Page 68 of Just for the Season

I tug her hands a little and pull her a little closer, in a very lover-like fashion, so that our chests are almost touching and – despite her heels – she has to tip her head backwards to look at me properly.

‘I am a great actor. I think this is…’ God, my own voice is equally husky now. ‘Very lover-like.’

‘Mmm.’ She takes a deep breath and I find it very hard not to look at her chest and the low neckline of her dress.

‘I wonder whether…’ I move a strand of hair away from her face with my finger ‘…lovers would do this.’

‘I think they might.’ Frankie’s voice is a little shaky.

If I were really her lover, there’s a lot I would do right now that would be entirely unacceptable since I am not her lover. I need to remember that and not go too far with the method acting.

So I take a deep breath and say, ‘We should probably dance together later on too.’

Frankie responds with a deep breath of her own. ‘Good idea.’

‘I like your dress,’ I can’t help observing. ‘It… fits you very well.’

She gives me a cheeky little half-smile, very flirtatious-looking. Great acting. Definitely acting. We’re both acting right now. Definitely only acting. ‘Thank you.’ She does a little shimmy for me and I wonder whether it’s possible to pass out from lust. ‘I like your dinner suit. I haven’t seen you in a suit before.’

‘Thank you. I haven’t seen you in a dress like this before.’ I’m trying very hard to talk normally and I’m not sure I’m succeeding.

‘No.’ She smiles some more, and I wonder why it is only now that I’m articulating to myself that I find her incredibly attractive and unless she doesn’t feel the same way or has a lot more willpower than I think I’m going to have, I’d like to carry the method acting to an extreme. I know I’ve already decided that would be a bad idea, but right now I’m struggling to remember exactly why.

‘You and Ellie did a great job finishing off the decorations,’ I say, because my brain doesn’t seem to be working well enough for interesting chat.

‘Thank you again.’

It’s weird. Usually we have so much to talk about. Right now, it’s like we have almost nothing to say to each other. But I really, really don’t want to stop this non-conversation. I’m loving it. Everything about it. The holding of Frankie’s hands, the almost-touching of our chests, the air of flirtatiousness surrounding us, the subtext of our near-non-conversation, which I’m not sure I fully understand but which I’m very much delighting in.

‘Sooo,’ Frankie says after we’ve been standing there saying nothing, just holding hands and looking at each other, for really quite a long time. ‘Um, how often do you wear a tux?’ Like she’s trying to snap us out of whatever we’ve been in for the past few minutes.

‘Not that often,’ I say, proud of myself for rising to the occasion and managing to begin to converse normally. ‘The last time must have been about six months ago.’

‘That’s weird for a spy. I feel like James Bond is in dinner suits a lot.’

I nod. ‘Yeah. Maybe I should have been a spy.’

‘Well, the dinner suit does suit you, so if you genuinely aren’t a spy, you’ve really missed a trick.’

‘Yeah, I’m not so sure. I don’t know how comfortable it would be wearing one all the time. Having to wrangle with bow ties every day. You know.’

Frankie takes one hand out of mine for a second and reaches up and adjusts my tie.

‘Method acting,’ she says, while I try to ignore how it felt when her fingers brushed my neck.

I can’t help it. I release her other hand and slide my arms around her waist.

‘Method acting,’ I say.

Frankie places both her hands on my chest, and murmurs, ‘Method acting,’ as I wonder whether she can feel how fast my heart is now beating.

There’s music playing – I’m guessing it’s Rose’s choice because it’s very nineteen-fifties-like – and, I’m not sure who begins it, or whether we just do it at the same time, but we start swaying together to the beat.

It’s the single most beautiful almost-dance I’ve ever experienced in my whole life. Just the two of us, my arms still round Frankie’s waist and hers on my chest, looking into each other’s eyes. Oddly, it’s as though the effects of where we’re touching are spreading through my whole body. I couldn’t move away from Frankie now if I tried.

‘I like this music,’ she says. ‘When I hear something like this, in a bar or on the radio, or in a taxi, it makes me think of Gran.’

‘That’s very nice. Also, the music itself is objectively good. I don’t recognise it at all but I do like it.’