Page 59 of A Copenhagen Snowmance
Sitting helps. The hot cup in her hands helps. The coffee in her throat, the caffeine gushing towards her veins all helps, and she drops her head back and lets out a deep soul-felt moan. Opening her eyes, she sees he’s gazing at her, an expression on his face she can’t quite read.
“What?”
“Just pleased to see you alive. The Copenhagensnaps-reserves took quite a hit yesterday. It’s on the news this morning.”
“Shut up.” She manages a pathetic smile. He is literally a sight for sore eyes, but she keeps this to herself. “I saw the jigsaw. You made the piece.” She thinks of the perfect fit. It must have taken him a while with a scalpel.
“Seemed a shame to leave it incomplete.”
“The gold was a nice touch. Like those Japanese Kintsugi vases.”
His smile widens. She can see he likes that she’s got the reference.Shequite likes that she’s got the reference. The paracetamol and the caffeine must be kicking in.
“I think it’s OK to recognise the loss in the jigsaw’s story. Recognising its journey,” he says in a posh way, like he knows it might sound wanky, then reverts to his normal tone. “Doesn’t mean it can’t be fixed. Doesn’t mean it’s only fit for the bin. Now it has a new life.”
It’s such a Jamie thing to do. Of course, his job is about fixing things, giving them longevity or renewal, but she can see how he can be quite granular about it, seeing it through in his life. She can respect that.
The eco-Christmas tree behind him catches her eye and suddenly the memory of walking in last night is back with her. It spurs her to get up and walk across to it all, taking it all in again, the reunion with all the old pieces giving her atender ache in her heart. She picks up a smallnissefrom a shelf and moves it to stand in the street scene in the window. That was where she always liked this figure to be. He’s a cheeky little chap, bent over double in laughter. As a child, she would make up stories about the source of his mirth, and she sees him now as a long-lost friend.
“Thank you for doing this,” she says quietly. “It was so thoughtful.”
Jamie doesn’t turn towards her, she sees, looking his way; he simply takes a sip from his cup and says, “My pleasure.”
Pleasure. That rings a bell somewhere in her tender brain.
Casting her eyes around the room, they settle on the wall on the other side of him. Something about that. Her fingers rise up and touch her lips. Hmm, something about kissing… She looks back towards him just as Jamie raises his right arm to stretch. It lifts the hem of his top and she sees a sliver of soft Jamie skin above his waistband. Her fingertips tingle in further recognition.
Jamie sighs into his stretch… and there it is. Itall– well, enough significant parts– comes flooding back into her delicate head. Her launching herself at him, his responding, her pressing him against the wall, touching him, stroking him, kissing his neck, wanting to get up inside his Henley, really wanting to get it all off, his stopping things; his declining her, his putting her to bed like a child. Oh. My. God.
Standing statue-still, Anna doesn’t quite know what to do. Instinctively, she wants to run from the room. Possibly screaming. Yep, the caffeine is switched on now.
The quiet obviously transmits to him, as from the corner of her eye she sees him turn.
“Anna? You OK?” She’s turned a little towards him at the sound of his voice, but her frozen body is very much facing that space at the wall, and his eyes track there as well. He bites his lower lip. Is he remembering, too, or is he just worried about what she’ll do next? Well, same, she thinks.
“Are you having an internal seizure?” he asks.
“Is that when your insides contract into a huge knot of embarrassment and self-loathing regarding your behaviour, which hurts right the way down to your toenails and makes you want to punch yourself in the face? That sort of thing?”
Jamie gets up and walks to her.
“That wall is my current favourite place in the house. Do not spoil it for me by feeling in any way sad, bad or embarrassed about what happened there.”
Right, so hewasremembering, too. Good to know.
And like last night, he leans into her, though very deliberately it seems without touching her, and says in a low voice which makes her edge closer, “If you’d been sober last night, your feet wouldn’t have touched the ground.”
And then he’s walking back to his chair, the warmth of his breath gone, the air between them empty. She holds back a low keening.
“That bikini you wore at the hot tub. Is that dry yet?” he asks from the table, the least expected question ever. Her head is still full of the whisper, her body with its meaning. The change in direction is befuddling. It makes her laugh.
“There’s so little fabric in that bikini it was probably dry by the time we got home.”
“Good. I have something planned for us.”
He has?
“That involves swimwear? It’s still December. There’s still snow on the ground.”
