Page 78 of A Winter Kiss on Rochester Mews
To make matters worse, Sebastian had given in to Posy’s demands to set up a webcam in the shop, so even though she was meant to be resting and not getting stressed, she was spying on them.
‘She’s not even stealthy about it,’ Tom complained as his shop iPad beeped with one of Posy’s interminable text messages. ‘It’s an infringement of our civil liberties.’
So far Posy had complained about how long it was taking them to process the never-ending queue for the Mistletoe Booth and to serve each customer. She was also very cross about them eating and drinking in the shop (though Posy had never had any complaints when she was the one frequently eating and drinking in the shop). Finally Tom had tossed a tote bag over the webcam so she couldn’t see what they were getting up to.
But nothing united a malcontent workforce like bonding over a common foe, and so the Happy Ever After-and-tearoom staff were quite content as long as they were bitching about Posy. Even Sam. In fact, especially Sam, as he said that they only had to cope with Posy over webcam and text message, and that he was the one who had to go home and have her complaining in real time and in the flesh every evening.
The only thing that kept Mattie sane was the hope that soon Verity would be back to instil some discipline and decorum into the Happy Ever After staff. For someone who was an introvert and refused to do any kind of interfacing with a customer, Verity could still quell an uppity colleague with a withering look.
But it was not to be. Verity sent word that the snow was still at blizzard-like proportions in Lincolnshire and that they’d had to call out the army to bring in supplies. If it had been anyone else – say, Nina – Mattie would have suspected that they were on a massive skive, but the news was full of footage of the white world north of the Watford Gap. Cue, lots of rosy-cheeked children sledding down hills, cars abandoned on the side of a snow-banked desolate motorway, sheep being dug out of snowdrifts.
‘Makes me glad to be a poncey Southerner,’ Tom remarked as he and Mattie slumped on the sofa in their living room on their first full non-snow day, Friday. Five days before Christmas. With the weekend still to go.
No wonder Mattie had her feet in a bucket of warm water with a generous helping of Epsom salts in it. And no wonder that instead of Mattie rustling up some culinary delight, they’d tossed a coin to choose who’d go to No Plaice Like Home to get one cod and chips, one haddock and chips and two mushy peas. Once again, they’d used one of Tom’s coins and once again Mattie had lost the coin toss. Next time she’d insist that they use one of her pound coins, because although she and Tom were firm friends now, she still wouldn’t put it past him to nobble the democratic process of calling heads or tails.
‘Well, Verity grew up in Hull and she didn’t seem to be coping very well when she phoned,’ Mattie said tiredly. They were sitting so close together on the sofa, which dipped in the middle, that they were almost, but not quite leaning against each other. The temptation to give in to the lean, maybe even rest her head on Tom’s shoulder, was strong. And Mattie felt weak. Oh, so weak. ‘She said that she was looking into the cost of being airlifted out because the central heating in the vicarage has broken and she’d never been so cold in her life.’
‘Whereas the central heating in this place is turned all the way up to eleven and it’s still freezing,’ Tom said, which explained why he was wearing not just one of his knitted waistcoats but also his infamous cardigan with the leather patches. ‘Can you stop leaning on me?’
Mattie shot into a vertical, non-leaning position as if she’d been shot. ‘Oh God! Sorry!’ Tom probably thought that she was angling for another kissing session, except Mattie wasn’t. She absolutely wasn’t and anyway, Tom had claimed that he couldn’t remember anything about any kissing, due to all the vodka they’d drunk. Whereas Mattie had total recall and once again, she was reliving the memory of Tom’s mouth on hers, his hands …
‘There’s no need to look as if you’re about to cry.’ Tom shook his arm. ‘It’s just that my arm was going to sleep.’
It just got worse. Mattie was, literally, a dead weight. With some difficulty, given that her feet were still submerged, she managed to manoeuvre herself to the furthest end of her half of the sofa.
‘Better?’ she asked as frostily as the little particles of ice that had become a permanent fixture at the corners of the badly fitting windows.
Tom stretched out luxuriantly then tucked his arms behind his head and propped his feet up on the coffee table. ‘Much better, thanks.’ He cast a sideways look at Mattie, as she commandeered the smallest patch of sofa possible. ‘My arm’s wide awake again, if you want to lean on me.’
‘I wasn’t leaning on you.’
‘Well, it’s the dip in the middle, isn’t it? It’s hard not to lean on each other, like two magnets,’ Tom said diffidently, as if the leaning was neither here nor there. He gestured at her bucket. ‘Isn’t that water getting cold?’
‘Definitely verging on lukewarm,’ Mattie said, though she was too tired to move until the water was verging on cold, but Tom was already levering himself to his feet with a groan.
‘As you lost the coin toss,’ he said, picking up their discarded fish and chip wrappers (like savages, they hadn’t even used plates), ‘feet up!’
Mattie used every last ounce of strength to lift her legs so Tom could take away the bucket. He was back a minute later with two bottles of fancy imported lager and Mattie somehow found herself back in the middle of the sofa with a blanket tucked around her legs.
There was a moment or two of fidgeting after Tom had sat down, but finally they were settled. Tom had his feet back on the coffee table, one arm over the back of the sofa so it wouldn’t go to sleep, and gently, very gently, Mattie leaned against him. It was because there was that dip in the middle of the sofa and she was tired and also Tom was very comfortable to lean against and also despite a long, hard day of bookselling, he smelt nice. Not musty at all as Mattie had always imagined that he smelled, but Tom-like: new books and coffee and the surprisingly posh aftershave that smelt of sea salt and citrus from an old-fashioned barber’s in Piccadilly with a royal seal. Not that Mattie was snooping through Tom’s personal things, but the bathroom cabinet was a communal space.
‘So, you didn’t fancy going out tonight?’ Mattie asked. The episode ofExtreme Cakesthey were watching wasn’t very gripping and also it was still quite a rarity for Tom to stay in. Either he was out with the Banter Boys or … ‘Didn’t have a hot date with one of those women from the party or … some other woman? I mean, you were pretty successful at scoring those phone numbers.’
If Tom really couldn’t remember the kiss, even though it had been an amazing kiss, then he was free to have hot dates with anyone he liked …
‘I like women. I like working with women, hanging out with women, and yes, dating women. It’s not my fault that my friends become such a bunch of drooling idiots in the presence of a woman, that I end up looking pretty damn suave in comparison.’ He smirked. ‘Even Donald Duck would appear suave next to Phil.’
‘Oh, Phil’s all right! I have a lot of time for him, but he really needs to realise that women are part of the human race too and not some rare species that he has to hunt down and stun with his rather overpowering aftershave.’
‘Just be thankful that you didn’t know him in the days when he first discovered Lynx,’ Tom said sourly and as Mattie snorted, he added quietly, ‘I used to be just like them.’
‘Just like who? Oh!’ Mattie’s eyes widened, her mouth a perfect ‘O’ of surprise. ‘No! You were a Banter Boy? Say it isn’t so!’
‘If I did I’d only be lying,’ Tom admitted sorrowfully. ‘They call me the Professor now, but back in the day, I was Saint Banter of Banthood. I completely outranked the Archbishop.’
‘Oh my God.’ Mattie shifted away from Tom because she was laughing too hard to lean on him any more.
‘I invented our war cry. Do you want to hear it?’
