the ticket prices and Nadia had said she thought he was cute earlier – or, well, she’d said it bit ruder than that but the sentiment was the vaguely same.

‘This is a weird question,’ she said. ‘And I am totally not hitting on you – I’m seeing somebody, actually – but … are you seeing anyone right now?’

Daniel crinkled his brow in response, half embarrassed and half intrigued. He sort of fancied Gaby herself, in a way – it was a slight ego dent that she was complimenting him whilst also saying she had a boyfriend.

‘I mean, no,’ he said, wondering why on earth she’d ask. ‘But …’ How could he explain he’d seen a woman on a train he was hoping to get to know? He couldn’t.