‘Oh.’ He pouts a little, like a disappointed little boy, though she can’t imagine a little boy being disappointed about hot chocolate – not even Alex as a little boy.
‘It’s the good stuff,’ she says. ‘I brought Whittard’s with me. Three different flavours. You get to pick.’
‘Okay,’ he says, his pouting forgotten. Justifiably, she thinks. A couple of months ago, she and Lily had spent hours of a rainy Saturday afternoon in the Covent Garden shop, sampling different flavours – white chocolate, chocolate orange, dark chocolate with a hint of cinnamon. It had been the closest Jess had come to a certain kind of pleasure in quite some time.
Jess turns the key in the lock and shoves the door with her free arm, but it doesn’t budge.
Alex gives it a good go, too, and nothing shifts.
‘Uh-oh,’ she says. Her mind has already leapt ahead to the probable lack of locksmiths in Godalming past 6 p.m. on a Saturday, and to the equally probable lack of hotel rooms. Maybe they’ll have to sleep outside. They really would have to be creative with getting warm then. She flushes at the thought, her body awakening to it, beginning to prime itself.
‘Let’s try together,’ Alex says. Disappointingly, he does not seem quite as ready to give up as Jess is.
‘Okay,’ she says. Reluctantly, she unlocks her fingers from his, ready to use the strength in both her arms. She feels his hand there still, phantom fingers that belong with hers. She counts them in, and they both lean all of their weight against the heavy wooden door.
It gives instantly, like there was never a problem, like it was gaslighting them the whole time. They stumbleforward; Jess almost falls. Alex, thankfully, grabs her arm, catching her. Warmth spreads through her, and she doesn’t think it’s just the central heating in the cottage that’s responsible.
‘You okay there?’ he asks. Maybe he’s noticed the sudden rise in temperature, too.
‘Yes. Thank you,’ she says. Landing flat on her face would not have been pleasant. It would have been painful, and also embarrassing. She’s grateful he caught her. He probably doesn’t need to still be holding on to her, but who is she to ask questions. His gentle touch sends a spark through her body, down into the pit of her stomach. His breath caresses her face. She closes her eyes, waits. It feels like a moment, like he is going to kiss her.
But he doesn’t.
Instead, he clears his throat, and she opens her eyes to see that he’s taken a step back, that he is closing the door.
‘Teamwork makes the dream work,’ he says, referencing, she supposes, the miracle of the open door. He rolls his eyes as he does so that she will know that he knows how cheesy it sounds.
‘That’s very American of you,’ she says. What she doesn’t say is that it’s also true. The door opening: teamwork. More importantly, the novel writing: teamwork. Makingherdream work. She has felt herself coming alive creatively as they’ve worked, as Alex has explained his thinking about novel structure and plot twists and character development, about anaphora and alliteration and the rhythm of sentences. Her long-helddream of being a writer, a novelist in her own right, feels within reach. She knows she has a lot to learn, still. That if even someone like Alex can struggle and get stuck, then she inevitably will, too. But her mind, like her body, feels alive and awake to possibility in ways it hasn’t in a long time.
‘Sorry,’ he says, forcing an American twang. And then, back in his Southern English posh-boy accent, ‘Americans aren’t wrong about everything, though.’
‘Such as?’
‘Well,’ he says. ‘Teamwork really does make the dream work, does it not?’
‘When it’s a good team,’ she says. ‘Yes, I suppose it does.’
He searches out her eyes. ‘A good team like us?’
‘Maybe,’ she says, her knees suddenly at risk of buckling. She forces herself to hold his gaze.Kiss me, she thinks.Kiss me, kiss me, kiss me.Lily’s voice in her head responds,Or you could kiss him. ‘I think we’re doing okay,’ she says.
‘I think so too,’ he says, his voice tender and full of kindness. And then, clearing his throat, his voice steadier, he adds: ‘Now, about that hot chocolate …’
Chapter Twenty-Two
Alex
Alex watches Jess measure out the milk in mugfuls, measure out the chocolate powder, light the gas, strike a match. He wants to help, but it doesn’t seem to be a two-person job, and besides, he is kind of frozen to the spot. Ensorcelled, perhaps. He has fought so hard not to kiss her. Yesterday, when they were talking about their bookshop moment, and he could so easily have stood, walked over to her, and leaned down to meet her lips with his. Later, outside the pub, when she’d used the phrasefalling in love, her righteous indignation somehow turning him on. And just now, by the door, when he’d had to count backwards from 100 and think of very unsexy things in order to tear himself away from her arm.
He has used up all his self-control.
All he can do now is stand very still and wait for the urge to pass.
But it’s not going to pass, and if he’s honest with himself, he knows it.In vain have I struggled. It will not do.Where is that from, again?
Jess stirs the milk with a wooden spoon. Chocolate tinged with orange mingles with the scent of apple shampoo. Despite the season, it makes him think of Christmas, of family and tradition, of the picture he has always had of himself with his own kids giddily unwrapping their presents. Now, in his mind, those children have honey blonde hair and a certain boisterousjoie de vivrehe somehow hadn’t imagined before.
All of which, he realises, is ridiculous.
