I raise myself on one elbow. “You didn’t even know me, then.”
“Didn’t you wonder why I got into the car with you? I just couldn’t bear the idea of pointing the way and letting you go.” He folds his arms under his head and stares at the ceiling. “In the car, next to you, my knees felt like jelly. I kept my eyes on your hands. Could have sat there for hours watching you turn thewheel, fingers tapping lightly on the leather. Christ, I so wanted your hands on me.”
“You liar.” I mock slap his chest just above his flat nipple. “All that talk about not seeing my outside but my personality. You hadn’t a clue about my personality back then.”
He shifts on his side to face me. “Yes, but the worry in your eyes, the fear when you saw me. It was clear you thought I might be some apparition. Yet, you forced yourself to be polite.” His eyes dance around my face. Then he gives up. “Okay, and I did find you beautiful, too.”
“Ah, I knew it!”
“Wait…” He grabs my hand before I can smack him again. “Wait, a sec. I may have been attracted to your beauty, but in the end I discovered your personality and that was the real attraction.” He brings my hand to his lips and kisses my fingers, each one.
“It’s the opposite of what happened to me.”
He looks up from kissing my knuckles.
“I didn’t think much of your appearance. I thought you looked like Hagrid.”
His lips twitch and his eyes crinkle at the corners.
“I actually named you Welsh Hagrid before I found out your real name.”
This time he laughs, flopping back on his back. “Cymraeg Hagrid, I love it.”
He looks beautiful like that. Naked, his hair spread around on the pillow. “True, I didn’t think you were attractive at all.I was attracted to your personality and only afterwards did I discover how utterly beautiful you are.”
“Beautiful, am I?” He laughs, grabbing me close, wrapping his arms around me. “Call me Welsh Hagrid again.” He growls rolling us both until he’s on top. “Go on, say,Cymraeg Hagrid.”
“You’re turned on by the weirdest things.”
And he is. Over the next hour I call himCymraeg Hagridseveral times and his response sends us both wild.
Chapter Twenty-One
Saturday 1st of December, Llancaradoc Christmas Market, Morning
We’ve agreed this is temporary, a short adventure. Not only because I’m going back to London; Raff is leaving in the New Year, too.
“When do you start your job? The other one I mean, the one you’re going back to?” I ask as he stops to look through second-hand books for sale on one of the stalls.
“Sometime in January,” he says
“That’s a vague start date, isn’t it?” When he told me about the glass wall incident, I’d imagined him working in an office. Not sure why I assumed an office. Maybe it was the mention of a glass office. All my ex-boyfriends worked in the city, ultra-modern buildings with glass walls. I’d imagined him being a handman or security officer in a big bank in the city. “Don’t companies have precise schedules?”
“Depends on public holidays in Mauritania,” he says, paying for a small book and tucking it into the large inside pocket of hiscoat. Since the night in my room, he’s had his hair in a messy man bun because I told him I loved it that way.
The discovery of the Christmas market distracted us from our original purpose. We came to Llancaradoc looking for the bakery to buy bread for another cream tea and sandwiches for this afternoon. Back by popular demand since Bill and his friends haven’t stopped talking about it. They’ve even attracted three more who want to come. And a few variations on the usual PG Tips, too. I have Cylon loose leaf tea to surprise DeNiro, Darjeeling for Philomena and even oat milk for Llewellyn.
“You’re going to Mauritius?”
“Mauritania? We’re filming in the desert.”
I stop so suddenly, he’s two steps ahead before the pull on our linked hands drags him back. “You’re filming? That’s the job in January? In the desert?”
I repeat phrases, but they’re not the real question getting tangled up in my head. What I want to ask is, how is he filming when he’s not supposed to be an actor anymore?
“I’m only glad they’ve not called me during Christmas. You know how it is. Filming schedule is king. It overrides all other demands. Wasn’t it Stanley Kubrick onThe Shiningwho famously kept them filming till midnight on Christmas Eve?”
“You’re still an actor?” I finally manage.
