‘It’s a nice house,’ said Gib as they went back downstairs. ‘How long have you lived here?’
‘A couple of years. I bought it with my fiancé, as he was then.’ Phoebe was quite proud of the coolness in her voice. ‘We lived here together for a year, and then Ben decided to move back to Bristol with someone he’d met, so I took over the mortgage.’
Gib didn’t need to know about the anguish and the heartache and the long, long months of misery she had endured since Ben had left.
‘I couldn’t afford to live here on my own, so I had to take in lodgers, and it was just lucky that Kate was looking for somewhere at the same time. We were students together, and she knew Bella from school. Caro was a friend of Bella’s, so it all worked out perfectly until Caro decided to get married. We’re not sure where we’re going to find anyone who fits in as well as she did,’ she confessed as they went back into the kitchen.
‘Can’t you advertise?’
‘We could, and that’s probably what I’ll end up doing, but it’s hard to know what to put when you’re really looking for someone who’ll be a friend and not just a tenant.’
Mindful of his bet with Josh, Gib pricked up his ears at the key word. ‘How do you know if someone is a friend?’ he asked casually.
‘That’s just it, you don’t,’ said Phoebe. ‘You can’t tell who’s going to be a good friend and who isn’t. It’s just something that clicks between you.’
Absently, she began piling her papers together to clear the table a bit, while she thought about Gib’s question. ‘I suppose a friend is someone who’s easy to talk to, who laughs at the same things. Someone who’s just going to fit in and be comfortable sitting around and talking all evening without wanting to organise us or worrying about how long it is since anyone got the hoover out.’
It was a bit vague, but Gib reckoned he could do all of that.
‘Perhaps you should put that in your advert,’ he suggested.
‘I don’t know that it would be much help. You could get someone who said they were able to do all those things, but you still might not get on. It’s a funny thing, friendship,’ Phoebe mused. ‘I don’t think you can ever pin down the magic ingredient which makes you really like some people and not others.’
So much for picking up pointers from Phoebe! Gib sighed to himself. She was clearly not including him in her category of those with that special magic ingredient that would make him a friend!
Not yet, anyway.
Phoebe might be more of a challenge than he had anticipated, but challenges were there to be met. Gib wasn’t giving up yet. He had a bet to win!
‘How are you getting on with Gib?’
Josh and Phoebe were sitting on the sofa, while at the other end of the kitchen Bella and Kate busied themselves with the welcoming supper they had planned for Gib. Bella had told him that they were treating his welcome like the Queen’s birthdays, so that he not only had the real one when he arrived, but the official dinner to mark the occasion a day later.
No effort was being spared. The table had been ruthlessly cleared of its clutter and ransacking the cupboards had revealed no less than four plates, in varying states of repair but with recognisably the same pattern.
‘One of us can have the plate with the bunnies running round the edge,’ said Bella breezily. ‘We’ll need to use one of the folding chairs from the garden, too.’
Now she and Kate were fussing over some elaborate starter, while Gib opened some wine and Phoebe and Josh, assigned to washing-up duty, had retired to a safe distance.
Phoebe looked over at Gib who was manipulating the corkscrew with practised ease. His head was bent and the lights gleaming on his hair made it look fairer than usual.
‘Kate and Bella are completely smitten,’ she told Josh.
‘But not you?’
Phoebe looked away from Gib. ‘I certainly wouldn’t describe myself as smitten with him,’ she said.
‘Why, what’s he done?’
That was the thing. Gib hadn’t done anything. She couldn’t even hold the taxi fare incident against him. He had repaid her in full without prompting that morning.
How could she explain to Josh how unsettling Gib was? He had only been in the house a day, but he was already firm friends with Bella and Kate, and lounged around the kitchen as if he had lived there for ever. Phoebe ought to have been relieved that he was fitting in so well, but instead she found herself edging nervously around him, as if afraid he was about to explode into action at any second.
‘He’s not very restful, is he?’ she said to Josh, and he laughed.
‘You just have to get used to him.’
Phoebe couldn’t imagine ever getting used to Gib. Every time he came into the room she would catch her breath as if startled by the blueness of his eyes and the lazy good humour of his smile. Nobody had the right to be that attractive and that relaxed the whole time!
She wished she could be like Kate and Bella, and treat him like just another friend, but somehow she couldn’t. You weren’t aware of friends the way she was always aware of Gib.
It made Phoebe uneasy. There was nothing wrong with physical attraction, but it felt all wrong at the moment. She wasn’t ready for another relationship, whatever her friends said. Ben had meant too much to her for her to get over him that easily. She might never get over him and, if she did, it certainly wasn’t going to be with someone like Gib. He wasn’t her type at all.
So why couldn’t she get used to him as Josh suggested?
‘I’ll try,’ she said.
Across the kitchen, Gib eased the cork out of the bottle with a satisfying pop and watched Phoebe talking to Josh. For the first time, he wondered if there might be something in this friendship thing. He had found himself envying Josh’s uncomplicated friendship with the three girls, who were all patently delighted to see him. Even Phoebe’s face had lit up, and she had given him an unselfconscious hug.
Gib sensed that she wasn’t someone who hugged indiscriminately. It would be a real sign of acceptance if Phoebe hugged you, he thought. He could imagine with unnerving clarity what it would be like to feel her slender body in his arms, her silky hair against his cheek. He bet she smelt wonderful. He had noticed a faint scent lingering in the air after she had passed once or twice.
All right, every time.
Hugging Phoebe would be his goal, Gib decided. Just in a friendly way, of course, he added hastily to himself. It would be just like hugging Kate and Bella, both of whom had thrown their arms around him when they first met him.
They were both such warm, friendly open girls that it was impossible not to be friends with them. Gib already knew about Kate’s obsession with someone referred to by Bella and Phoebe as Slimy Seb, and he had heard so much about Bella from Josh that she felt completely familiar.
But Phoebe…Phoebe was different. She was much more guarded and inclined to be prickly. Gib knew that he would have to work hard to earn her friendship and the prospect of a hug, but if he did, he thought it would be worth it.
Bella’s Thai crab cakes to start were a huge success. Kate had roasted a chicken and Phoebe had been persuaded to make her trade mark strawberry torte in honour of the occasion. By the end of the meal, they were all replete and relaxed, and Gib felt as if he had been living there for ever.
‘I’ll make some coffee.’ Phoebe pushed back her chair as Gib polished off the last of the torte. Unsettling he might be, but you had to admit that there was something very appealing about a man with a good appetite.
‘How