Lucy Holliday - A Night In With Grace Kelly

The restaurant, by the way, being his own restaurant, over in Clapham.

Nibbles.

That’s what the restaurant is called.

It’s a bit unfortunate.

Not the name Nibbles itself, as such – although I still think it’s a name better suited to a twee seaside tearoom, rather than a tapas-style restaurant successful enough to have been nominated for all kinds of Best Newcomer awards recently – but more what the choice of name represents. I mean, it was a pretty last-minute decision to call it that, and—

Talking of last-minute decisions, a text has just popped up on my phone from Olly, literally as I approach the restaurant’s front door, asking if I can meet him two doors down in the little French bistro instead. We’ve ended up needing all the tables tonight , his text informs me, and anyway it’s been a knackering day and I just want to get out of the place!!! Will get bottle of red. See you there. O xxx

Which actually suits me pretty well, too, because the slight issue of having a meal with Olly at Nibbles is, no matter how hard he tries to avoid it, the constant interruptions. Even on a night when he’s not officially working, he’s always working: there’s an issue that needs to be sorted out in the kitchen, or two of the waiting staff are threatening to kill each other, or a customer can’t live another moment without finding out the origin of his recipe for pea and mint arancini.

Peace and quiet and privacy over red wine at the bistro sound just about perfect right now. Especially since I can’t actually remember the last time I had a quiet evening and a chat with Olly. Two months ago? Closer to three? Despite the fact we’ve been close friends ever since I was thirteen, and he was Nora’s worldly wise fifteen-year-old brother; despite the fact we used to get together to set the world to rights over a bite to eat and more than a sip to drink at least twice a week, we’ve drifted a bit of late. Probably something to do with the fact that he’s busy running his restaurant, and I’m busy running my business.

Oh, and probably quite a lot, too, to do with the fact that I’m a little bit in love with him.

Actually, I’ll rephrase that, because a little bit in love sounds like I have some girlish crush, or something.

It’s not a crush. I am passionately, desperately, fervently, and worst of all secretly in love with Olly. Who – worse even than that – just so happened to be secretly in love with me, too, for almost the entirety of our friendship, until a year ago when (not unreasonably, let’s be honest) he finally gave up on me and started going out with Tash, his now-girlfriend, who works with Nora up at Glasgow Royal Infirmary.

I mean, he’d planned to name the restaurant after me, and everything. Libby’s, it was meant to be called, not Nibbles . That was the last-minute decision I just told you about. I guess he’d always had this idea that he’d open a restaurant named after me one day, and that this would be the big declaration of love that he couldn’t bring himself to say out loud, and that I’d finally realize the way he felt about me. But then I was messing around thinking I was in love with my ex, Dillon O’Hara, and Olly just got tired of waiting.

It was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made in my life. The biggest mistake I’ve ever made without knowing I was even making it.

It’s why I end up avoiding him so much these days. (While still – illogically – at the same time, desperately wanting to find ways to spend time with him.) For one thing, it often just feels too painful to have to sit there and stare down the barrel of What Should Have Been. And, for another, I’m usually scared that I might not be able to disguise my own feelings. Might end up, horror to end all horrors, jumping the table and doing to him pretty much what Tino the Mexican hairless did to my Chesterfield earlier this afternoon.

Because just look at me now, coming to a wobbly-kneed standstill as soon as I enter the bistro and see him at a corner table. He’s just so incredibly, heart-breakingly gorgeous, with his hair all mussed up from his habit of rubbing his hands through it when he’s stressed, and his big brown eyes, so open and honest, and—

‘Lib!’

Those big brown eyes have alighted on me now, and he’s getting to his feet, a huge smile on his handsome face.

‘You’re a sight for sore eyes,’ he says, coming over to put his arms around me in a huge bear hug. (I inhale, as surreptitiously as I can, his scent: the familiar, warm, kitcheny smell I’ve known inside out for the last couple of decades, coupled with something spicier and more masculine that I never used to notice, but must have always been there.) ‘Come and sit down and have some wine with me. Well, actually, I decided on a bottle of champagne. Your favourite kind. I mean, we’re celebrating your moving into the new flat, right?’

‘Oh, Olly. That’s … so nice of you.’

‘Don’t be silly. It’s a big moment. You deserve to celebrate it!’

‘Well, I don’t know about that. I mean, I feel like I’ve already screwed things up with my new landlord.’

‘You mean the scary fashion woman who keeps trying to tell you what to do with your own business?’

‘I mean the scary fashion woman who keeps trying to tell me what to do with my own business.’ I smile up at him. ‘Wow. That was well remembered, Ol. I only told you about her in passing when I last saw you.’

‘I always remember the important stuff.’ He ushers me towards the table. ‘Now, I’ve ordered us a plate of charcuterie and a plate of cheese, but if there’s anything else you’d prefer, I can get them to give us a menu …’

‘No, no, I’m fine. I mean, that sounds perfect.’ I slide into the seat opposite him, and do my best to slow down my hammering heart. ‘Hi,’ I add, with a nervous laugh, that I immediately try to turn into a cough. ‘God, Olly, it’s been ages.’

‘Way too long. Here.’ He pours champagne into my glass. Quite a lot of champagne, and then the same sort of amount for himself. His hand is a bit shaky – exhaustion, I should think, given the hours he works – which is probably why it slips a bit and why he’s poured such big glasses. ‘You look like you need this. What happened with the scary fashion woman?’

‘Oh, you know, the usual … I mistook her beloved puppy for a rat and threw a large piece of solid metal at its head—’

‘Ah. Of course. The usual.’ He grins at me and lifts his glass. ‘Cheers, Lib. And congratulations. On the exciting new move, that is. Not the puppy-maiming. I need to be absolutely clear that, despite our long and happy friendship together, I can in no way condone that.’

‘And I’d never expect you to.’

I chink my glass against his and grin back.

After a moment, it feels like a rather rictus grin and, to be perfectly honest, he looks pretty frozen too – probably wondering what the hell I’m still grinning about myself – so I take a long drink.

He does the same.

‘So!’ I say, brightly, when we both put our glasses down. ‘That’s honestly quite enough about me—’

‘Oh, come on, Lib, I want to hear all about the new place!’

‘Well, then you’ll have to come over some time. With Tash!’ I add, just in case he thinks I’m suggesting some cosy soirée, just the two of us. ‘But until then, there’s really not much to tell, Olly, honestly.’

I mean, in the past, I’d have bored his pants off, wittering on about my hopes and fears for the business, getting him to join me in over-analysing every word spoken by Elvira and Ben. But now that I fancy him so much – now that I can think of other, far less noble things I’d like to do to get his pants off, quite frankly – I’m suddenly a lot less keen to bore him. Not to mention the fact that there’s the permanent wedge of Tash between us. It just feels wrong to seek that type of support from a man who’s – very much – spoken for.