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‘Never mind,’ said Hannah, silently clocking how much luggage Rob had. ‘Let’s do it anyway.’
‘OK,’ said Rob mildly. ‘You’re in charge of this plan, apparently.’
Hannah grinned. ‘In which case, can you get me a coffee while I book two seats?’
Rob bounded to his feet and headed off to the café, leaving Hannah to complete their booking and process everything that had just happened. She’d envisaged various scenarios for their conversation today, but none of them had involved declarations of love in Bristol Airport. The ache in her chest had been replaced by some kind of fizzing anticipation, like suddenly the fog had lifted and the world seemed full of possibility again.
‘Flat white,’ said Rob, appearing in front of her ten minutes later. ‘Are we all booked?’
Hannah nodded, standing up to take the drink. ‘Yep. Check-in opens in four hours.’
‘What are we going to do until then?’ said Rob.
Hannah instantly knew what she wanted, and wondered if this might be one spontaneous decision too many. She’d quit her job and booked a flight to Spain in the space of two days – but didn’t all good things come in threes?
‘When you decided to get on that plane this morning,’ she said, taking his hands and pulling him down onto the bench beside her, ‘how did you imagine today panning out?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Rob. ‘I was going to go to my parents’ place today to dump my stuff, then drive down to Surrey to find you tomorrow. I planned to start with your tennis club, but I hadn’t got much further than that, really.’
‘But we’re both here.’
‘Yeah. We are.’ He gave her that smile again, the one that she felt in the deepest, darkest part of her.
‘Gaynor said something to me yesterday,’ Hannah said quietly, shuffling along the bench so she was a little closer. ‘About how one of the great things about tennis is that if you mess up your first serve, you get another go.’
‘That’s incredibly profound and romantic,’ said Rob, sliding his hand around her neck, his thumb tucking a stray curl behind her ear. ‘Seriously, Hannah,’ he whispered. ‘You really are going to have to let me kiss you.’
‘Fine,’ breathed Hannah, her voice catching in her throat. ‘You can kiss me.’
‘What, now? Right here? Outside WHSmith?’
‘You win. I can’t wait any longer,’ whispered Hannah with a slow smile, tilting her head and closing her eyes as the last remaining gap between them finally closed.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Rob waited by the boxy sofas and the fake plants in the hotel reception, watching as Hannah had an intense, whispered conversation with the woman behind the desk. He would probably have made up something about a flight delay, but Hannah wasn’t big on elaborate lies. Although she presumably wasn’t going with ‘Look, I’ve just kissed that guy over there for the first time and now we’d really like to spend four hours naked in your hotel.’
He fidgeted with the straps on his rucksack, his nerves jangling with breathless anticipation. He’d been thinking about this moment for weeks, wondering whether it would ever actually happen, or whether he and Hannah just weren’t the right match. Women in his life had been a revolving door, but he couldn’t remember any pre-sex build-up feeling as momentous as this. Plenty of fun times, sure. A few encounters that really got him going, absolutely. But this? This felt pivotal, somehow, like the beginning of something new and different and meaningful.
He thought about Amy last night, and how the old Rob might have behaved in that situation. But instead of being a temptation, Amy turning up at his room had been a catalyst for this decision; a realisation that he didn’t want superficial, two-dimensional relationships any more. The sex probably would have been great, but it would just have been a temporary high, a momentary feeding of a beast that could no longer be satisfied by women like Amy. So, he’d taken her hand and walked her back to the first floor, telling her firmly but kindly that he absolutely wasn’t interested and she needed to go to bed. Then he’d run back to his room, locked the door and packed his bags, then called a taxi to the airport. Had Amy received the message from Hannah that was meant for him? Possibly. And if so, had that prompted her to launch a seduction mission before the competition arrived? Probably. And people said men played games.
‘You OK?’ asked Hannah, coming back from reception with a key card in her hand.
‘Definitely,’ said Rob. ‘Are we all sorted?’ His palms felt clammy and he was suddenly a bundle of disconnected limbs trying to pick up his luggage without tripping over a coffee table.What’s wrong with me?he thought. In a previous life he’d been a practised seducer, and now he was Rob the Awkward Virgin.
‘Yep,’ said Hannah, waving the key card. ‘Are you coming?’ He could hear the nervous tremor in her voice and resisted the temptation to say ‘I certainly hope so’ like the comedy legend he was. So instead he just smiled and nodded and followed her to the lift.
‘I keep expecting one of our family to appear,’ Hannah said breathlessly as they silently ascended to the fifth floor. ‘Or Scrumpy.’
‘Maybe the fire alarm will go off,’ he laughed, playing along to break the tension. ‘Or, I don’t know, a plague of locusts or something.’
Hannah laughed, a full-body expression of relief and happiness that they were here together, and nothing was getting in their way this time. Rob knew how she felt.
The room was small and clean, like all airport hotels, and they both made a meal of quietly putting their bags by the bed and using the bathroom to delay the inevitable. Rob thanked the heavens that he’d had a shower before leaving Spain this morning, although another one definitely wouldn’t go amiss at some point. Maybe later, with Hannah.
They met by the hotel window, drinking each other in, both waiting for the other to make the next move. In the end it was Hannah who broke first, leaning in to kiss him gently as she cupped her hands around his face, sliding them up behind his ears and raking her nails through his hair. Kissing Hannah felt so natural, like two sets of lips that fitted together perfectly. How had he wasted so much time NOT kissing her, when they could have been doing it for hours, every day?
‘God, you’re beautiful,’ he breathed.
