She took all the teddies and put them in an armchair.
‘Thank you. This is lovely,’ said Dan, looking around the room from where he was still standing, next to the door.
‘It is. I fell on my feet big time being able to rent from Josh. And as I might have said a few thousand times before, I love the location. And I’ve almost stopped noticing when the whole building shakes because of the trains going past.’
Dan laughed. ‘It’s all about compromise. Same with my flat – it’s such a luxury being able to walk to work but it’s absolutely tiny. And smells very strongly of curry, from the restaurant downstairs, which I don’t mind at all, because I love curry, other than when I’m trying to cook something different, like Italian, when you get a bit of a smell clash.’
They were standing on opposite sides of the room, Dan with his hands in his jeans pockets but his thumbs out, and Evie with her hands clasped together in front of her.
‘So I’ll put the kettle on,’ she said. Mia was away this week on a work trip and Josh was staying over at Fergus’s, as he did increasingly often because Fergus’s flat was a lot closer to his office. So anything could happen right now and they wouldn’t be disturbed.
‘Great,’ said Dan.
And then they looked at each other and Dan took his hands out of his pockets and Evie unclasped her hands and they moved towards each other and suddenly Evie had her hands on Dan’s shoulders and his hands were cradling her face and they were kissing, urgently, madly, wonderfully, like the world might be ending.
They fell backwards onto the sofa, andGodit was good.
Sucha good call on the matching underwear.
Dan was kissing her everywhere and she was kissing him and between kisses she couldn’t stop smiling and he was smiling too, and this was justamazing.
* * *
There was a very loud ringing noise. It sounded like Evie’s alarm. It was her phone.Howcould it be her phone? It was the middle of the night. She was so tired. Her limbs were so heavy. And they were wrapped around Dan’s limbs. She turned herself over and pressed Stop on her phone.
Woah. Her head wassofuzzy from lack of sleep. She didn’t really want to turn back round and look at Dan. What if this was like Vegas and he was full of regret and couldn’t get away from her fast enough? Although, really, that had been completely different. They’d been drunk then but sober last night. They’dknownlast night that they were on a date. Still, though.
Their legs were still tangled together. She started to inch away from him and then felt him reach an arm round her waist and pull her towards him. He moved her hair out of the way and kissed the back of her neck and her shoulder.
‘Morning,’ he said, his voice sleepy and deep. It sounded as though he was smiling.
Suddenly Evie really needed to see his face. She wriggled and twisted round.
And, yes, he was smiling. He was smiling very broadly, looking very contented.
‘That was an incredible night,’ he said. He ran his hand all the way from her thigh up her side and Evie shivered deliciously. ‘What time did you say you need to leave for work?’ he said, following his hand with kisses.
‘Mmm,’ Evie said. She had her hands on his hard chest and he had his hands and mouth on her and she was trying to think but it was really hard. ‘I think early.’
‘How early?’ Oh, God, he wasskilledwith his hands.
‘Mmm.’
Damn, damn, damn. So bloody late. Evie leapt from the cab almost before it had stopped, waved at Dan, and sprinted through the school gates.
‘Morning, Miss Khera, morning, girls,’ she shouted to everyone on the netball court. ‘So sorry I’m late. My Tube train got stuck in a tunnel.’
‘Miss, was that your husband in that taxi?’ Delilah, one of the Year Nine girls, had just run in behind her. Evie sighed. Unlucky that someone had spotted her, given that she’d been fifteen minutes late. Lucky, though, that they’d only been that late. You could shave a lot of time off your morning routine if you missed breakfast and took a cab. Expensive, though.
‘No,’ said Evie, shaking her head and trying not to smile, ‘just a friend.’
‘OMG,’ Priya – aka Miss Khera – said to her, when Evie reached the other side of the court. ‘Yoursmile.Whowasit in the taxi?’
‘Honestly, just a friend who was going in the same direction.’
‘Please. At seven thirty in the morning?’ Priya said. ‘I’m going to need details later.’
Evie rolled her eyes but it was hard not to smirk with extreme happiness. It really felt like this could be going somewhere.
