‘Don’t be!’ I said quickly. ‘This is the best Christmas Eve dinner I’ve ever had.’ I felt Andrew’s arm come up around me. He pulled me towards him and planted a soft kiss on the side of my forehead. I caught his eyes before he looked away. His eyes looked beautiful in this light. His face looked beautiful in this light. He was beautiful.
CHAPTER39
We buckled ourselves in. The flight was fairly empty, so luckily we had two free seats next to us. I was exhausted and needed sleep in order to recuperate before tomorrow’s festivities with my family, which I was sure would be just as chaotic, but in a totally different way. I had no idea what my mom had planned yet, but the day was sure to be filled with a lot of eating and more eating. I put my head back and closed my eyes. Andrew’s shoulder pressed into mine and I was acutely aware of the warmth radiating off his body.
‘Tired?’ he asked.
‘Exhausted.’ I wiggled my head in an attempt to get comfortable.
‘I’ll move over to the end seat so you can stretch out,’ he said, and immediately moved. I inspected the available space between us, measuring it in my mind.
‘There’s not enough space to spread out,’ I said.
Andrew took a jersey out of his bag, rolled it into a ball and put it on his lap. ‘You can put your feet up on my lap.’
‘I’ve been wearing these sneakers all day. My feet will stink.’
‘Your head won’t smell,’ he said, and a peculiar, impossible silence filled the plane, as if the pilot had turned the engines off and we were now gliding through the air.
‘Put my head in your lap?’
‘If you want,’ he said casually, as if this was no big deal.Was it a big deal?Wasn’t I just stretching out and grabbing a quick nap in my friend’s lap? My fake boyfriend friend’s lap. But it didn’t feel like that at all. His lap felt like an entirely different kind of invitation. It wasn’t his shoulder, it was his lap! There were things in laps, his thing. The last memory I had of the thing in his lap had been a very, very pleasant one, and I wasn’t sure I would be able to relax, knowing that his penis was poking my ear. Literally.
He quickly pulled the jersey off his lap, as if he’d just thought the exact same thing.
‘On second thoughts, maybe that’s not the best idea.’
My heart dropped and, before I knew I was actually going to say it, it flew out of my mouth. ‘It’s a great idea!’
‘It is?’ He eyed me, his pupils bigger now, or maybe it was because they’d just turned down the overhead lights.
I loosened my seatbelt so I could stretch out but still have it on – in the unlikely event of an emergency – and then very slowly put my head down on the rolled-up jersey in his lap.
I closed my eyes. It felt good here. Safe. As if I was wrapped up in some kind of cocoon. Maybe I was, an Andrew cocoon, and in an hour I would emerge a beautiful, rested butterfly.
‘This is comfortable,’ I mumbled happily.
‘I’m glad,’ he said, and then I felt a sensation that almost catapulted me out of the emergency exit and into the sky. He pushed a strand of hair off my cheek and tucked it back into my ponytail. I let out the tiniest of moans, I hadn’t intended to. Clearly spurred on by my moan, he did it again. This time, there was no hair on my face though; instead he brushed his fingertips across my cheek and ran them up to my ponytail. He started playing with it, running his hand down the length of my hair and then twisting it between his fingers when he reached the bottom. The gesture felt absent-minded, as if he wasn’t even aware he was doing it. Or as if this was the most natural thing in the world to be doing.
‘When I was young, my sisters taught me how to braid their hair. They said they needed a fourth so they could do it faster. So in the mornings before school, I used to help them. I can do a French braid, a fishtail braid, a Dutch braid and a four-strand braid.’
‘Would you braid my hair?’ I asked, his fingers still trailing through my hair, making every nerve ending in my scalp tingle.
‘What would you like?’
I rolled over and looked up at him from his lap. He looked down, our eyes met, and my insides constricted.
‘Whatever you think will suit me.’
‘They’ll all suit you.’ He smiled at me, and I turned to melted, rubbery mush.
‘You choose then,’ I said.
‘Fine, but you’ll have to sit up and turn around.’
Although I was reluctant to leave the warmth of his lap, I sat up in my seat. I loosened my seatbelt even more and turned my back to him. I felt him turn in his seat and, as he did, his leg came into contact with mine. I wondered if it was an accident. Wondered if he was going to move it when he adjusted himself, but he didn’t. It stayed there, pressed into mine.
‘Here.’ I pulled a hairbrush from my handbag and passed it over. ‘You might need it.’
