Page 58 of The Wedding Pact
They stood beside each other for a moment, unsure what to say, until August broke the silence. ‘Well, thank you.’
‘Thank you,’ Flynn replied.
‘Fancy a cup of tea?’
‘Yes, please, that would be great.’
‘Great.’
‘Thank you,’ he said.
‘Thankyou.’
August went into the kitchen and made the tea, staring out of the window at absolutely nothing other than the memories dancing behind her eyes. She licked her bottom lip, tasting his imprint one last time.
Time to pull herself together. It was done. He’d done as she’d asked, and now the job was completed. She knew she had to go back out there with a clear mind, and not one full of his lips, his hands, his eyes.Get a grip, Anderson, she scolded herself, and picked up the mugs.
August entered the living room and slapped on her usual sunny smile, and Flynn stopped pacing in his tracks. He looked like he was going to say something. He was regretting it. He was going to tell her he had to move out. ‘Glad we got that ticked off the list!’ she said, a desperate attempt to play down what had happened. She wanted everything to go back to normal. Please, please, let everything go back to normal. They had such a good thing going.
Chapter 38
Flynn
In the living room, Flynn had also been staring out of the window, hands on hips, a million miles away. Whathappened? Something had shifted, been dislodged, that was never meant to have moved. He knew that if she came back into the room now and asked him to kiss her again, he would do it, without hesitation. He hoped she did.
Flynn, in contrast to August, had always been more of a thinker first, and only taken action when appropriate. But she was changing that about him, not through any intention on her part, but there was something about her that made him want to be spontaneous and reach for the stars, because that’s where she was, with the stars as her playground. And though his head was bellowing at him to put the brakes on and think this through, his heart wanted her. He paced the room, sure that when she came back in he would sweep her into his arms and kiss her again.
When August re-entered with the teas, and declared their kiss as being ‘ticked off the list’, Flynn blinked, the adrenaline coursing through him screeching to a halt. She’d just been acting. Of course she had. And that’s all either of them was supposed to be doing.
For a second they observed each other, both in the spotlight, until Flynn said, reaching for a tea, ‘Yes. Kissing done. Well done us.’
He pushed down his bubbling feelings. He’d probably just got caught up in the moment anyway, hanging onto memories of happy relationships of the past and letting loneliness get the better of him for a moment. She would go back to being just his flatmate, August, to him, and he’d go back to being Just Flynn.
Chapter 39
August
August thought she could hear a change of tone in Flynn’s voice, but figured hers was probably a bit off too; they had just made out, after all. It would be weird for them not to feel a little off-balance. She’d just have to try and restore natural order as quickly as possible.
‘I think we did well there,’ August proclaimed, handing Flynn his tea. ‘If the situation arises that for whatever reason we need to kiss, it won’t be weird anymore.’
‘I’m not sure what kind of situation would come up where we’d quite need to dothat,’ he replied, taking the tea and perching on her armchair. She sat on the floor in front of the sofa, facing the window, the sunlight illuminating the pale greens in her eyes.
‘No, I suppose it’s unlikely, isn’t it?’ she mused. ‘But hey, better to be overprepared for the worst, than underprepared.’
Flynn raised an eyebrow. ‘The worst? I can’t imagine a “worst” scenario where we’d have to kiss like that.’
But August just laughed, her big, light laughter that softened the tension in the room. ‘Right? If something awful happening meant we had to snog, imagine what we’d have to do if the world was ending.’ She caught herself too late. ‘I mean, don’t imagine that!’
Now it was Flynn’s turn to snort into his mug. He wiped the splashed tea off the end of his nose and rubbed his eyes, saying, ‘This has been a very strange afternoon.’
‘Just another day with the Miyoshi-Andersons.’ August drank her tea for a bit, and then said, ‘I guess we should stick to just a quick peck from now on, when strictly necessary.’
Flynn met her eye, as if trying to read her. ‘I guess so.’
‘We don’t want to make things … blurry.’
‘No, definitely not.’
