Page 31 of The Spark

But before he can finish, I drop the paper and move towards him again. I want to push Jamie from my mind. I don’t want to put the brakes on this, because it really is so good.

I feel Ash smile as our lips meet.

Think about this instead, I tell myself. About the man who’s right here, in front of you.

Chapter 15.

But I don’t stay. As soon as the kiss becomes so good that I don’t want it to stop, I make an effort to peel away from him, and whisper, ‘I should go.’

I’ve never been one to rush in. And even though every last atom of me wants to take things further, I imagine waking up tomorrow and worrying that it had just been a little too much, too soon.

Plus, the thought of Jamie is still nagging at me. It’s an uncertainty I can’t quite place or discern, like the sense of being followed in the dark. My brain keeps about-turning, trying to alight on what it is that’s disturbing me, but much like peripheral vision, it remains frustratingly foggy.

I decide to walk – despite Ash’s pleas for me to take a cab – as the night seems warm and still, and I fancy the fresh air. Halfway home, however, the skies deliver a sluice of early summer rain and I get back to the house soaked through.

I strip off and rub my hair with a towel, then find a T-shirt and tracksuit bottoms, pulling on an old hoodie and socks in an effort to warm up. I scrape my hair into a topknot, then sit on the sofa without even turning on the light, or drawing the curtains.

Reflexively, I check my phone for work emails, missed calls, but there is nothing. Just a message from Ash.

Thanks for an amazing evening

Let me know you got home safe

I think you’re great, Neve x

I smile, then sit very still for a moment, my mind whirling, my insides still rocking from the pleasure of kissing him.

I think about what I would do at work, in this situation.

Start at the beginning, then break it down.

So I open the notes app on my phone, then start to make a list of all the ways in which Ash reminds me of Jamie.

Architect

Lives in the Old Yarn Mill – in ‘our’ apartment

Same books

Same handwriting

Same likes and dislikes

Tom Ford Noir

Nighthawks

Window fetish

London Grammar

Norman Foster + Gherkin

Had an accident on the SAME NIGHT as J. Less than 100 yds away.

I pause to review the list. It’s already so long. How can this many similarities possibly be coincidence?

My mind pumps. What next?

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