‘It’s here.’ Cassie leaned forward and picked it up from the coffee table. James applied superhuman effort and kept his eyes above where the low neckline of her dress gaped for a moment. She pointed the remote at the TV.
‘Oh, of course. Obviously you know how to work it.’ Really, it was so strange to think of her having been here in his flat for several months. Also, nice. Intimate.
‘To be honest, I don’ttotallyknow how to work it. I always thought there was some interaction between it and your Fire TV stick, and I never really worked out exactly how to do it, so I had relatively limited viewing options while I was here.’
‘Yeah, I can imagine. I struggled with it myself initially, and I had the instructions. Yep. I should have left you some instructions.’
‘You should.’ She smiled at him. ‘At least I had you writing lists by the time we swapped back.’
‘Yep, you listed me into submission.’ He was sure the wordsubmissionhad sexual connotations. Pretty much everything did right now. They should really switch the TV on and get watching something.
He shifted along the sofa to take the remote and she moved towards him. Their hands touched briefly when he took it and he caught a sharp intake of breath from Cassie. That should really not have made him want to smile so much.
She reached up and gathered all her hair into a high ponytail for a moment, exposing the delicate line of her neck.
She glanced over and saw him looking at her. ‘It’s a bit hot in here.’ She sounded a little breathless.
James nodded. He was feeling hot himself.
She let her hair down and stretched.
James swallowed. ‘So what do you fancy watching?’
‘I’ve seen a lot of films on planes recently.’
‘Yeah. Me too. What about a classic film?’
Astonishingly, Cassie had never seen a single Hitchcock.
‘What? That’s insane,’ James told her. ‘You have to watch one.’
‘But aren’t they scary? I don’t want to get frightened.’
‘You’ll be fine. I mean, I’m here. It isn’t like you’re on your own.’
‘Hmm.’
‘Okay. What about a deal? You let me introduce you to the master of cinema this evening and when you come back on Wednesday evening we’ll watch the least scary film of your choice.’ He put his hand out. Cassie looked at him, eyes narrowed, for a moment, and then shook it.
‘We’ll be watching something very different on Wednesday evening,’ she said. ‘Maybe a cheesy nineties rom-com.’
‘And I will watch it with a very open mind. Right.Psycho. I’m thinking lighting down for the full movie experience.’
‘Oh-kay.’
‘We can turn the lights on if you get scared.’
‘Okay. You’re on.’
‘You’re going to love it. It’s so well crafted. There’s a reason that films become great classics.’ James sat back with his arm along the back of the sofa behind Cassie and prepared to enjoy the movie.
‘No, no, no, no, no, oh mygoodness.’ Cassie was pressed right up against his side and was holding his knee as though her life depended on it. James hadn’t expected her to have this level of terror. If he was honest, he’d had more than the odd moment where he’d thought about some close contact with Cassie but none of his fantasies had involved her being terrified.
‘We can stop now?’
‘No! I need to know what happens. But could we have a light on?’
When the credits rolled, and Cassie had calmed down, she was still pressed right up against him. He had his arm round her shoulders and she was gripping his hand genuinely painfully.
