She could have a little hunt for the trainers on her way.
No hunting was necessary, as it turned out. They were drying on the surprisingly funky towel rail on the wall of the loo. Georgie took a moment to admire its corkscrew-like design and then whipped her phone out and took photos of both the trainers’ style and their size label. Raf definitely needed new ones. The bright blue and green of the upper section had run slightly onto the white bit round the bottom, plus they looked duller than they had done pre-vomit. And weirdly twisted round the front. He’d probably put them on too high a spin cycle.
Back in the kitchen, Raf had the coffees ready.
‘I’ve made myself decaf.’ He took a photo of the mug on his phone and posted it to the chat.
‘Well done,’ Georgie said.
‘Thank you.’ He grinned. ‘Now, look what I just found.’ He handed her a big white envelope withResolutionsscrawled on the front.
‘Yesssss.’
Georgie could havekissedhim.
Actually…
She looked at him.
He really was properly gorgeous. She really liked the way he wore his dark, wavy hair slightly long and tousled, curled over his shirt collar. And he had his shirt sleeves rolled up and she could see his forearms.Stronghad definitely been the right word for his arms.
She reallycouldkiss him. Except, she wouldn’t. She basically never kissed anyone, despite her friends’ best attempts to set her up, and she was not going to start with a by all accounts still-grieving widower who – from what she’d heard on the village grapevine – was a serial one-dater.
‘Maybe I should steam it open and then re-stick it,’ she said.
‘Or we could just open it normally and tell Noah why and he wouldn’t mind?’
Georgie shook her head. ‘I feel like we’ve been a bit break-and-entery about it. I feel like we’d have to tell him first if we were going to do that. And now that I have the envelope in my hands, I just want to do it. Because what if we asked and he saidno?’ She pulled her phone out to google envelope steaming and then stood up. ‘Do you know where the saucepans are? I need to boil water.’
Five minutes later, they were gently easing the envelope open.
‘Wow.’ Georgie carefully pulled the wadge of lists out. ‘That was soeasy. And satisfying.’ And handy. If she could get her hands on the letter addressed to Raf, she’d be able to use her steaming skills to swap her secret too. ‘It’s a shame really that people don’t post important documents so much any more.’
‘Because you won’t have much opportunity to develop a career as a master criminal specialising in envelope steaming?’
‘Yes, or private investigator.’
Raf nodded very seriously and Georgie tried hard not to notice that he was now standing very close to her and she could see dark hairs where the top button of his shirt was undone. Not too many, he wasn’t super hairy. But also some. Just the right amount, in fact. She felt like Goldilocks. Her gaze travelled up his thick but not too thick neck (still Goldilocks) and to his very firm jawline and to his lips. She was extremely sober now and she agreed with her drunk self that his lips looked very kissable. She swallowed and looked further up, andoh… Hewas looking at her.
His eyes were on hers. And now they were on her lips. She found herself moistening them with her tongue and…
What was she doing? When he got back to New York, Raf was going to be unwittingly (or wittingly, if he sneakily looked)in possession of her truly devastating secret. Sheneededto get a photo of her resolution list and then re-stick this envelope and here she was just standing here licking her lips and fantasising about kissing him.
She was an idiot.
‘So I’m just going to take a photo of my resolutions.’ Ridiculously, her voice sounded a bit squeaky.
‘Of course.’ Raf’s voice was about three octaves below hers, bordering on uncomfortably gravelly.
They stood and just…lookedat each other for a moment, and then Georgie dragged her eyes away from his and rustled the papers she was holding.
‘The resolutions,’ she said, holding the papers in front of her as if they’d protect her from the kiss-me-now vibes that were coming off him as strongly as she was feeling them herself.
‘The resolutions,’ Raf repeated.
‘Yep. Okay.’ She took a step backwards and then another step and then walked over to the table and sat down. What had that justbeen? She really didn’t spend enough time with attractive men. Stick one in front of her and apparently she just turned to jelly.
Right. Her resolutions.
