Chapter Twenty-One
Jess
Alex has been a good sport about going out for a walk, trying his best to pretend to enjoy it. Jess appreciates the effort. Still, he’s clearly shivering now, and Jess has to admit the damp in the air is beginning to seep into her bones, too.
‘Come on,’ she says to Alex. ‘You’re getting chilly. Let’s get you indoors.’
He has the decency to look disappointed. ‘Are you sure?’
‘I’m sure. You’ve done well. And I imagine you’ve got blisters by now from those too-big wellies.’ She can’t resist poking at his vanity.
‘Oh no,’ he says. ‘These are fine.’
They are quite obviously not fine. She’s seen him walking in them. But she won’t argue.
‘Come on,’ she says again, squeezing his hand in hers to emphasise her point. “Let’s get you warmed up.’
Alex wiggles his eyebrows. ‘How do you suggest we do that?’
‘I’ll make us hot chocolate,’ she says.
‘Oh.’ He pouts a little, like a disappointed little boy, though she can’t imagine a little boy being disappointed about hot chocolate – not even Alex as a little boy.
‘It’s the good stuff,’ she says. ‘I brought Whittard’s with me. Three different flavours. You get to pick.’
‘Okay,’ he says, his pouting forgotten. Justifiably, she thinks.
A couple of months ago, she and Lily had spent hours of a rainy Saturday afternoon in the Covent Garden shop, sampling different flavours – white chocolate, chocolate orange, dark chocolate with a hint of cinnamon.
It had been the closest Jess had come to a certain kind of pleasure in quite some time.
Jess turns the key in the lock and shoves the door with her free arm, but it doesn’t budge.
Alex gives it a good go, too, and nothing shifts.
‘Uh-oh,’ she says. Her mind has already leapt ahead to the probable lack of locksmiths in Godalming past 6 p.m. on a Saturday, and to the equally probable lack of hotel rooms. Maybe they’ll have to sleep outside.
They really would have to be creative with getting warm then.
She flushes at the thought, her body awakening to it, beginning to prime itself.
‘Let’s try together,’ Alex says. Disappointingly, he does not seem quite as ready to give up as Jess is.
‘Okay,’ she says. Reluctantly, she unlocks her fingers from his, ready to use the strength in both her arms. She feels his hand there still, phantom fingers that belong with hers. She counts them in, and they both lean all of their weight against the heavy wooden door.
It gives instantly, like there was never a problem, like it was gaslighting them the whole time. They stumble forward; Jess almost falls. Alex, thankfully, grabs her arm, catching her. Warmth spreads through her, and she doesn’t think it’s just the central heating in the cottage that’s responsible.
‘You okay there?’ he asks. Maybe he’s noticed the sudden rise in temperature, too.
‘Yes. Thank you,’ she says. Landing flat on her face would not have been pleasant.
It would have been painful, and also embarrassing.
She’s grateful he caught her. He probably doesn’t need to still be holding on to her, but who is she to ask questions.
His gentle touch sends a spark through her body, down into the pit of her stomach.
His breath caresses her face. She closes her eyes, waits.
It feels like a moment, like he is going to kiss her.
But he doesn’t.
Instead, he clears his throat, and she opens her eyes to see that he’s taken a step back, that he is closing the door.
‘Teamwork makes the dream work,’ he says, referencing, she supposes, the miracle of the open door. He rolls his eyes as he does so that she will know that he knows how cheesy it sounds.
‘That’s very American of you,’ she says.
What she doesn’t say is that it’s also true.
The door opening: teamwork. More importantly, the novel writing: teamwork.
Making her dream work. She has felt herself coming alive creatively as they’ve worked, as Alex has explained his thinking about novel structure and plot twists and character development, about anaphora and alliteration and the rhythm of sentences.
Her long-held dream of being a writer, a novelist in her own right, feels within reach.
She knows she has a lot to learn, still.
That if even someone like Alex can struggle and get stuck, then she inevitably will, too.
But her mind, like her body, feels alive and awake to possibility in ways it hasn’t in a long time.
‘Sorry,’ he says, forcing an American twang. And then, back in his Southern English posh-boy accent, ‘Americans aren’t wrong about everything, though.’
‘Such as?’
‘Well,’ he says. ‘Teamwork really does make the dream work, does it not?’
‘When it’s a good team,’ she says. ‘Yes, I suppose it does.’
He searches out her eyes. ‘A good team like us?’
‘Maybe,’ she says, her knees suddenly at risk of buckling. She forces herself to hold his gaze. Kiss me, she thinks. Kiss me, kiss me, kiss me. Lily’s voice in her head responds, Or you could kiss him. ‘I think we’re doing okay,’ she says.
‘I think so too,’ he says, his voice tender and full of kindness. And then, clearing his throat, his voice steadier, he adds: ‘Now, about that hot chocolate …’