Page 26 of A Copenhagen Snowmance
“So how did you two meet?” Smilla asks. “Jamie only mentioned you today.” She doesn’t look suspicious as such, but there is something enquiring about her curiosity.
Oh, bugger. They hadn’t thought to work out their origin story. They can’t say she’s snowed in, as that would date their established relationship to all of two days ago.
But Jamie, it seems, is on it. He turns to look Anna deeply in the eyes, which makes a weight suddenly descend in her tummy. His normally steely, blue eyes are soft tonight, and the pupils blown wide. The others could simply vanish with the steam for all that look cares. It’s the stuff of Anna’s younger dreams, before they got dashed.
Without taking his eyes from her, Jamie says to the others, “She turned up on my doorstep one day. Like she’d been delivered to me.”
Damn, he’s good at the faking, Anna thinks, as she wants to respond “aww” just as Smilla is doing right now. Good job, Jamie.
“Was she lost?” asks Anders, which makes Emil snort and the two of them fist-bump. But Jamie ignores them, finally breaking eye contact to say to Smilla, “Turns out she’s my landlady. Came to check out the house… and me.”
Now Anna’s blush is undeniable. Jamie notices and, with a glint in his eye, lifts her hand and places a kiss on the inside of her wrist. It makes her clench inside her itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny red polka-dot bikini bottoms. Though she hides it, she’s shocked by her physical reaction to him. And she’ll be having words with him about deliberately trying to make her blush more.
“Knock it off, you two,” says Stefan. He stretches his empty beer bottle towards Jamie. “Your round.”
Grinning, Jamie gets out of the tub, leaving Anna feeling the loss of his skin against hers, and she realises that while her mind might know this is fake, her body has not received the memo. She hasn’t felt anything like this in a long time. That she can still feel that sort of thing warms her. She’d assumed the entire endeavour extinct, but no, apparently not. Good to know, even if it isn’t something that can go anywhere. She’ll be gone soon, not to return and most likely their paths will never cross again, but she’ll leave knowing she can be attracted to someone again, that she still has a scintilla of sexual appetite left. She might not be as broken as she’d thought. It’s pleasing.
A gust of wind comes in from Øresund, and Anna’s hair flies about her face. Despite the hot water, it makes her shiver, too.
“Here,” she hears, warm breath at her ear. The skin immediately rises in reaction. Then she feels her hat being slid onto her head. Lots of the other hot tub users have hats on, too, as does Emil because as Anders and Stefan keep joking, he has no hair under it. While she’s glad of the extra warmth, it’s Jamie’s thoughtfulness that makes Anna glow. Getting back in beside her, he hands out the new round of beers and they clink the bottles with a resounding chorus of “Skål!”
Finishing her swig, Anna realises Smilla is looking at her, head cocked.
“It’s you,” Smilla accuses, and then looking at Jamie, “Oh my god, it’s youtwo!”
Anna sits very still, clueless as to what to do about this.
Smilla turns to the guys and continues, “The Tivoli couple, the Copenhagen Snowmance couple. That’s the hat.” She rounds back on Anna. “That’s thenissehat, isn’t it? It’s you.”
Anna feels Jamie’s arm slide back around her shoulders and this time it feels protective, like he’s got her, he’s got this.
“Busted, Smilla. Good spot,” he concedes. “But do me a favour, don’t tell anyone. We didn’t know the picture was being taken and we don’t really want the publicity.”
“But it’s amazing,” Smilla protests. “It’s all over the socials.”
Jamie shrugs as if it doesn’t mean anything to him, though he gives Anna’s shoulder a little squeeze, like he knows that’s not the same for her. “Like I said, we didn’t pose for it, so keep it quiet, yeah?”
The others all nod, even Smilla who is clearly bursting with questions, but unfortunately needing to be respectful towards Jamie, who Anna is now fairly certain is more senior in the company.
Thankfully, Anders and Emil aren’t romance spotters and switch the conversation to Denmark’s current football form and then their Christmas plans, the latter of which Anna manages to enthusiastically fib her way through, keen to keep the conversation off certain photographs.
As their booked time comes to an end and they all climb out, Jamie helps Anna down, pausing to push an errant lock back under her hat, before doing a great job of swaddling her in her towel. Then he pulls her in and tentatively plants a kiss on her lips. It’s cold in the night air and out of the water, so Anna leans in, at which Jamie wraps his arms around her further, the kiss blossoming to something deeper, and she rises to her toes, keen to give his colleagues the show she’d agreed to, but deep down wanting a replay of last night. She’s not disappointed.
“That’s enough, you two,” Anders scolds again. “Some of us are lonely singles and this is just cruel.”
Anna extricates herself with a genuine “Sorry.” She knows what it’s like to be newly single and have loved-up people flouting their loved-upness right in front of her.
Once dressed they ride as a cluster back into town, chatting as they go, unlike the concentrated speed-ride of a rush-hour commute. Beyond Nyhavn they all scatter in different directions, with waves and the standard “Vi ses” and “Hej, hej!”
There’s a moment of quiet as Jamie pedals them alongside Kongens Have, the king’s gardens, Anna relaxing back into her carriage, feeling rather floppy from the hot tub and frankly, from that kiss.
“Did we do OK?” she asks, hoping so.
“Perfect,” says Jamie.
“Good job they promised to keep the photo thing quiet,” she adds. All in all, she isn’t sure what their fakery will really achieve. Smilla clearly isn’t the woman he’s wanting to redirect.
Jamie laughs. A proper, deep laugh. It’s a beautiful sound. “Ah bless you, Anna. Smilla’ll be texting all her contacts the moment she gets home. The whole company will know by tomorrow and by my calculations the person I want to get the message will be aware by end of play. Mission accomplished, I’d say.”
