He looked down at her face upturned to his, her beautiful generous mouth, her deep brown eyes.
He really, really wanted to kiss her. Undress her. Explore her body. Slowly. A lot.
And, no, he was really, really not going to.
God.
‘We should go to bed,’ he said.
Cassie smiled, a languid, beautiful, ‘I’m about to have sex’ smile.
No, that was not what he’d meant. ‘I mean, separately. It’s late.’ Oh God. How crass. How incredibly crass. His whole reason for not doing anything wasnotto embarrass her. ‘I really like you.’ Oh, okay. Way to go. Tell her he liked her but… But what? ‘But you’re my guest and I…’What? ‘I think we shouldn’t do anything we,you, might regret. Would you like a glass of water to take to your bedroom?’
Cassie’s smile had dropped. ‘Yes, a glass of water would be great, thank you.’ Her voice was a little squeaky.
James was still holding her. Why was he still holding her? He let go of her and walked over to the kitchen, took a glass out and filled it with water.
‘There you go,’ he said, taking great care not to touch her fingers with his when he handed the glass over.
‘Great! Thank you!’ Still squeaky and far too bright.
Seriously. Great job, James.
He cleared his throat. ‘So I’ll see you in the morning whenever you’re ready for brunch and the exhibition? Before our cooking fest.’
‘Perfect!’ Still fake brightness. ‘I’m looking forward to seeing your baking skills in action. So good night then.’ She spilled a bit of her water in her hurry to get away from him.
So uncool of him.
* * *
After some highly awkward extreme politeness in the flat, they went to Luigi’s for Saturday morning brunch. Mistake.
‘My two favourite people together.’ Luigi enveloped them both in a big hug and then drew back for some serious raising and wiggling of his monobrow. ‘Together.’
James went for big fake laughing while Cassie saidNoa lot.
‘Your favourite table is free,’ Luigi said, ushering them over. ‘It’s like a movie, no? You take it in turns to sit at the same table, never meeting. Andthen….’
‘You aresoright,’ Cassie said, while James floundered. ‘We still haven’t met. One of us is a ghost.’
Luigi laughed uproariously and wagged a finger at her. ‘Yes, and soon you might make little ghost babies.’
Cassie rolled her eyes at James as Luigi returned to the bar to torture some other customers, and then, thank God, she laughed. James didn’t spend a lot of time having personal conversations with people other than, very rarely, longstanding friends like Matt. He hadn’t been sure how okay Cassie was going to be with the baby reference.
‘He means well,’ James said. Clearly Luigi was not to know that the two of them had had a near possible-baby-making experience last night.
‘He does. He’s lovely. And he makes a mean pastry.’
And, in fact, the rest of their brunch was great. You could get over a lot of awkwardness with some people-watching. Soon, the conversation morphed into their usual wide-ranging chat and everything felt okay again. Almost.
‘So who’s paying?’ asked Luigi, holding his machine out.
‘Me.’ Cassie bent to rummage in her bag.
‘Nope. Me.’ James whipped his wallet out and had his card on the machine before her. ‘My treat. You’re the one who got the exhibition tickets.’
‘Well, firstly,’ said Cassie, ‘you’re hosting me this weekend, so I should pay, plus Jennifergaveme those tickets. And secondly, how did you even do that? It was so fast. You’d have made an amazing cowboy. It’s kind of sad that there isn’t a lot of call for that kind of speedy reaction nowadays.’
