He was wearing faded jeans and a navy T-shirt, and, if you liked your men smiling, tall, blond and handsome, then he’d be exactly the man for you. Cassie’s heart was beating far too fast for good health and she definitely had an alpaca-style inane smile on her face. Apparently she liked her men the way he was.
‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Good journey?’
‘Not bad, thank you.’ She was still standing stock-still. He reached her and leaned down for an air-kiss, except she leaned a bit at the same time, so they brushed cheeks. Such a tingle. It felt like there should be some schmaltzy music in the background.
‘So how does it feel to be back?’ he asked her as they got into the lift together. During the entire six months that she’d been here she hadn’t noticed that the lift was this small. She’d definitely been in it with other people at times, and it had seemed more than big enough for two. You could actually get three people in here. But right now, it felt like she and James were standing unusually close together, a bit awkwardly close. She could see the contours of his chest through his T-shirt and the blond hairs on his forearms. Where should she be looking? Down? Up? Straight ahead? At him? She was going to stare straight ahead. Although the lift doors were mirrored, so now she had the choice of watching herself trying not to watch him, or just watching him.Hewas watching her now, and smiling. She smiled back. Yep. Inane.
He’d asked her a question.
‘Um, good,’ she said. Totally out of words.
Finally, the lift stopped and the doors started to open. It took ages for them to get out because they both waited for the other to go first, until Cassie said, ‘Thank you,’ and moved ahead of James and then hung back awkwardly until he was out; and then they walked along the corridor together.
Space-wise, it was less awkward inside the flat once they’d negotiated some backwards and forwards round each other through the door and in the hall.
‘You got new sofas,’ Cassie said.
‘Yeah. Once I got used to the comfortable ones at your house, I realised that I could do a lot better here. Substance, not just style. They were delivered on Tuesday. They have excellent squish.’
‘Cool. I’m going to look forward to snuggling into one of them.’
There was an awkward silence. Why had she used the wordsnuggle? You sat on or sank onto sofas and neither of those sounded so… odd, really. Or possibly innuendo-laden.
‘Great.’ James walked over to the door that led off the sitting room onto the bedroom hallway. ‘I’ll put your case straight in your bedroom.’ He’d chosen the one closest to the sitting room, which was the one further from his room.
‘Thank you.’ Cassie should take the opportunity to pull herself together. ‘I might just pop in there and have a shower and get changed if that’s okay. I always feel a bit grimy after a long journey.’
‘Good plan,’ he said. ‘There’s a towel on the bed, and I have croissants for you whenever you’re ready.’ Honestly. First the wordsnugglehad done all sorts to her, and now she was thinking smutty things about towels. A long journey, no sleep and seeing someone who you fancied the pants off were a bad combination.
Who knew eating could be so bloody stressful? Cassie took another bite of her croissant and tried to chew normally. Given how well it felt that she and James knew each other, they’d spent remarkably little time actually together. They’d definitely never eaten together before. She was spraying crumbseverywhere. Normally, she was a perfectly competent eater.
Fortunately, she wouldn’t be sharing any other meals with James today. She had a big lunch with her publisher to look forward to, which was exciting on two counts – one, finally meeting them in person was a big deal, and two, they had the cover designs for her first London book ready – and then dinner this evening with Jennifer, which she was also looking forward to.
‘I need to make a move.’ James stood up as Cassie finished her second coffee; she was going to need a lot of it today after close to zero sleep on the plane. ‘I’m out this evening too and busy during the day tomorrow so I’m not sure whether we’ll be home much at the same time, but I’ll definitely see you at the pub tomorrow.’ They were both having dinner with their own friends tomorrow evening, and had agreed to meet at a pub afterwards for late-night drinks.
‘I’ll see you there.’ Cassie attempted a chirpy and non-flirtatious tone and ended up with a squeak, which turned into a choke. Bloody croissant crumbs.
‘You okay?’ James asked when he’d finished whacking her on the back.
‘Yep. Thank you.’
‘I thought I was going to have to do the Heimlich manoeuvre there for a moment.’
‘I’m obviously so tired from my journey that I’ve forgotten basic skills like swallowing.’
James laughed. ‘I’ll see you later. Hope your meetings go well.’ He got up from the table, picked up a jacket and left.
Cassie realised that she was smiling at his departed back.
He’d be a great housemate. Cassie and Meg had shared a flat together in Glasgow for a few years. Meg had been a fab housemate. They’d had alotof fun. Then Meg had met her vicar and when they’d got married Cassie had got herself a flat of her own, which had been a lot less lonely than she’d expected, because she’d worked long hours and been out a lot in the evenings. Then she’d met Simon and moved in with him and she’d found that living with someone who wasn’t the ideal housemate was muchworse than living alone. Since she’d moved to the island, Cassie had enjoyed her space. She had her friends and the animals and she’d been pretty certain that it would be hard to find someone she’d like to live with.
Take Dina. A great, great friend. And would Cassie like to live with her? Definitely not. She was an excellent next-door neighbour.
James, though. She could imagine happily spending alotof time with him. Eating together, coming home to him, talking through their days, like they’d been doing on the phone for the past few months.
This was stupid. She really hardly knew him.
Anyway, it was ridiculous to be sitting around thinking about James; she was making herself late.
