Page 65 of A Copenhagen Snowmance
Then he leans in and kisses her, and she tells herself it’s just gratitude, or it’s for show in case Lajla doubles back, or that they are simply celebrating a win, but she knows it’s not true. She stays though, because she wants it; the softness of his lips on hers, the taste of him, his tongue lightly stroking her tongue, her breath mingling with his. But eventually she brings it to a close.
“Hey,” she says, sliding away along the bench. “Kids’ playground, family show.” It feels like it’s more to remind herself. He doesn’t release his hand from her waist immediately, instead studying her, his eyes drifting from each of her eyes to the other, seeking answers.
“Want to talk about this?” he asks.
She thinks about bluffing, acting dumb with a “talk about what?” But she knows he deserves better. She’s reluctant to spoil the moment, though, so instead pulls him to his feet, and over to the trampettes, where they spend a while, without a word, bouncing side by side, but still hand in hand.
ChapterTwenty-Eight
“Bloody hell!”
“’S’up?” Jamie asks, setting up the new jigsaw, in what she now thinks of as the jigsaw lounge. It’s the one she dug out for him, and it’s particularly evil; an aerial photograph of Kartoffelrækkerner, by Nicolas Cosedis. Row upon row of similar roofs. It’ll take them days. Him. It’ll takehimdays.
“Did you see anyone taking pictures when we were in the playground?” It’s only been five hours since they were in the playground and already photos are up. Also, five hours where they’ve been navigating each other carefully. She can tell Jamie’s deliberately giving her space, but she senses him watching her and sees the flex of his hand when he holds back from touching her. She wishes she didn’t notice, but the fact is, it simply mirrors her own instincts. She’s aware of his presence wherever he is, and her eyes flick to him constantly. All the while, she’s trying to behave as if nothing has changed between them, that it was just a night of passion, which has now been sated, and they can go back to how they were. The charge in the room between them suggests otherwise however, moreover that she’s an idiot for even thinking it.
Jamie looks up from turning on the candles. “No, but I’ve got to admit I wasn’t looking at other people. My head was kind of full already.”
Fair enough. She hadn’t, either. She holds the device to his face. It’s a photo of them, mid-bounce and holding hands, above the two trampettes. With her hat on and his same coat, it’s obvious it’s them again. The photo is captioned as such.
“Cute.” He pours them each a whisky from the bottle of Torabhaig on the bookshelf, placing the glasses next to a dish ofklejner.
“It doesn’t bother you?” she asks, snaffling one.
“Not really. It’s a sweet picture.” Then he looks at her properly, with a hint of something in his eye. “I like being in these shots with you. I like other people thinking they’re something. Something cute or even iconic. Who wouldn’t want that?”
Annapresumably, is who he’s suggesting. Does she want that? She likes being cute with him, too. But she can’t square it in her head: that it should be her in those gorgeous photos and that it should all be happening here, in this city. She thinks to say, “but it’s not real”, but the words feel wrong on her tongue. Itwasreal. They were together in this very real, spontaneous moment, celebrating something good.
Jamie had been in a jubilant mood for the entire ride home from the playground (his turn to pedal, she decided), wanting to know how she’d managed it.
“My superhero-skill might be research, Jamie,” she’d said primly but secretly ecstatic he liked her gift so much. She imagined he’d felt the same when she saw the decorations in the house. “That’s how I started out at the publishing house, the travel writing was later.”
“But you literally only had her first name.” He looked baffled and supremely impressed. Probably he’d done some research of his own and only ever got as far as her company and then her office building, which considering he’d met her at a conference, where people wore name badges, would have been a cinch.
“OK, so as I may have mentioned, maaany times, it’s a small city. I could google using her first name within the sustainability companies in the city and eventually narrow it down to three candidates. Then it’s onto the socials to find someone who has her face on Instagram, which she did, because she’s a mum with a super-cute kid and she’ll want her friends to see. Her account might be private, but her profile pic isn’t. So, then I had a confirmed full name, after which it’s super easy as the Kraks digital phone book readily hands over people’s addresses and phone numbers in Denmark.”
He’d looked down at her in the crate seat, sceptically. “It’s true,” she insisted, “although I don’t understand how it gets around the data-protection laws, but in this case, it’s to my benefit, so. Then I just called her.” She’d deliberately sounded blasé about it, but she was glowing really.
“Oh, my God,” he breathed, like a sixteen-year-old girl. “You’re like aspy.”
She flicked his thigh. “Hardly. I just know how to search.”
“And all this info was available to me all this time?”
“Yep,” Anna had said with a grin. “Only you needed me here as the mastermind.” He’d flicked the bobble of her hat in response.
Anna looks again now at the photo of them. Itiscute. She discreetly saves it to a secret Pinterest board along with the others. Then, leaning over him, she picks out a couple of jigsaw pieces with a flat edge. Given their angle and the image, she places one on the top and the other to the left edge. Jamie moves to the far end of the small sofa making room for her, plus some to give her space. He’s back to leaving things in her court, but she can see by his eyes that it’s not his natural inclination. She suspects his impulse would have been to catch the curve of her waist and draw her down to him. Anna snares the wistful sigh in her mouth before it escapes.
Instead she sits at her own end of the sofa and he raises his glass in her direction, though without taking his eyes from the table and the pieces. She clinks it with hers and they focus quietly on adding more pieces to the jigsaw frame, working in bursts, building on each other’s finds, and then sitting still in the pauses, when the obvious pieces run out, trying to ignore the buzz in the slim gulf between them.
“I’ve been thinking,” he eventually says during one of the pauses.
“Oh dear,” she interjects, sure she knows what’s coming and wanting to put it off. It earns her a brisk bump to the shoulder.
“I was thinking,” he starts again, sounding sterner, “how about we work together on something?”
OK. Not what she was expecting.
“What do you mean?”
