"I just can't believe she fancies David Tennant!" exclaimed Harry, reaching the milk carton from the fridge.

"No she doesn't," replied Janet calmly, making the coffee.

"But she said…"

"She said he was 'kind of cute'," she said.

"Well, okay, but…"

Janet smiled. "You have a lot to learn about women, Harry."

"What do you mean?"

"What did she say after she said she thought he was 'kind of cute'?"

"Oh… er…" he thought wildly. "Well, she said I look a bit like him."

"Precisely."

He frowned, as it began to dawn on him where Janet was going with this. "Oh…"

"So, if she thinks David Tennant is 'kind of cute', and she thinks you look like David Tennant," she continued, "it also follows, doesn't it, that she also thinks you're 'kind of cute'?"

There was an anguished hiss from the doorway that made them both look round guiltily to see Nikki, eyes wide, staring at them. "Janet!" she yelped.

"He would never have got it otherwise," grimaced the older woman, knowing it wasn't going to help.

It didn't; Nikki fled.

"What…?" began Harry.

Janet pulled a face. "I've just done the equivalent of 'my mate fancies you'. Go after her Harry."

"What? Why?" he asked mystified.

"Because if you don't," she replied patiently, "she'll think you don't care. Now go!"

Harry sped past Leo in pursuit of Nikki. "What on earth…?"

"Let's just say I may have been a bit of a catalyst to the next part in their relationship," Janet answered ruefully. "Though not quite in the way I'd intended."

Leo gave a wry smile. "Well, someone had to."

***

"Nikki!" He was glad of his longer legs, and that Nikki was wearing high heels; it made catching up with her so much easier.

"Leave me alone!" was her somewhat predictable, muffled reply.

"Not in a million years," he said, catching hold of her wrist. "Now for heaven's sake, stop and talk to me."

She tried to shake his hand off, but he refused to let go. "Let go." She shook her arm harder, and he tightened his grip on it. "Harry, let go."

"No," he said quietly. "Hear me out."

"Why?"

He ignored the rather petulant-sounding question, and carried on. "You remember how this conversation all started?" She gave him an angry glare, and he sighed. "I said that blonde girl on the TV was hot, right? What's her name… Emily something?"

"Emilia Fox," she gritted out.

"Right, yeah. Emilia Fox… Nikki, has nobody ever told you that you look exactly like her? As in, you could be identical twins like her?"

"What?"

He rolled his eyes. "Let me spell it out to you, then. It's not what's-her-name Foxy lady I really think is hot, Nikki." She gave him a slightly less frosty look, though it could still, potentially, have frozen the Thames. He sighed. "Maybe Leo should give you the same talk Janet gave me," he said wryly. "It's you I fancy, Nikki, not some blonde on the TV whose name I can't even remember."

"Emilia Fox," she said automatically, but there was a wide-eyed, disbelieving look on her face. "You actually…"

He used the wrist he was holding to jerk her into his arms. "Hell, yeah," he growled, making her shiver. "And I intend to show you just how much."

There was a polite cough from the open window. "Not that I object," came Leo's mild voice from inside, "but would you mind either doing so somewhere else, or after you've had your coffee?"

They gazed at each other in horror for a few minutes, then burst out laughing. "We'll be right in, Leo," called Harry, before whispering in Nikki's ear, "and then I'll take you home and show you how I feel."

Nikki suddenly concluded that coffee possibly was as bad for your health as people said it was…