* * *
James was sitting on a sofa with a paper and a mug of something when Cassie crept into the flat at midnight, convinced that he’d already be in bed.
‘Evening. How was your day?’ He put his mug on the floor and leaned back. She was pretty sure from their phone conversations that he normally went to bed earlier than this.
‘Very good, thank you. It was great to meet my editor in person finally, and I love my cover, and we’re on the same page about the rest of the books in the series.’
‘Liking your pun there.’ James smirked, but in a nice way.
‘Thanks for noticing,’ Cassie joked back. ‘Yes, so, those meetings were great and then I went to this very cool restaurant in Covent Garden with Jennifer for dinner. So all in all a very successful day. Being a writer can be quite solitary so it’s exciting to actually talk to the people you work with in person occasionally.’ Cassie was ridiculously pleased that James was still up, and ridiculously ready to have a long chat with him.
‘So tell me about your book cover. Cup of tea or coffee?’
Half an hour later, Cassie looked at her watch and said, ‘I’m keeping you up on a work night. We should go to bed.’
‘You’re right. We should. You must be exhausted after your journey and then a full day’s work. I shouldn’t have started talking to you. Come on.’ He stood up and held his hand out to pull her up to standing from the other end of the sofa. ‘I think you’re sorted for everything but if there’s anything you need, you know where I am.’ Yes, like she was going to go and knock on his door in the middle of the night.
He smiled at her and her breath caught. It was a good job she was so tired because she was fairly sure that if she hadn’t been she’d have had a hard time not lunging at him.
James had left for the morning by the time Cassie surfaced, fully showered, dressed and made-up, just in case she bumped into him, which was a little bit disappointing.
* * *
The door to the pub opened and Cassie glanced over. No, not James. More disappointment.
She hadn’t had this feeling for alongtime. Very teenage. The sensation that, yes, she was having a good – no, agreat– evening with her university friends, she absolutely was, but there was something missing. Or not exactly missing, but something that would make the evening even better. Specifically, James.
He’d said that he and his friends would arrive about ten thirty. She really wanted to check her watch but that would besorude.
Maybe she’d just pop to the loo. Then she wouldn’t need to go again for the rest of the evening and she could check her watch while she was there. No, bad idea, because obviously James wouldn’t recognise Neeta, Claire and Rach.
‘Cassie?’ Rach was staring at her like she was nuts. ‘Do you want another one?’ Did she? Cassie had no actual idea how much was left in her glass. She looked down. Still almost full.
‘I’m good, thank you. My round after this one.’ She smiled at Rach and picked her glass up and took a sip.
Men’s voices came from over by the door and she looked behind her. Yes.
Honestly, her heart had sped up far too much at the sight of James, and the evening suddenly seemed a lot more interesting. This was like being sixteen and having a mega crush on the most gorgeous boy you’d ever seen. But instead it was being thirty-seven and having a mega crush on the most gorgeousmanyou’d ever seen. Maybe not everyone would like him as much as she did, but when you’d talked to him, and seen the wicked humour behind his smile and got to know how his face creased when he was about to laugh, and discovered that you justgoteach other, it was hard not to have a full-on crush.
He broke into a smile when he saw her, and it was like the whole evening had brightened up.
And when he leaned in for a cheek-kiss to say hello, it felt like her entire insides lit up.
He was just as great in a group as he was one-on-one, perfect company – lively but he didn’t dominate the conversation.
‘Time to go home?’ James suggested at about half eleven. ‘Shall we walk?’ The flat was about a mile away from the pub.
‘It’s such a beautiful night,’ Cassie said as they strolled up Exhibition Road. ‘There’s something so special about a warm evening in November. The first autumn I was in Maine, we had a really hot week and I remember justlovingit.’
‘Not a lot of warm autumn evenings in Glasgow?’
‘Nope.’
James smiled down at her and turned slightly and his arm brushed her shoulder. Immediate goosebumps. ‘At the risk of repeating myself from the night of Laura’s party, although I have a slight suspicion that you might not remember everything we talked about then, look at Cassiopeia. You don’t often see it this clearly in the London skies.’ He stopped and pointed. ‘Look.’
Cassie looked up. She had an excellent view of the left side of James’s jaw and cheekbone, and his strong neck. Way more worth looking at than the sky, which she could see any time.
Could Jamestell how she was feeling?
